Felt Flower Pots

These amazing flowers and pots match together by color to promote one to one correspondence.  One to one correspondence is a critical skill that children need to master in order to be able to move on to more formal math.  It sounds like an easy skill to be able to match a number with the amount of parts, but for young children it can be quite challenging.  In early childhood education it is something that we are constantly working on throughout the school year.  The best way to encourage children to learn is through inviting materials and through play.

I even want to play with these gorgeous flowers and their pots!

So very pretty!

These flower pots were made by a colleague and are located in Ms. Shayna's Wild Things classroom at St. Mark's Preschool and Kindergarten.  St. Mark's is located midtown in Tucson, AZ.

Finger Painting Prints

This week the children have been getting to know the classroom and we have had simple open ended art projects where the children are encouraged to explore and be creative.

One such project has been mixing finger paint color and then making print of their drawings.  These are a few example of the process and product.  The children loved seeing how the prints come out.  And while many just practiced with scribble art, others began venturing into more representational art.

Stick People

These stick people turned out super cute and the kids really enjoyed making them.  It would be even better to extend upon this activity and bring in literacy by having children create stories about them!

Oh, the possibilities...

Japanese Children's Day

May 5th, which is the fifth day of the fifth month, is Children's Day in Japan.  This special holiday is for respecting children's personalities and celebrating their happiness.  Isn't that beautiful?!  I wish we had such a holiday here!

This year and last year too, we were lucky enough to have Japanese mothers in our class that were willing to come in and talk about this special day and do a project with the children.

The project this year was folding a warriors hat with newspaper.  Although it required a lot of help, the children really loved the outcome!  Here are pictured directions:

Even baby Bobcat (our classroom is called The Bobcats this year) has his own Japanese warrior hat!  

Lucky Bobcat!

Ben's Bells

Ben's Bells is an amazing local nonprofit here is Tucson.  

"The mission of Ben's Bells is to inspire, educate, and motivate people to realize the impact of intentional kindness, and to empower individuals to act according to that awareness, thereby strengthening ourselves, our relationships and our communities."  

It's truly a heartwarming group, that has worked with schools to promote kindness at such an influential time in a child's life.  

They promote many inspirational projects within schools, but some are called "Kindness Trees".  Here are our mini Kindness Trees we made for Father's Day.  You can't see it, but behind each Kindness Coin (the little flowers that say "be kind") is a dictated quote about what there father does that is kind.  

Please check out Ben's Bells website to learn more about them and how you can inspire your school to become a Kind School.

https://bensbells.org 

Pinterest WIN

My coworker found this picture on Pinterest and thought of me.

"My kids would totally do that, but our chicks are bigger now and they couldn't fit into cupcake liners."  I told her.

"Coffee filters, then!"  She replied.

"And then you could even dye them first."  Another coworker added later.

See, this is why working with preschool teachers rock!  They are creative and are always looking outside the box.  

 

Wha-la!  Coffee filter tutus.  The lastest in all chicken wear.

Baby chicks in da house!

 We recently added some new baby chicks into our craziness at home.  As with anything cute and fluffy in our house these chicks were immediately dressed up.  Meet two of them.

I introduce to you Cinnamon

 and Lemon Drop. 

 

Are they not divine?