The exploration of under the sea can lead to an endless set of discoveries and it is hard to know where to begin and where to end. We decided to start our under the sea unit by simply talking about and exploring fish…

We began by reading the book Blue Sea by Robert Kalan. This is a very simple picture book with wonderful words like “little, big, bigger, biggest” that are illustrated through very simple pictures. Each page of the book leads to critical thinking along with prediction and discussion about what is happening or what is going to happen next…

To follow up our reading of Blue Sea, we had all different types of fishy-focused activities set up in our classroom. For our art activity, we invited the children to make their own school of handprint fish in blue water…

The children started the process by painting their entire white paper with a blue wash (water tinted with blue liquid watercolor)…

And then they painted their hands to make a handprint fish…

After painting their hands, they pressed their painted hand down on the paper to make a fish and then either painted the other hand or painted over the same hand to make a new fish…

The children could make as many fish as they desired. Some children went on to add eyes and a mouth to each of their fish too…

In the end, we had quite a unique collection of fish in the water paintings…

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Links to Grow On

Ffffff is for Fish from Teach Preschool

Rainbow Fish Collages from Teach Preschool

More Under the Sea ideas on Pinterest

At age two, learning begins with real life experiences. Well actually, for all preschool age children learning begins with real life experiences but for a  two year old, real life experiences are a critical part of bringing authentic meaning into the learning and skill building process..

My daughter has the most energy when it comes to giving my grandsons real life experiences. I like to tag along and take pictures and help out where I can. Today, we made our way to the strawberry patch…

Kai already knew what a strawberry was but now he had the chance to see first hand and for the first time how a strawberry grows and how to pick it off the vine…

And while picking strawberries, we were able to use words like “pick, pull, stem, leaf” and other words related to strawberries and the strawberry patch. As my grandson would pick a strawberry, he would immediately want to “open it” meaning take off the stem so he could eat it…

And of course, a two year old is going to want to eat more than he actually puts in the box but we did manage to fill the box with enough strawberries to bring home for later…

After we got home from the strawberry patch, mom got busy fixing dinner while I took Kai over to the classroom to make a paper strawberry…

A paper strawberry isn’t nearly as interesting as a real strawberry but because we now had a connection to a real experience with strawberries, it was a good opportunity to introduce the concept of making something he now had an an immediate experience with…

As I shared in my previous post, Kai has also already explored the use of glue just a bit. As soon as he saw the glue bottle go out on the table, he knew that he was going to get to squeeze that bottle and make the glue come out. I invited Kai to help me make a strawberry. As a reminder, I brought a few of our real strawberries over to the classroom with us to look at and talk about (and eat) as we made our paper strawberry…

I showed Kai how to flip the paper over and pat it really good so the strawberry and the stem would stick to the white paper. I can tell you that each of these skills from dripping glue on the paper; flipping the paper over; patting the paper down; understanding that the glue will make the paper stick together; and painting fingerprints on the strawberry doesn’t have a lot of meaning to Kai yet but using the trip to the strawberry patch gave us the interest needed to “make a strawberry” which then allowed me to introduce these different skills and each of these processes will begin to make sense over time…

And after we completed our strawberry, Kai knew that he had made it himself and mommy (or I) had a fun keepsake to save from our day at the strawberry patch…

If I were to tell you the moral of this story, it would be to make sure you connect real life experiences with the ideas you plan for your classroom. It is for this reason, as a teacher, it is a good idea to find out what kinds of things children are doing at home. Did anyone go to the zoo lately? Did anyone go to the strawberry patch? As you can find out what types of experiences your students have spent time on with their families, then you can build on those experiences in the classroom too…

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Links to Grow On

Read and it and cook it  from Teach Preschool

Fourth of July Strawberries from Kids Activities Blog

Strawberry Week from Brenna Phillips

My grandson and I have been going through some of our left over supplies from this past year in preschool and using them up so I can restock as needed. In the past, I have shared with you how to make colored glue and if you missed this post you can view how to make colored glue by clicking here. This was Kai’s first chance at squeezing glue from a bottle and let me tell you, when I set out the first colored bottle of glue, I had his undivided attention…

When we first started our discovery of glue, I set out a piece of paper and one bottle of colored glue. I showed Kai how to squeeze the glue over the paper…

