Young children (and sometimes their parents 🙋🏻♀️) are fascinated by the simplest things. So while asking them to use a white crayon to draw on white paper didn’t seem all to exciting, using watercolors to reveal the magic beneath was. We wrote their names, drew ghosts, pumpkins, hearts, suns, a dog, and pretty much anything their hearts desired. They couldn’t see any of it until they used the watercolors…
My 3rd grade art teacher, Mrs. Josie Pinkcombe, introduced me to Vincent van Gogh and Starry Night when I was just 8 or 9 years old, and I was instantly enamored. Decades later, this is still my favorite painting. I remember being in Amsterdam with my dad in my early 20s and insisting on seeing 2 sites: 1) The Anne Frank Museum and 2) The van Gogh museum. He may…
Our “Staying Healthy” unit today included the importance of sleep. We discussed what sleep looks like, what we take to bed with us, and later read Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. We drew pictures of our animal friends sleeping and acted out a bedtime routine during dramatic play time. They even each decided to read their animal friends a bedtime story, and one got swaddled like Hud’s baby…
As part of our “staying healthy” theme, we learned about brushing our teeth and spent a lot of time talking about our previous experiences at the dentist (@miamichildrensdentist and @drbobpediatricdentist would be proud of their patients). The children were particularly interested in the dental floss. Who would have guessed? 🤷🏻♀️ This STEAM activity was provided by our Mother Goose Time curriculum by @experiencecurriculum. It was simple, fun, and not nearly as…
So the last time I did this with littles, I was teaching Pre-K4 @adamerrittk8center in my 20s. It’s clearly been a while, and I also completely overdid it with the amount of shaving cream used. If I had used a palm full to cover the @webergrills pan instead of the exorbitant amount pictured here, it would have been more of a literacy activity than a sensory one. That…
Back in college, we learned about “teachable moments,” and when the kids requested magnifying glasses while playing with Play-Doh, @donnavroberts decided to go bug hunting outside to capitalize on their natural curiosity. 🕵️♀️ YES!!! 🙌🏻 Aya, as the children lovingly call her, is part genius as far as I’m concerned, and we were ALL excited when she managed to fish a giant bug out of the pool and place it…