Spacing Out

We just finished a unit on Outer Space-- this is probably one of my favorites so far this year. It's pretty easy to keep the attention of 3-year olds when you're talking about spaceships and aliens!

This post will be short and sweet. It's all about the resources, people!

We kicked off the week with our alphabet craft; this week it was the letter X, so we made a xylophone. The kids cut out a construction paper strip, then covered it with foil to add some interesting texture. Then they were responsible for ordering the colored bars from largest to smallest and gluing them in place. Last, they attached the xylophone stick, made from a popsicle stick and a pom-pom. 

We made a spaceship as well. The kids cut out the body of the ship, then they glued on the triangle base pieces and the top. They colored the flames and glued those on as well. They finished the ship by sticking some shiny star stickers on it.

Next we made planet Earth. The kids cut out the circle and glued it to their “space” paper. Before we started, I cut out some continent-like shapes and laminated them so we could reuse them for each child. The last step was for the kids to sponge-paint around the shapes to create the ocean and the continents on the paper.

Last, we made the moon. The kids painted on the easel and glued “craters” to the surface.

Another fun activity I found online was a printable mini-book. The kids used their imaginations and created their own planet, complete with their own drawings. They named it and included details about the planet's happenings. This was a terrific way to work in some emergent literacy. You can find the book here.

Monkey Business

To wrap up the Winter season and get ready for Spring we did a unit on Monkeys and Gorillas. It could also be considered a Zoo unit, but for Art I tried to focus on just monkeys and gorillas. It was a pretty fun week. We made a gorilla (the kids cut out the face, painted the head, then glued the face on top of the head, and used Q-tips to paint the nose and the furrowed brow); a puppet set to go along with the song “5 Little Monkeys” (the kids made an alligator puppet from a paper sack, then glued pre-printed monkey cutouts to popsicle sticks); and we also made a monkey and a jungle, both of which are pictured below.

To go along with the unit, my classroom centers included a zoo puzzle, a banana file folder game to practice counting, and my sensory table had a base of beans & noodles with some small plastic zoo animals and nets thrown in.

One of the best parts of the week was an afternoon language activity we did where the kids got to act out a story we read. They loved it so much we actually ended up doing it again later in the week with a different story. The first story we did was 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. This was a very easy activity, since the story is extremely simple and repetitive. First I read the story to the group, then I chose 5 kids to be monkeys, and the others got to be the doctors. The kids acted out the story as I read it aloud again. They had a blast getting to jump up and down and shake their fingers at each other (in a friendly way). The second story we did was a bit more challenging for the kids, as it was longer and had a lot more detail. We read and acted out Caps for Sale. While we definitely had fun, I would recommend doing this only with a small group of 3-year olds, or saving it for an older age.

Monkeys and Gorillas is a pretty open theme; there are endless opportunities for pretend play, and the art projects were all unique; but hands down, my favorite thing was watching the kids get so into the stories we read. Letting them play around and act like monkeys was fun, but seeing them comprehend and recall the story plot was very satisfying as a teacher. At 3, it's not always easy for kids to recall the details or sequence of a story, especially if it's something that doesn't interest them, so acting it out and letting them be loud and playful was a cool way to encourage their learning.

...Plus, I got to jump around and act like a monkey, too!

Where You Go, I Will Go

We live a somewhat uprooted life. At the moment, we are lucky enough to live at home in Tulsa, close to friends and family. But I have no illusions about Eric's job. Most likely, we will move at least once over the course of our lives together in order to accommodate his lifestyle. Moving across the country is not anything new to me; I just moved back “home” from Chicago, after all. But that was for school, and I always grew up knowing that I would live away from home in order to get a degree. Moving away from home as an adult for a job is a relatively new idea for me. I never imagined that I would live away from my parents and siblings; it was never something I desired.

But as we settle into Eric's job at ExpressJet, it's a reality that I'm not only accepting, but I'm growing more and more comfortable with. You see, living across the country from my family used to seem isolating and scary. But living across the country with Eric seems exciting and full of possibility. And as we have promised each other to spend as much of this life together as possible, moving has become an opportunity for our (upcoming) marriage to flourish.

To remind myself of these things, and to remind myself of what unconditional devotion means, I created and hung this piece of art on our wall, right next to where Eric's suitcase sits when he's home. I designed the text, then downloaded a free banner and printed the whole thing on cardstock. The backing is scrapbook paper, and I got the frame at a garage sale for $2.

Feel free to download the print as a pdf here and print it out from your computer!

Gallery Wall

Making our apartment homey is an ongoing project, that has mostly consisted of planning and planning... and planning. Being on a budget makes it extremely tricky to actually purchase what I want, and it makes me more hesitant—I want to be sure that whatever I spend my money on is actually worthwhile. After months of thinking and planning and looking around, the most recent addition to our place is our mini-gallery.

