Teach Preschool » The Basics in Early Childhood Education

Getting ready for a valentine’s day party

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:16:25 +0000

Today we started getting ready for our Valentine’s day party which we will have next week on Valentine’s Day! It seems like we have been out of school for every major holiday there has been so far this year so it is nice to finally get to celebrate at least one holiday on the actual day of the holiday…

I thought for our Valentine bags, we would try the popular paper tube heart printing. I didn’t try this ahead of time so when Miss Abby and I sat down at the very last minute to make our tubes, we had a few of them looking a little lopsided…

Basically, what you do is take the end of a paper tube and fold it in to make the heart. I can’t really explain it but if you look at this photo shared by one of my readers over at Teach Preschool on Facebook, you will see she did a great job making her heart shaped paper tubes…

Photo contributed by Mandy B. Leech

Mandy said that she folded the tubes then added a piece of tape to keep the fold in place better and to keep the kids from squishing the fold out! Wish I had thought of that…

Photo contributed by Mandy B. Leech

But ours still turned out pretty cute and the kids enjoyed painting with the tubes. Anytime we get to use a new tool for painting, my kids enjoy it…

Most of our kids stamped with the tubes to make hearts and then we had a few that preferred to rub the tubes all around their bags – so they have a more of a painted mural for their valentine bags….

I don’t think it will make any difference in the end whether the children had cute valentine printed bags or beautiful shades of pink and red murals – they will still all hold the same amount of cards and treats which, I assure you, will be all that matters come Valentine’s day…

The Kid Blogger Network presents…

Valentine Ideas Blog Hop!!

This post is part of a crazy cool blog hop that you do not want to miss out on! Just check the linky below for some terrific ideas for Valentine’s day! I was blown away by all the really cool ideas this year. Well done blogging friends!!

Participating bloggers…

Mama Pea Pod, Let Kids Create, My Creative Family, Hands on: as we grow, La Dolce Vita: The Sweet Life, AngeliqueFelix.com, The Golden Gleam, Teach Preschool, Critters and Crayons, Living at the Whitehead Zoo, The Iowa Farmer’s Wife, Nurturestore, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, The Chocolate Muffin Tree, Jamie’s Jumble, The Outlaw Mom Blog, Mama Smiles, The Mommies Made Me Do It, Dinosaurs and Octopuses, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Toddler Approved, Messy Kids, Rainy Day Mum, JDaniel4sMom, Glittering Muffins, Red Ted Art, Mommy and Me Book Club, Putti Prapancha, Dilly-Dali Art, Creative Connections for Kids, Mommy Labs, De tout et de rien: Activités pour le Préscolaire, Imagination Soup.net, Rockabye Butterfly, Classified: Mom, Kids Creative Chaos, A Mom with A Lesson Plan, PlayDrMom, RainbowsWithinReach, Living Montessori Now, Curly Birds, Growing A Jeweled Rose, The Home Teacher, A Little Learning For Two, Sun Hats and Wellie Boots, The Imagination Tree, Mummy Mummy Mum, Critters and Crayons, La-La’s Home Daycare, Come Together Kids, Tinkerlab, Dirt and Boogers, Multiple Mummy

Looking for even more Valentine ideas?

Check out my Valentine’s Day Pins on Pinterest!

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Table top easel painting in preschool

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:01 +0000

Last summer I made a whole set of small table top easels from cardboard and today, we used them for tabletop easel painting…

I also made paint palettes from cut up strips of empty apple cartons. I filled the cups of the ‘disposable’ paint palettes with different colors of paint and gave each child their own paint palette to work with…

As the children painted, they freely mixed the colors in their own paint palette. Although the children really didn’t need water for this, the children asked for a cup of water anyway to rinse off their paint brushes. It somehow made the children feel like they had the complete artist package just by adding the cup of water…

The children asked for more paper and paint as they continued to explore the painting process. I just kept adding paint on top of the old paint and we didn’t worry about whether the colors were getting mixed up a bit on the palettes. Painting is all about mixing colors….

