What We're Up to in June

Summer Camp is here which means we clear the classroom of an overabundance of activities and keep things simple with one or two themes for the whole month.  This month, one of our themes is Pirate Adventures!!  This is my first year doing a pirate theme and I'm super-excited.

I started off with a sensory bin:

Starting with a cloud dough base (8c. flour to 1c. oil), I added necklaces and coins (Dollar Tree) as well as some other things I had around the house: shells, cork boats, beach-themed play dough tools and a treasure chest from our Cariboo Island game.

I'd like to point out that about three seconds after this bin entered the classroom, my son dug his hands in and it will probably never look like this again - so feast your eyes! 

Keeping with the pirate theme, our writing salt this month is actually fine craft sand and I've made it kind of a treasure map invitation by adding gems and tongs for 'digging' treasures.  This is such an open-ended invitation, I can't wait to see what the children create!

I've set up another writing invitation with a white board, markers, felt for erasing and handy pirate-related word cards that I found at Homeschool Creations.  She has some seriously awesome free printables, so if you haven't been there, you should go.....like now.....I'll wait.

Last up and not very pirate-related at all, our opening and closing activity inspired by the Dollar Tree that you can read all about here.

Opening and Closing and Sorting, OH MY!

Every month, I head to my local Dollar Tree to see what kind of goodies I can find for my classroom before I venture into more expensive territory.  In general, I go in with a few ideas/themes and leave with stuff I actually didn't intend to buy.

This month, I was standing in line when I saw a little medicine sorter.  Each section was a different color and all of them stacked up nice and neat into a fun rainbow-colored tower.  I had no idea what I was going to do with this handy device, but I grabbed it anyway and by the time I got home, I had a plan.

As soon as I saw this tray sitting out needing a new activity, I knew it would work perfectly for sorting.  I broke out my trusty label-maker and assigned each section a size: small, medium, large, using appropriately-sized text for pre-readers.  

Inside each section of the medicine sorter, I placed three matching buttons, one in each size.  When all of the sections are open, it looks like this:

And those buttons are just begging to be sorted!

Of course, once everything has been sorted according to size, all of the buttons must go back to their compartments according to color and then little hands have to twist the sections back together to create the rainbow tower again.  How many more skills could I have crammed into this activity?

Thanks for the inspiration, Dollar Tree!

15 Preschool Light Table Ideas

Here are just a few of the ways we've used our light table in the classroom.

 Glass beads (Dollar Tree) and a clear divider tray.

 Sensory bottles/bags.

 Water beads - sorting and scooping.

Fireflies in a Jar

Laminated fall leaves for science exploration.

Money and glass beads with clear sorting tray.

Translucent letters and color paddles.

Translucent mosaic tiles.

Mosaic tiles with mirror.

Crystal Climbers

Translucent Tangrams

Translucent gak/goop/slime - replace white glue with clear glue.

Magnet wand with magnetic discs - play silk over table.

Prism Blocks

Gelatin Rainbows

What We're Up to in April

Happy Easter!  Although the holiday is now behind us, I waited until April to roll out our Easter and Spring activities.  March was all about rainbows, shamrocks and other Irish inspirations, and I really wanted Easter to have a full month as well - so here we are, a bit late, with Easter fun.

As Seedlings evolves, I try to work in as many educational philosophies as I can, recently, I've created a 'Montessori-inspired' area in my classroom and while I don't kid myself that I'll ever actually own true Montessori materials, I make my best effort based on activities commonly found in Montessori classrooms.  I roll in some Waldorf, Reggio and the Miss Lindsey special - shake it up - and our shelves are filled with colorful and creative invitations for the children.

This month's writing salt is yellow and scented with lemon essential oil.  It's light and refreshing and gives the children an exciting new way to practice early writing skills.

This tray is a variation on the opening and closing activities of the Montessori method, the children can put the flower gems inside the eggs, count, sort, pattern, shake, you name it!

Sorting and matching are always more fun when you add tongs!!

Pink play dough scented with geranium essential oil gives this 'create an egg' invitation a little something extra for the children to discover as they play.

The sewing basket was added to the classroom just a short while ago and the children loved it immediately.  I've sent quite a few fabric scraps with buttons sewn onto them home to Moms and Dads and I couldn't be more proud of those little hard-working fingers!  I've refreshed the basket, adding new felt scraps, buttons and embroidery floss.

Our Easter/Spring sensory tub is back, this year residing in storage bin on the block table.

Each month, I rotate the materials on our art shelf.  This area is always open for the children to create whenever the mood strikes.  For April, I've added multicolored pom poms, a rainbow of tissue paper squares, sequins, and spring-themed self-stick foam shapes.  I also trace seasonal or theme-related shapes for the children to cut and decorate - this month, I've made egg shapes on sheets of craft foam.

Happy April!!