Before we added the frames and the “G”s, this wall was pretty bare, and I wasn't sure what to do to make it seem warmer. I had seen a lot of different gallery walls online, and after a lot of back-and-forth I settled on the idea of our (soon-to-be) last name initial. I also wanted to avoid making the gallery seem too stiff, and I wanted to keep the possibility of vintage prints and keepsakes, so I decided to add a couple of silhouettes I had cross-stitched.

I found the Scrabble “G” and the metal “G” at Hobby Lobby on sale. The tan “G” was just a chipboard letter I found for less than a dollar and painted. I also painted the top right “G” on a canvas frame I found on sale. Hopefully in the near future I will find a few small prints to add to the open spaces (I would especially love some vintage airplane prints), but for the most part the wall is complete!

Raising the Next Generation of Pilots

We just finished up a unit called “Flying Transportation” this past week. This was a theme I obviously enjoyed very much. The kids already love anything having to do with airplanes, and it was fun to see them learn about several other ways to fly through the sky. I especially enjoyed finding ways to explain how planes fly, how the different parts of the airport function, and what the pilots do-- all on a 3-year old level. Of course, the art was fun, too. We made an airplane, a parachute, a helicopter, and a hot-air balloon.

We made the airplane with a clothespin, 2 popsicle sticks, and a few pieces of paper. Each child cut out their cloud and glued it to their paper. Then they colored the popsicle stick wings. They glued one wing to the paper, then glued the clothespin on top, then attached the other wing. The last step was to glue the tail to the back of the clothespin. 

We used marble-painting to make the hot-air balloon. I cut out the balloons ahead of time, and then each child had a turn to put their balloon into a shallow tub. I splattered the paint on the paper, then they tilted the tub back and forth, side to side, to make the marbles roll through the paint several times. After they were done painting, they glued on the paper “ropes” and basket. Of all the projects we did this week, it seemed they enjoyed this one the most. 

Snow Days

For our first week back at school our theme was Snow, which was fitting considering we came close to having a snow day our first day! This theme was particularly fun for me because it presented so many opportunities to make Art a sensory experience for the kids. We used puffy paint, sponge-paint with stencils, we explored vertical drips with glue, and we used several textures to create our snowmen. I wanted to share two of my favorite (and more importantly, two of the kids' favorite) art projects from this week.

The first one was “Snow Tracks”, inspired by the book The Snowy Day.

For this project, I mixed up puffy paint (1 part glue, 1 part shaving cream, and just a tad of white tempera). The kids painted their entire paper with the paint first. Then I had a bowl full of objects for them to drag through their “snow” to create different shapes and textures, like combs, golf tees, and straws. They had free reign over how they wanted to use each object. What was fun was seeing how differently they all used the objects.

The second project we did that I loved was “Snowflake”.

This was a practice in understanding stenciling, a concept which is tough for 3-year olds to get. Many of them painted on the stencil, expecting that to be their final product. It took quite a bit of prodding to get them to paint around the edges of the stencil, but it was a great exercise. For this project I created simple 6-armed stencils with construction paper which I “laminated” in masking tape so they wouldn't get too soggy after being used by 35 kids! Then I let each child choose where they wanted me to place 6 small pieces of masking tape to secure the stencil-- this made each snowflake (proverbially) unique. Then the kids used sponge brushes to paint in blue, white, and purple. They loved getting to mix up the colors, and getting to paint with something other than a brush.

I hope these are useful ideas for your winter plans, either at school or at home with the tiny humans!

(Belated) Christmas How-To

This Christmas I gave homemade hot chocolate for the second year. Last year it seemed to be a hit, so I decided to do it again, but I also wanted to step it up a notch. So I added very cute (and yummy) peppermint marshmallows!

This was probably one of the easiest homemade gifts I've ever given, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also delicious (I may have taste-tested one or four times...) If you want to give it a try, here's what you'll need:

An empty glass jar (I just saved my pasta jars, washed them, and used Goo-Gone to get rid of the sticky label stuff on the outside)

1 cup baking cocoa

1 cup sugar

1 cup powdered milk

½ tsp salt

Jumbo marshmallows (I put 4-6 in each bag)

chocolate chips for melting

crushed peppermint candies

To make the cocoa I just layered the powder ingredients in the glass jar. I glued cute paper to the lid to make it festive and attached the recipe:

“Add 1 cup hot water to 1/3 cup mix”

If you're like me you can add ½ cup mix.

To make the marshmallows, I melted the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl in 20-second increments to make sure it didn't burn. Then I rolled a marshmallow in the chocolate, and then rolled it in the crushed peppermints. I set the marshmallows on a chilled plate to set, then packed them in these handy-dandy treat bags I found on sale!

The end result was very cute: