Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day!

Shamrocks, leprechauns, green magical pudding, four leaf clovers and so much more, is how we celebrated the month of March in our classroom!Here's a look at all the fun things we did in our room this month! 

My favorite craft this month is hands down the rainbow and pot of gold craft! I painted each of their little hands to create the rainbow. Then the little ones glued their gold on and finished it off with their St. Patty's day pot. Too cute!

This was our classroom door! We covered it with shamrocks and four leaf clovers. The clovers (original idea found on Pinterest) were made using green glitter paint and white paper and their tiny little hands. The shamrocks were a collage of green material including; felt, yarn, green glitter, feathers, tissue paper, ribbon and adhesive shamrock stickers.  

This was our classroom bulletin board. The other class that shares our room did the board this month.

Here is the leprechaun we made! They used age appropriate scissors to cut around the 'beard'  of the leprechaun and then dressed him up with a hat and some eyes. I drew the smile on after and sent our happy leprechauns home with my little ones just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

This is the leprechaun my daughter made! Isn't it cute! I love the round body and overly big hat.

The day of our St. Patrick's Day party did several exciting activities with the children. This one was searching for gold. I let the children fish for gold, using a spoon. Once they found the gold in the bottom of the bowl they had to lift the spoon out with the gold on top without falling off.  What steady hands my little ones have.

 After spooning for gold the children stamped cut peppers onto white construction paper to make a shamrock!

 We also had a St. Patty's day sensory bin. Inside was green pompoms, felt shamrocks, elbow pasta that I dyed green and gold coins.

My class also made these hats for our St. Patrick's Day party! They crumbled up orange tissue paper for the beard and dipped a yellow square in gold glitter to create the hat buckle. They LOVED wearing their hats during the party!!

 

My daughter and I celebrating St. Patty's Day with some preschool made hats too! 

 This is a cute shamrock that hung on my classroom window, made by the other class we share our room with!

 ..and here is my handsome little leprechaun! My son made this craft last year with his teacher and loves it so much that it still hangs in their playroom a year later. :) 

March comes in like a Lion and goes out like a Lamb

The old saying tells us that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.  So today we celebrated that idea by making this fun craft project to hang up all through the month.
The kids had a blast making lions and lambs after learning about the change in the season. 

 

This was last years craft I found the lamb craft on Pinterest and just changed it up a bit. To make the lamb I filled up a large bowl with soapy water and added some black paint into it. Then using a large straw that I placed into the water I blew into it creating large bubbles. I let the children come over one at a time and play with the bubbles that were overflowing onto the table. After the children got to enjoy a little sensory play I asked them to place the pre-cut lamb's body on top of the bubbles, which created this look. I think we all had fun with this step of the project! Once it dried they glued on the black face, added some eyes and I finished it off with a smile.  

 We worked on our fine motor skills by using scissors for this lion craft! We use these age appropriate scissors in our room that are specially designed to improve the fine motor skills of their very tiny precious hands. I assisted the children in cutting around the circle to make the fur of the lion. Then they glued on the yellow face, eyes and nose. Once they finished I drew on the lion's happy smile. We hung the lion and lamb crafts in the window of our classroom to remind us to look outside each day and talk about the type of weather that day.  

During snack time that day I read the book, In like a lion, out like a lamb.  Great illustrations in the book and helped to tie together the craft with the topic of weather for my little ones.

These are a few crafts from past years from my own children and the preschool. 

Presidents' Day

So much to learn about on Presidents Day here in our room!   We spoke about what it means to be a president and how they make very important decisions, write laws, and work hard every single day to keep us safe. I showed the children a globe and showed them where we live and how we are apart of  the United States of America. I showed the children dollars and coins and spoke about how different presidents are on each one. We spoke about our very first President of the United States, George Washington and our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.

This is my daughter drawing on the face of George Washington, using the Ipad as a guide. 

 

Here is her craft finished! Great job! 

 

She also made Ad Lincoln too! 

 

I had my little ones make Ab Lincoln and once we were done everyone took a picture with their faces showing in the middle of the plate. I kids loved pretending to be a President. 

During snack time I read the book,  Celebrating President's Day: What Is a President?.I really enjoy reading this book to my little ones. 

 

These are the crafts my son came home with.  He made George Washington and Ab Lincoln too! 