Some of the children held their paint palettes while painting and others kept them on the table to work with. After lots of use, the paint palettes get a little flimsy so the children only used them on the table. I let them figure that out as we went along…

And some of our children enjoyed exploring the difference water made when painting. They discovered the texture and the color was quite different if you added water to the paint or paint brush…

We used terms and sentences like paint canvas, paint palette, thinning the paint, mixing the colors, stroking with the paint brush, and so on….

We also used a variety of different types of paint brushes. There wasn’t much thought that went into which brushes we used, I just handed them out randomly…

In time, our painting space started looking – well – very artistic!

I wish everyone of you could have been there to see this experience because I honestly don’t know how to give it justice. It wasn’t that the children walked away thinking, “I just made a beautiful painting,” although I think they were all quite beautiful, it was that this was a beautiful experience…

My students kept telling one another – “I am making this painting for you!” and “Come and look at what I painted for you!” and “Don’t you love it?” They all made me smile at their generosity towards each other…

My students have grown as artists throughout this school year and this was an amazing experience of art expression, dramatic play, color mixing, independence, generosity, and creativity. One of my students’ said, “We are like real artists!” And I must say, they truly were…

This post is linked to Red Ted Art’s Blog: Kids Crafts Linky Party

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Creative challenge: colorful paper beanbags for preschool play

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:00:45 +0000

Tinkerlab is hosting another terrific creative challenge and this one is a paper bag creative challenge! I don’t know about you, but trying to come up with a unique paper bag idea was a big stretch for me!

I still don’t know that I came up with something all that impressive but my kids enjoyed this little DIY idea. I made bright and colorful paper bag beanbags….

I know – not all that impressive to look at but we had fun playing with our paper bag beanbags! To make these spectacular paper bag beanbags, I simply filled plastic baggies with beans then inserted the beans into the small colorful paper bags. By putting the beans in baggies first, you don’t have to worry if the paper bag tears open while playing with it…

These are mini-paper bags that I picked up last summer. I am not sure where I got them from but I think from the Party Store here in my hometown…

I put about 1 cup of beans in each bag. Once they were all filled up, I folded the top of the bags down and stapled them shut…

Then I put all the beanbags in a basket and we were ready to play. Since I can’t sew, this makes a simple alternative to making fabric beanbags when I need a few at the last minute…

The children tossed the beanbags onto a grid I made out of tape on the carpet. There was no real objective to the game. The children just tried to see if they could get a beanbag in each square of the grid…

This game was much more challenging than it looks. The children really had to work at judging the strength of their toss as well as distance and height of the toss…

It is always amazing how something that can look so simple can end up being quite a challenge!

Participating bloggers

Paint Cut Paste, Imagination Soup, Hands On: As We Grow, Child Central Station, Putti Prapancha,, Irresistible Ideas for Play-Based Learning, Teach Preschool, The Chocolate Muffin Tree, Nurture Store, Small Types, The Imagination Tree, Toddler Approved, Red Ted Art, Sun Hats and Wellie Boots, Come, Together Kids, Mommy Labs, Kids in the Studio, Rainy Day Mum, Glittering Muffins, Sense of Wonder, Mom To 2 Posh Lil Divas, Come Together Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, A Mom With A Lesson Plan, Angelique Felix, The Golden Gleam, Share and Remember, Clarion Wren, Living at the Whitehead’s Zoo, Let Kids Create, De tout et de rien, PlayDrMom, Rainbows Within Reach, No Time for Flash Cards, Creativity My Passion, Messy Kids, Kiwi Crate, Tinkerlab

To see more paper bag ideas, check out the linky below!

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Exploring the estimation station in pre-k

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:00:18 +0000

I took some of our math tokens that we collected from our math bags and added a few other items then placed them into baby food jars for our estimation station. I will continue to add more jars but today, we started with a nice selection of about 12 different jars of tokens to estimate…

The jars are sitting on a cupcake holder that I won last year from The Cupcake Blog. Since I rarely do any baking, the cupcake holder has been sitting in a box since I got it. I finally decided that the cupcake holder would make a fun stand for our estimation station and will probably use it for other ideas too later on. Sometimes, finding a new way to display or present materials to the children makes the process more inviting to the children. As soon as the children walked in and saw our estimation station, they began asking all about it…

We talked about the process first. I explained to the children that they were to pick a jar and make a guess of how many tokens were in the jar….

