Sports Day

Sports Day in our preschool is always so much fun! The children and staff all come in their favorite team's Jersey or appeal, participate in tons of fun and sports related activities, and of course make sports themed crafts. 

One of my favorite crafts for Sports Day are the gold medals we make. For this craft I use child-safe, air dry clay that you can find in any local arts and craft store. We start by giving each child a small ball of clay that they push into a flat circle. After, they take a number "1" stamp and push it into the middle of the clay to make the impression. Once the clay dries completely the children paint the medals with gold paint and I add the ribbons. 

 Another one of my favorite crafts for Sports Day is the football! After a little game of toss the football the children all make their own! They each take the football and roll it into paint and then across brown construction paper. After an hour I cut out mini football shapes out of their paper. Then, in a group all the children sit and finish their footballs by adding the laces and other pieces. 

The baseball bat is always my favorite. The kids use yarn to glue onto the baseball and color in the bat with the brown crayon. So simple yet such a cute craft.

Here are some other cute crafts that my coworkers have done with their little ones. So creative!

 

Everyone is different. Everyone is special.

Even though my students may be young it is never to early to introduce them to diversity among people. For our art project the children made Elmer the Elephant, based on the book. The idea of the book is that Elmer is an elephant that is covered in colorful patchwork. Elmer just wanted to look like all of his other friends so he tried to cover up his patches to fit in. Unfortunately, that did not make it happy either because he became like everyone else. His patchwork is what made him different, and that is what made him special, just like each one of our little ones.

My children also made little paper dolls using all different types of hair, eyes, clothing and more. Of course each doll is just as unique as their creator. 

Dr. Seuss Day

Dr. Seuss Day is always a blast in our classroom! Here are my favorite ways to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday! 

 Here's the classroom next to me! How cute is that door? 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

For Martin Luther King Day last year I traced each of my little one's hands onto multicultural construction paper. Their handprints were used to make a giant heart, which was displayed in our hallway with the caption “I Have a Dream” in the middle.  I also brought in a white egg and a brown egg. I showed the children the two eggs and explained to them that even though they look different on the outside when you break them open they’re exactly the same on the inside. We talked about how even though each one of us look different on the outside we all have feelings on the inside and most importantly we are ALL FRIENDS. 

Here are some other crafts that children in our preschool did. So many creative ideas. 

Winter Wonderland

The learning concepts for the month of January include: rectangles, the colors blue and white, winter animals, the import job of doctors, and even some themed days like Sports Day 

There is so much surrounding the colors blue and white this month. We began the month learning about snowflakes. The children learned that each snowflake is different and unique just like every child in our classroom. For a group project they made snowflakes using white and blue paint, glitter and different size paint brushes. 

We also made snowmen out of white paper plates. I have two different ones that I have done over the years with my two's. I think both are super cool! 

In January we also learn about all different kinds of WINTER animals, such as: polar bears, penguins, walrus' and red robins. We made a lot of fun crafts surrounding this topic too! 

For the polar bear craft I used a cut out of a mommy and baby bear out of contact paper. I pealed the back and we stuck the contact paper onto the watercolor paper. Then the children, using blue water color painted on top and around the contact paper to create this work of art. To finish it off the children used a glue stick and iridescent glitter to make "snow". I love this craft! 

Here are some other fun crafts we do in the month of January in our room! 

For this craft  I cut the construction paper into printer size paper and printed the words "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" on the bottom of the paper. Once I was done I just cut out the hearts from the paper. So simple, yet so cute! 

For community helper of the month we learned about doctors and all the important things they do. We talked about the ways to stay healthy by eating good foods, going to the doctors for check-up and the different ways to protect ourselves from germs. I showed them some different doctor tools, of course their favorite was the stethoscope! After our lesson our little ones became doctors themselves when we took out all of our doctor kits and gave our baby dolls check ups. They even got to fill their own doctors kits with stuff doctors use in their office as their craft for the day.