Pajama Day

Who doesn’t like coming into work with your favorite pajamas and most comfortable pair of slippers on? I know I sure do! The children all came into school with their favorite pj’s on too! Well, pajama day was very busy here in our classroom. We started out by taking pictures of all the children in their pajamas and printing them for our themed craft. Prior to beginning their craft I had the entire class come up to the table and help make our special pajama day paint! I took out brown paint, placed onto a plate in the middle of the table and then took out chocolate cocoa powder! I asked the children to smell the cocoa (I love incorporating sensory whenever I can!) and we talked about what it smelled like and what foods smell similar to the cocoa. After our discussion the children helped by spooning a small amount of cocoa into the brown paint and mixing it together to get our scented paint for our project!  Using the brown paint, a mug shaped cut out and some colorful strips of paper we created a hot chocolate mug!

 We personalized each mug by adding their picture onto the front of it! We hung the mugs onto the classroom door for everyone to see! 

 This is my son's mug from two years ago! This is where I got the original idea for our mugs from.

 

The children all gathered around our parachute as the teachers threw some stuffed animals in the middle. We tried to see how high we could make them go up into the air! The laughter than surrounded the parachute was wonderful. We also had a bounce house set up in the school's gymnasium! Before we left the room I read the book, 5 Little Moneys Jumping on a Bed to the children, as a way to tie everything together. As we walked down the hallway I reminded the children that jumping on a bed could be dangerous and how they could get hurt if they fall off but that we had something they could jump safely on and have tons of fun on too! Well, their little faces lit up when they saw the bounce house and we jumped like the 5 little monkeys until it was time for snack! :)

Last surprise of the day was hot chocolate (cooled to room temperature, of course!) with whipped cream on top and  mini marshmallows on the side for snack! 

During snack I read the book, Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late. I LOVE all Mo Willems' books! The books really do capture the children's attention throughout the entire story, and I love that these books are great for conversation starters in class. 

This was what my son brought home for pajama day this year! His teacher read the book, A Bedtime for Bear, and as she read the book the children got to hold the bears they made.

This is the craft my daughter brought home!  She was so animated when she was telling my husband about how her teacher asked her to "look like she was sleeping so she could take a picture for the craft". My daughter goes on to say, "my teacher is so funny daddy, we can't sleep in school because then we will miss all the fun!". God, I love her.  

Hearts, Love and Valentine's Day fun!

LOVE is the word of the month for February and what a great word it is! We talk about so many wonderful things during February, but the most important topic is about Valentine's Day and different ways to show our friends and family how much we love them.

My favorite craft is the "Guess WhoOo loves you" craft. We started the day off by tracing the children's hands on pink card stock paper and taking their pictures. Once we cut everything out the children made their special Valentine's Day gifts. I LOVE this craft and think it is such a great way of showing their families how much the children love them. 
After the children finished the craft I wrote on the front of the right hand, "Guess whoOo" and the left hand, "loves you" to tie everything together. :)

As another way to celebrate Valentine's Day in our room we decorated cards and "mailed" them to our friends and family. Each child got to glue hearts and pieces of scrap paper onto a heart shaped doily and then we personalized it with their name and kind words to the recipient. My assistant covered a shoe box in pink construction paper, added embellishments and cut a slit on the top of the box to use as our mailbox. The kids loved mailing out their letters! 

This took so prep work but I'm so happy I did it. I found the original idea from where else but PINTEREST, of course! :) 
I wrote out the letters in each child's name on the hearts  before they got the the table.Then as each child came up I wrote their name out on a dry erase board. For the children who were able to identify their name on the board I asked them to match the letters to their name in the correct order. The hearts were scrabbled on the table, so it was a good letter recognition and matching activity for them. The children did a great job with this letter recognition activity and I hope to do more crafts like this with them before the year is over.   

This is our hallway bulletin board. Our cute little love bugs. <3

 I know it is very faded but this is a close up of the love bugs. This one was from my bulletin board last year and I brought home and hung in the play room so it has been faded. 

This is my son's (4 yr old program) bulletin board. Too cute- I know!

Our classroom bulletin board is covered with adorable "kisses", made out of aluminum foil and red glitter. 

We made a puppy out of different shaped hearts too!I found the original idea on Pinterest. 

I made this puppy craft last year with my little ones.

We had so much fun decorating white paper bags for the Valentine's Day class party by using cut celery and red paint to create flowers. Once the paint dried the children glued on green petals to complete their bags. 

We also stamped hearts using toilet paper tubes onto aluminum foil for their notebooks.

 Here are some of the fun crafts my own two children brought home this month from school! 

This was the special Valentine's Day gift the children took home last year.

For Valentine's Day I printed these adorable labels and stapled it to a bag of gold fish. Perfect gift for our school which is peanut free!

I made these tags for my little one's class last year for Valentine's Day. I used my circut to cut out the apple shape using the Doodlecharms cartridge.