The challenge in introducing estimation to preschoolers is that often times the children do not want to take a guess for fear of guessing wrong. I have found that I often make it worse when I make a big deal about how close their guess was to the right answer. So I am learning to respond by listening to their response and conclusions throughout the process rather than making any comments of my own…

After looking over the jar and making a guess of how many tokens are in the jar, the children then open the jar and spread the tokens out on their counting board…

We talked about how organizing their tokens help with counting the total number of tokens…

Some of my students naturally organize their tokens for counting and others still do not seem to get this concept at all. They just start counting – I don’t worry about it either way right now since this is such a new process for us. Over time and with practice, my students will figure out what works well for them and how to organize the materials where they can keep track of them…

After estimating and counting their tokens, the children placed the tokens back in their jar and then picked a new jar to start the process all over again. Some of the jars only held a small number of tokens and some of the jars held a large number of tokens. Sometimes, the children would discover that there were far more tokens in the jar than they anticipated. They would often decide that there were just too many to count. Realizing that there were more tokens in the jar than they originally anticipated was an important part of the estimating experience whether they ended up counting all the tokens or not….

I will continue to add new jars of tokens to our estimation station and we will continue to explore our math tokens in other ways as well. I look forward to seeing what else we come up with!

Linking this post to No Time for Flashcards Link and Learn!

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Everyday fine motor play in preschool and a linky

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:00:58 +0000

This week’s Bam Radio show is titled, “Fine Motor Skills: What Are They, Why Are They Too Important to Overlook?” and before you go any further, take a minute to listen to what the experts have to say! You can view the show and listen here or here!

Rae Pica with Dr. Christy Isbell, Allison Sampish, Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed.

“The development of fine motor skills are often a casualty of the rush to get young children up to academic speed. In this segment our guests explain why fine motor skills are a critical building block for higher learning and should never be overlooked” (Bam Radio)

Promoting fine motor skills

I am always exploring new ways I can promote the use of fine motor skills into my classroom….

I may set out something like picking up and sorting pom-poms with tweezers or chopsticks into colorful bags….

Whether the children use my homemade straw tweezers or they use their hands to pick up, manipulate, and move the pompoms – they are using their fine motor skills in the process…

Promoting the use of fine motor skills is an important part of preparing young children to write, catch and throw a ball, type on a computer, open a door, and the list goes on. As young children develop the muscles in their hands, they develop the strength they need to complete fine motor processes that will play a valuable part in higher level learning…

Often times, I will see teachers or parents who will insist on a child holding a pencil using the “correct pencil holding form” but the reality is, young children are still developing the muscles they need in their hands and fingers to hold a pencil correctly. Thus, young children will start off holding a pencil or crayon in a way that looks awkward or incorrect but given time and good opportunities to build fine motor strength and skills, most children will self-correct on their pencil grip when their fine motor control and strength gets to the point that they can manage the pencil with the correct grip…

There are lots of ways to promote fine motor skills and help children build fine motor strength including cutting with scissors…

Squeezing, manipulating, pinching, and rolling playdough….

Weaving, lacing, and sewing…

Peeling and sticking stickers…

Scooping, pouring, mixing and the list goes on…

There are opportunities all throughout the preschool classroom to promote fine motor development!

Homemade Tweezers

I made 2 different versions of homemade tweezers from straws. This isn’t a perfect solution to real tweezers but it does provide a new experience for preschoolers to try out. The straws I used were very nice and sturdy from Meijer…

Version 1: Cut one long straw in half. Hot glue a skinnier piece of straw inside the end of each bigger straw.

Version 2: Bend the straw in half - add tape to hold

Straws, tape

If you have a fun idea that promotes fine motor skills in young children, I invite you to add your idea to the linky below! Adding a link back from your article to this article would be greatly appreciated.

Links to Grow on…

Pencil Grasp Development by OT Mom

Kindergarten Hand Exercises by OT MOM

Handwriting: Pre-K Pages

Fine Motor Development by School Sparks

30 Kids Activities and Materials for Promoting Fine Motor Skills from Hands on: as we grow

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