Blow paint

We used water colors, then gave the children pipettes to squirt color onto paper, and then blow around with a straw.  It was very popular, but hard to regulate the amount of paint put onto the paper.

Dinosaur Eggs

Dinosaurs are put into a mixture of baking soda, watercolor, and water, and then set to dry.  The children then spray then with vinegar (with a drop of soap for bigger bubbles) and the watch the eggs bubble away.

Courtyard Day Activities 2015

Every year at St. Mark's Preschool and Kindergarten and The Straus Center at Temple Emanuel do two shared activities with each other.  First, their school invites two of our classes over for a Very wonderful and fun Thanksgiving Day celebration.  Then in the Spring, our school invites two of their classes over for a fun day in the courtyard at our school.  It's a wonderful relationship, and creates a warm feeling of community between both schools. 

Here are pictures from our event at set-up time.  I really wish I was able to take pictures during the event but I was too swamped!

So here it is pre-kids and not quite ready to go!

The quiet reading and puppet area.

Ball pit and tubes.  One parent managed to create a super cool extra long tube!

Pom Pom catapults.

Crazy hair area with colored chalk and beading. 

Dancing with scarves and beautiful music. 

This tarp was used to gather and do songs and stories, and also to enjoy Popsicles at the end.  During the event it was covered in Legos and Duplos. 

Playdough in two different colors to mix. 

Ribbons attached to hair bands to color. They are made to fit on the child's wrist to use for dancing.  We supplied a rainbow of water colors to use to paint with and q-tips for paint brushes.  This was very popular and eventually we needed to move some kids over to benches, just to have enough room to accommodate all the children that wanted to make one.

Bubbles, of course!

Sidewalk chalk. 

This is a must see while children are playing to get the effect of it.  These were "ice castles". Where you pour salt on big blocks of ice and then spray or drip food coloring on it.  Our ice also had treasures frozen inside, which made it even more fun to try and get them out!

Then lots and lots of boxes of all different sizes.  Kind of a "use your imagination and see what you can do" kind of area.

Sensory Bins

Just a few pictures of different senory bins in our classroom.  I'm hoping to keep this updated and post more pictures as the year goes by.  Let's start with something simple.

Shaving Cream!

Desert habitat.

Painting rocks with water.

Water marbles.

Sea Animals in water.  This smelled horrible!  Never try real starfish in water. Bleh.

Ice Castles: ice, salt, and watercolor!

Studying precipitation and clouds with shaving cream and drops of food color.

Magnets

Felt Food

Pictures of felt food I made for our classroom:

Pictures my colleague, Ms. Shyleigh, made to go with the book Build a Burrito:

And our classroom pizza making kit:

Paper Bowl Jellyfish