It was much easier for Kai to stand and squeeze the glue than to sit and because the glue bottles were fairly old, he had to squeeze extra hard to get the glue to come out but he is a determined little guy and squeeze he did…

Kai likes to do everything himself and as a general rule, I only get one chance to show him how to do something and then I am supposed to let him do it by himself! If I try to help, he gets mad at me so I stepped back and watched him turn each bottle of glue around in his hands until he figured out the best grip to get the glue to come out of the bottle…

After using each color of glue, he would ask me for a new color until we had every color of glue on the table. He would squeeze a bit then switch to another color. Squeeze a little more and switch again…

It wasn’t long before he figured out the best grip for squeezing the bottles. He would squeeze so hard that his little leg would shake and I could hear him breathing deeply – but still, I was not allowed to help…

Through this process, we were building strength in Kai’s hands which is an important part of fine motor skill development. Kai was also using his critical thinking skills as he self-corrected his grip on the glue bottles and found the grip that worked best. And he was building eye-hand coordination as he tried to squeeze the glue over the paper rather than over the floor…

I am not sure how long Kai stayed at this process, but the next time we went into the classroom, the first thing he asked to do was squeeze more glue!…

And for those of you who are interested in how our glue picture turned out – just check out this beauty below! Kai didn’t care about how the picture turned out and I really didn’t either. Observing him throughout this process was quite impressive all by itself…

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Links to Grow On

Designing with colored glue from Teach Preschool

Making glue paint in preschool from Teach Preschool

More ideas to do with Glue on Pinterest

I just love bubble wrap painting or printing. The texture and the designs that can be explored and created by using this material is wonderful. As part of our study on bubbles, we did a little printing with our homemade bubble mitts…

We made our bubble mitts by folding over a rectangular length of bubble wrap and stapling the edges together – leaving an opening on one end of the mitt for a hand to fit through…

At the table, the children found the bubble mitts, paint, paintbrushes, and paper…

The children placed a bubble mitt over their hand, then used the other hand to paint over the mitt with any color or combination of colors they wished…

All I had on hand was bubble wrap with large bubbles but this worked really well for the bubble mitts because the children could easily paint each bubble a different color or paint the entire bubble mitt all one color…

Once the children painted the bubbles on their bubble mitts, they flipped the mitt over and pressed it down on paper to make a print then continued to add more paint and make more prints as desired….

Some of the children made a few prints and moved on to something else. Other children stayed and tried different types of painting with the bubble mitts. This child made bubble prints, then went back over with the mitts and rubbed the entire paper, then made prints again on top….

Every painting was uniquely designed by each child. From color choices to the way the children chose to use the bubble mitts for printing or painting…

By the way, we made enough mitts for each child to have their own plus a few extra. After the mitts were used, they were tossed out…

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Links to Grow On

Roller Pin Painting by Teach Preschool

Bubble Wrap Prints on the Light Table by Casa Maria Creative Learning Zone

Bubble Mitt Painting was inspired by Casa Maria Creative Learning Zone

Pendulum painting is something I thought my class would enjoy going outdoors to try so we set it up during one of our last weeks of school and gave it a go…

To set up our pendulum painting experience, we first had to find a spot that would work well. Since we were using washable tempera paint, I wasn’t concerned about getting paint on our deck or driveway because it could all be washed away. So we decided to hang the paint up from the deck that is located just outside the door of our outdoor classroom…

Although there must be a ton of other bloggers that have blogged about pendulum painting, I didn’t have time to go back and see how they managed the process so this was an on-the-spot learning experience for me and my students. I placed several large sheets of paper on the deck for the paint to pour out on and we held the paper down with rocks so the wind wouldn’t blow it away while we painted…

I didn’t know if I should add water to the paint or not but in the end, we did add just a touch of water to the paint to make it run through the hole in the bottom of our hanging cup a little better.  After I had the pendulum painting set up, one of my students decided he would give it a try so I showed him how to pull back on the string holding the cup filled with paint and then let go…

It wasn’t long before more of my students wanted to give it a try so the children gathered around and took turns filling up the paint cup with paint and giving the pendulum painting a try…

This process was truly worthwhile – messy – but worthwhile.  The children had to constantly reflect on how high to hold the cup so it would really swing across the paper, how to fill up the cup with paint and then quickly get set to swing the cup so the paint wouldn’t all drip out before they were ready, and whether it was better to push the cup or just let go of the cup as they each took a turn at the pendulum…

