Sunshine and Rainbows!

Well the sun is out but so is the wind! With all of the dust flying around, we have unfortunately spent most of our time inside the past few days. We have been enjoying a rainbow theme this week. Our literacy links this week were Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow and What Makes a Rainbow. I decided not to use the book The Rainbow fish  because there is so much you can do with it and I wanted to use it on its own another week. 

We completed two paper rainbow crafts. Today our task was to create a paper rainbow.  First we talked about the colours of the rainbow and the order that they follow. Next we matched construction paper colours to the rainbow colours. We tore strips of construction paper into smaller pieces. This was a great fine motor task for the little tots as they had to use their "pincher" fingers to tear the paper. Once we had all of the paper torn into smaller pieces, we used glue sticks to trace the rainbow lines. After that we glued our smaller pieces of paper into the correct spots. This was a longer task with lots of repetition but the kids stuck to it and created beautiful masterpieces. 

On Thursday we created 'jumping rainbow . I used this as a fine motor task. I cut the paper into strips then the kids applied glue at each end Once glued, they flipped the paper over and made the rainbows jump on the paper.

When it was finally nice enough to head outside, we were able to make chalk rainbows on the road and deck. We had mini rainbows everywhere!

Usually we use our coloured beads to make bead pattern necklaces. This week we used them for matching and sorting. We focused on colour sorting. The kids loved sorting their beads into colour columns. They also loved when I sorted them with a 'mistake' that they had to fix. 



Until next week! 
Alicia 

Car Wash! Car Wash!

Every kid loves water. Especially water with bubbles in it! With the warmer weather we figured it was a perfect day for a car wash - kid style! After selecting the "dirtiest" vehicles we could find, we filled our bin with warm soapy water. We use all organic soap making this project safe for all ages. Next we determined what other cleaning supplies we needed. Rags and brushes (in this case new tooth brushes) were deemed perfect tools for the job!  Once we had all of our supplies we went to it... scrubbing, brushing, wiping, re-scrubbing. An hour later we were all soaked but our vehicles were spotless. 
The only thing that could have made this project better? Grass to hold our car wash on.... 

Alicia 

Mother's Day!

For Mother's Day we made salt dough prints and stepping stones. Both projects were a hit with the kids (and Moms!) and both projects turned out fantastic! For the salt dough prints we mixed 1 cup of salt with 1 cup of flour. Then we added 1/2 a cup of water. It took a little bit more than half a cup of water to make it the right consistency. We flattened the dough in a bowl then flipped it out onto a cookie sheet that was lined with parchment paper. We put our hand prints (bigger tots) and footprints (little tots) into the dough. After the prints we completed we put the salt dough into the oven for multiple hours (I admit I lost track of time) at 170. Once they were hard we took them out and let them cool. After lunch we were able to paint them. We mixed two shades of the same colour and painted the background the lighter shade and the print the darker shade. Aren't they beautiful? 

For our stepping stones, we mixed cement then put it into metal containers. Again we made hand and foot prints in the cement then decorated using a variety of stones and beads. 



See you next week! 

Alicia