Five Uses for Muffin Tins

One of my favorite "things" to use in the classroom is a muffin tin (or five).  There seems to be no end to the uses for a muffin tin in a preschool room and you can often find them for just a dollar!

Use #1:  Sorting or holding beads or other small craft items:
We used them for this just today.  A couple girls sorted the beads by colors, one of them spent the entire time just sorting! The other children used the tins and other containers to hold the beads so that they could pick through them and get the ones they wanted. 
I also often use these in the sensory bin when things like mixed beans are in it because they encourage sorting (and dramatic play) and they also love the sound of the beans hitting metal. 

Use #2:  Palates for painting and mixing paints:

See this post for more about paint mixing.

Use# 3:  Ice mold for sensory bin or ice painting

Use #4:  Molds for crayons

I first heard of this from Bev Bos's book Don't Move the Muffin Tins.  The instructions are simple; take peeled old crayons in muffin tins and put them in a 300 degree oven.  Keep an eye on them and when they are completely melted turn the oven off and let them set for a few hours (I usually just let mine sit overnight) and when they are completely cool break them out of the tins then color away!  

Image from Triangle Mommies

Use #5:  Make bath bombs 

These are great for sensory tables or to make with kids (probably not a project for toddlers, but three and up would work) to give as gifts.

There are great directions for this from the Science at Home site.  

Image from Science@home (site link above)

Collages: A sticky topic

I used to have trouble finding the right type of glue for collages, and I wonder if others have had this trouble too.  If I gave them bottles of Elmer's glue it often would end up in puddle size blobs all over their paper- it would run, it would drip, it would spill over the edges as I took it to the paint rack, and in the end the collage "materials" would slide right off the edge with it.  Glue sticks didn't always keep things on the paper, especially weighty things like shells.  Paste was sometimes not the greatest to work with- stick materials to their fingers rather than their papers and not easily be moved to the papers, and would create globs all over their paste, that when dried looked like a clear version of  something that might come out of their noses.  (I apologize for the unpleasantness of that last statement, but it is true).
Finally, I came up with this idea:  I put Elmer's glue (we buy it in huge bulk containers) in paint cups for them and added a little liquid watercolor and paint brushes.

I put it on the table with whatever materials I had for collages. 

The materials above include mixed dried beans, buttons, colored pasta, scented rice, and a plate of sequins, beads, foam shapes, shells, little wood pieces, and other random things from the dark depths of the bottom of my collage bin.  Of course there are hundreds of options for collages; Although I really like to give them a variety of materials for them to use as they want to, it is very easy to do theme collages for theme type teachers; For Valentines day I recently saw some cute collages done with heart sequins, ribbons, heart buttons, and heart foam shapes.  (For instructions to make scented rice and colored pasta- see my entry here). 

 This truly has worked better than any glue substance that I have used yet.  I have been using it for about a year now.

They spread it over their paper in reasonable amounts (without any guidance) and it held everything to their papers.

Some of them actually use it like paint and then just put a little button here, a little paper there, but this also comes out looking very nice.

(Here is a picture of some voluntary sorting one of the kids was working on today that I couldn't resist putting up).

As far as clean up goes, soaking brushes and cups gets the glue off nicely, and works for the table too, although if you let the glue dry on the table it peels up in big pieces which can be fun- the kids always help me do that.

Enjoy!

Magnet Discovery

I am checking "creating a preschool blog" off of my resolutions for 2011.  

Today I set up a magnet station in our room.  I got some ideas for this from the blog Not Just Cute.  

I started with this sensory bin full of junk.  Among some of the contents: plastic and metal spoons, child proof scissors, an eye lash curler, metal bottle tops, twist- ties (for produce from the grocery store), holiday tin, paper clips, golf tees, plastic and metal cookie cutters, shredded gift paper, key rings, plastic and metal buttons, and much more.  Obviously there were both magnetic and nonmagnetic objects for their discovery.  

I provided them with three options for magnets:

these ancient classroom magnets,

these magnetic pin cushions,

and these gloves that I attached adhesive magnets to.  

When the children first started in the center they were more interested in playing with the objects in the bin and didn't even touch the magnets.  When I collected items for the bin I wanted to give them as many things to use magnets on as possible.  I didn't consider the fact that, to a four year old, an eye lash curler and a coiled whisk are fascinating objects; so much so that they can stand as toys on their own. Luckily, after about 10 minutes they started to experiment with magnets and I could breathe a sigh of relief that the activity wasn't a flop.  

After about 5 minutes they asked me if they could have a container to put all the things that "stuck" to the magnets in. I gave them one and soon they decided that they needed another one to get the things that didn't stick out of their way. 

    

After they finished sorting them they dumped all the objects back into the bin and resorted them. A few children came and went to and from this area but they repeated this project several times. 


One of my boys tried to tell his friends that when he put the gloves on he had magic powers because he could pick up the metal things in the bin.  When they argued that they could just pick up the metal things with their hands (without gloves), he put the glove on backward, proclaiming "you can't pick things up with the back of your hands, I have super powers!"

After quite a while of playing "magnet super heroes,"  one of the girls took the magnetic pin cushion and made this:

I never even thought of making magnet sculptures (they called it a magnet statue), with the pin cushions.  I had assumed that they would just use the pin cushions like the horseshoe magnets.  They amaze me everyday.