This wasn’t just a painting process, this was a process that invited critical thinking, coordination, cooperation, collaboration, and lots of discussion about what might work better along the way. Talk about super cool learning going on…

At first, I stayed very involved in the process but it wasn’t long before I didn’t need to direct the children. One little girl appointed herself as “keeper of the paint” and kept everyone filled up on paint while the other children naturally took turns and watched closely as the paint cup swooshed across the paper…

In the end, some of the children did get paint on their shoes and legs and hands and it is for this reason that I am so grateful to have parents that support what we do. I am not sure how I would have kept the paint from getting on shoes with the way we had this set up but being this was my first time giving it a try, I learned a great deal about the process and so did the kids…

Oh, and as a bonus, we ended up with some pretty cool looking pendulum painted rocks too!

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Don’t forget that my new book will soon be coming out on Amazon! You can preorder your copy now!

Ziggy and I explored a new set of blocks I bought for the preschool. It turns out that these light weight musical rainbow blocks were very interesting to my little 9 month old grandson and perfect for playing the baby game:  ”Up, up, up!” and “Dowwwwwwwwwwwwwwn!” over and over and over again…

My job was to stack the blocks up (with one hand and try to take photos with the other)….

And Ziggy’s job was to reach out and knock the blocks down….

My job was to say, “Up, up, up!” as I stacked the blocks on top of each other…

And to say “Dowwwwwwwn” when Ziggy knocked them all down…

Ziggy loved our game and for as long as he stayed interested, we continued to play…

Ziggy concentrated on the blocks all throughout our game. Well except for a moment here and there…

After a little while, we changed the game to “In and Out”…

And Ziggy played the game like a true champ!

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Links to Grow On

At play with Baby by Teach Preschool

Baby and Toddler ideas on Pinterest

As I mentioned in my previous post, my grandson and I are exploring summer preschool together and for one of our first experiences I put out a simple invitation to play of shave cream on a tray.

This was my two year old grandson’s first experience exploring shave cream which, by the way, looks a lot like whipped cream. Right out of the gate, he took his finger and scooped up a quick taste only to spit it out. We wiped his tongue and face and that was that last of the tasting he tried. Although I only put out a small mound of shave cream, my grandson saw it from across the room and brought a car over with him to see what this was all about…

He let the edge of the car touch the shave cream then drove around the shave cream for a bit while thinking about what to do next. Before a minute passed by, he brought over more cars to add to the shave cream tray…

Each car drove around the shave cream until they got closer, and closer, and then right through the middle…

My grandson then decided to explore the shave cream with his hands…

Sensory play, especially messy sensory play, can be a bit daunting for some children. They need to feel like they have control over the experience. My grandson took control by using his cars as a testing mechanism. In fact, I doubt that my grandson was even thinking about using his hands, but as the car play progressed, the idea of using his hands to explore became an appealing idea and a natural next step…

After rubbing the shave cream between his fingers and rubbing it around on the tray and even clapping the shave cream between his hands, my grandson was ready to wash up so we headed off to the sink. He was very concerned about washing his cars too – so we brought them along as well…

For each step of the shave cream experience, I let my grandson take the lead and responded as needed. Today was about introducing the idea of messy sensory play but keeping it at a level he was ready for so the interest will continue to build…

By the way, I recently tried using a new shave cream that I picked up from the Dollar Tree. I liked this shave cream because it almost had no odor (no menthol smell) and was just as creamy to play with…

Available on Amazon

Links to Grow On

DIY Ramps and Cars for Toddlers by Teach Preschool

DIY Paper Car Mat by Teach Preschool

30 Ways to Play with Shave Cream by Play Create Explore

The use of shave cream in the classroom by The Ooey Gooey Lady

If you are still looking for some good ideas to keep kids busy over the summer time, consider adding this ebook to your summer time planning!

Camp Mom Summer Activities Pack is a collection of over 80 summer time ideas contributed by my fellow mom bloggers (and me). I was supposed to share this with you all before summer ever even started but with the end of school and other things going on around here, I have been terribly behind.  So since there is still plenty of summer left to go – I hope those of you looking for new ideas to keep at your fingertips will find this ebook something you will really enjoy and appreciate.

