Friday, May 18, 2012

Good, Clean Fun


When I saw this over at Growing a Jeweled Rose, I knew I had to find some sort of giant sponge type object. We had a couple nap mats that had some tears in them so we have been using them outside to sit on. I took the pads out and squirted some dish soap on them. I gave the kids some water in watering cans and let them get to work. I did not say anything about the bubbles or what to do. It was so much fun to see them stomping on the sponges to discover the bubbles coming up. What I love is that when we are done, we simply hose off the sponges, patio and kiddos! They ask to do this everyday, so I bought a bottle of dish soap just for outside. It's a great experience for cause and effect, sensory, problem solving, using their social skills, and using their large motor skills! Click HERE, to see how what they used for a sponge over at Growing a Jeweled Rose! Thank you so much for the inspiration, Jeweled Rose!








 

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Gigantic Ball Paintings

We have been taking full advantage of the incredible weather we have had in our part of the world lately.  I picked up this plastic pool for about $10 at the hardware store. These pools are everywhere right now.  I taped down some paper to the inside of it and gave the kids some paint to squirt into the pool.  Then we threw in some plastic balls.  This project takes lots of communication and cooperation on the part of the children.  It was amazing to see them work together and figure out how to tilt the pool back and forth to get the balls in motion.  It was a whole body experience for these kids.
 Some of the skills they used during this process were, cause and effect, identifying/ recognizing colors, problem solving, learning and using social skills,  using their large motor coordination, and pre-writing skills (squeezing those paint bottles and squirting the paint) just to name a few!
 Pools....not just for water anymore!





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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

5 Little Speckled Frogs

Let me preface this post with....I am no artist!  I actually am not very crafty either.  I can come up with ideas and they look great in my head, but when they come to life, ummm, not exactly like it was in my head.  Anyway, we love singing the song "5 Green and Speckled Frogs". So I thought it would be fun to have a little visual to go along with it.  I created these little frogs on a log
puppets for the kids to use. It was super simple and made with what I had on hand. 
I cut a egg carton up into 10 cups, then painted them green.  I added some speckles with green marker.  Then I cut out red tongues and glued them in.  I glued the cups together and added some goggle eyes.  I cut out a "log" from the egg carton and painted it brown. Voila!  Done.
Here is a video of the song in case you have no idea what I'm talking about....








Check out the adorable frogs that they created over at Rainy Day Mum with egg cartons and a paper towel roll!  So cute!
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