Preschool Dinosaurs.....RAAAWWWRRR!

Who doesn't love dinosaurs??  All the little Seedlings couldn't wait to get their hands on our activities during dino week at summer camp this year!  We had a blast...from the past!! ;)  Take a look!

We started our week with some play dough fossils.  This activity sparked some great discussion and I was surprised, but not really, at the vast dino knowledge the kids already had!  They were teaching ME new facts and pronouncing dino names like true professionals.

This really awesome dinosaur play set is hard to find in the US, but I lucked out and bought it second-hand a few months ago knowing we'd need it for dinosaur week!

The kiddos love the rubbing plates, so we brought them out this week and also used them with our play dough for a fun twist.

Fun textures and a perfect way to demonstrate how fossils are formed!

This 3-D T-Rex puzzle was a challenge, but a few of the older kids were up for it!

These dinosaur collage boards were a must-have!  I love the way they turned out and there are so many possibilities!

My older class had some free-exploration in the art area with paints and mini dinosaur counters.  I loved watching them devise their own way of using the materials.

We had a few options for dinosaur excavation in the classroom.

This cloud dough was popular and loads of fun, but very messy!  Be prepared!

The children were supplied with brushes and safety goggles (optional) and there were bones hidden in the cloud dough to be carefully excavated.  If you want to recreate this activity, be sure to prepare and clean your bones properly.

Our other option for excavation was a kit from Scholastic similar to this one.  Using the enclosed tools, the children carefully scraped away the dirt until each bone was found.

Then we cleaned the 'bones' and assembled our dinosaur!

And because we love cooking around here, we made our own delicious dinosaur bread for snack!

RAAAWWWRRR!

Space Adventures in Preschool!

Our week of space adventures was truly out of this world!!!!  We packed so much amazing stuff into this week of summer camp that the kids actually complained on Monday that it wasn't STILL space week!!!

We had some awesome play invitations set up around the classroom.

A set of astronauts and aliens and a beautiful play silk dyed by Kitchen Dye Works.  Buy her stuff, it's gorgeous!!

Our May Whimsy Box, a wonderful new service that brings books to life with interactive elements.  In this case, a dyed play silk, a nebula card, and a constellation disc created by From Jennifer.  I have a lot of her work as well and she and her husband create high quality and lovingly-made products.

I whipped up a few batches of goop after I was inspired by this post from Twodaloo.  I couldn't capture the awesomeness of this stuff very well, but it was a hit with the kids!

Since I ran out of liquid starch and had to use my trusty goop recipe, I decided to rename this masterpiece Galactic Goop!

I used clear glue for the gold batch and it was sooooo fun to use and you get to use big words like 'translucent' when you are playing with it!

We had a blast mixing up all the colors and watching them swirl and blend!

My Pre-K class used mirrors (as suggested in the original idea) and some marbles to create planets and galaxies.

By the end of the week, our Galactic Goop was mostly grayish/purplish, but it was still loads of sensory fun!

And for more sensory fun, we dug our hands into some water beads, with a few marbles thrown in for textural exploration!

The kiddos also got busy with some creative and colorful projects!

We created our own constellations using star stickers and forming pictures and shapes with pencils and crayons.  Some of the older kids even named their constellations!

My Pre-K class, repeated this project using a star-shaped paper punch we received in a Kiwi Crate a couple of years ago.  We also got those handy constellation cards that I laminated so the children could see a few examples of real constellations.

We used liquid watercolors and spray bottles to make beautiful stars!  I recommend getting the spray bottles with the handle and not the ones with the press-down style top, but the kids made it work and this was our final product!

I found these great rocket ship photo frames here and knew they'd be perfect for space week, the kids loved making them especially because painting on something other than a flat piece of paper is something we don't do very often.  After seeing the joy on their faces (and the intense concentration), it is definitely something we'll be doing more often!

These sticker scenes were another online find that I used during our discussion of space and planetary orbits in my Pre-K class.

We also practiced being Earth by rotating around the sun (table) while simultaneously rotating on our axis (spinning until we're silly).  Scientifically accurate portrayal? Probably not, but it resulted in hilarity and laughter, which all add up to a valuable learning experience.

And we finished out the week with some shaving cream marbling.  Since I'm not all about tutorials and such, you can visit The Artful Parent for handy instructions if you'd like to try this at home.  Basically, we drop...

...then swirl...

...press, lift and scrape to create the most amazing planets ever!!

I think we might give Space Adventures TWO weeks next summer!!

 

Down by the Sea!

Our oceans and beaches week was cut a bit short due to a very unexpected hospital stay on my part.  All of our unfinished activities will be saved for some Parents' Night Out adventures, but here is a quick look at our three days of sea fun!

We used dot paints to create colorful fish that can be found here.

We created some sea creature crayon rubbings with these plates.

How about some adorable hand print fish??  Absolutely!!

No ocean week would be complete with some actual water play.  The children were much neater about this than I expected, I had towels galore on hand, just in case!

My Pre-K kiddos got some hands-on learning activities courtesy of Homeschool Creations.

 Pom-Pom Tweezing

 Fish Counting

Tracing

And we also got some fine-motor water exploration with a pipette activity. Check out the cool shell-shaped bathtub applique!

Up Next: Space Week!!!