The ebook is filled with beautiful photos of the activities along with the instructions of what to do. And, of course, every idea can be adapted or built on to work best in your situation.

To purchase your copy of Camp Mom Summer Activities Pack for $12.99 just click the “Buy Now” button below. After you make the purchase, follow the instructions to download your copy of the ebook.

Here are a sample pages from the ebook…

What this mom had to say…

I am so excited about Camp Mom, this is exactly what I need to help me create the kind of summer experience I want for my kids! I tend to have great expectations for the summer but pulling it all together while managing a house and family can make it difficult to execute. We are also on a tight budget so I am looking forward to giving my kids great summer activities that we can do at home. With four kids even reasonably priced extracurricular classes are not an option this year, thank you for writing this superb ebook! ~ Lorien V. Mom to 4

Purchase your copy of Camp Mom Summer Activities Pack for $12.99 today!

If you have been saving kleenex boxes but don’t know what to do with them, then here is a simple idea for turning those boxes into games for color sorting, counting, patterning, and anything else you can think of…

To prepare one kleenex box, simply attach an envelope to each side of the box. I used self-adhesive library pockets found at our local school supply store. They fit perfectly and keep the opening sitting upright…

For each pocket, I cut a sentence strip down to fit by length (the width already fit) and printed words on the sentence strips for the children to begin familiarizing themselves with. Some of my students already recognized many of their color or number words and others didn’t. Where I needed to add symbols next to the words, I added them…

Throughout our school year, we collect “math tokens” which are really just odds and ends the children collect from home to bring for our math time each week. As the year progresses, we collect quite a few math tokens so on different occasions, I sort the math tokens into our Kleenex boxes. How the math tokens are sorted depends on which words we are using to go with the tokens…

For simple counting and number word recognition, the children pull out the number words in the pockets of their Kleenex pockets and then reach in the box to pull out math tokens to count out the number of tokens represented on each card…

I made enough “Math Boxes” for each child to have one of their own and the children are encouraged to swap the boxes around with each other to see if they can find new number cards and new math tokens to explore…

Each math box has a different variety of math tokens inside which the children find interesting to examine and since the tokens all come from home, the children enjoy finding something familiar too…

After math time is over, the children scoop up all the math tokens and put them back in our boxes and I save the boxes for a new type of sorting, graphing, patterning, or other math skill…

We have also used the boxes for tracing and drawing…

Math box color sorting…

Math box color word sorting…

Lots of possibilities so start saving those Kleenex boxes!

Available on Amazon

Links to grow on

Our take home math bags by Teach Preschool

Simple math graphing by Teach Preschool

More ideas for Math on Pinterest

Our summer book study, hosted by Pre-K Pages, will soon be up and running and I hope you will join us for this very exciting book. This year, my fellow bloggers and I will be walking through  ” The Read-Aloud Handbook: Seventh Edition” by Jim Trelease…

I don’t know if you have ever had the opportunity to read one of Jim Trelease’ previous versions of the Read Aloud Handbook but I have and inside the pages are wonderful insights on the value of reading aloud, how best to read aloud, and what books are considered to be the best read aloud books today…

When do we begin?

The book study officially gets kicked off on July 8th, 2013 and will continue week by week until each chapter of the book has been highlighted by our blogging group.

Who should join the book study?

If you are a parent, grandparent, caregiver, or teacher of young children, you will find this book study to be an extremely insightful resource to draw upon as you prepare to read aloud to your child or to a group of children. Don’t miss out!

How Do I Join the Book Study
Here’s how it works, starting July 8 we will be posting twice each week on different chapters. To join in the discussion all you have to do is follow the participating blogs and leave comments with your thoughts and questions. If you have your own blog you can also join the linky. Here are the bloggers who will be hosting the chapter discussions:

• Deborah Stewart of Teach Preschool
• Karen Cox of Prekinders
• Laura Eldredge of The Seeds Network
• Vanessa Levin of Pre-K Pages
• Matt of Look at My Happy Rainbow
• Scott Wiley of Brick by Brick

Where Do I Get the Book?
The Read-Aloud Handbook will be published on June 25, 2013 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon so you can have it in your hands on that day.

Where Can I Learn more about the book study and previous book studies?

To learn more about Jim Trelease and his brand new up and coming version of The Read Aloud Handbook, hop on over to Pre-K Pages and see the details shares over there!