Macaroni Necklaces / Bracelets

Last year, if you remember, we dyed some macaroni to make rainbows......well we took the same concept and dyed macaroni (I did that part last night) to string and make necklaces and bracelets.  I actually bought this pasta last year and never ended up using it!

Our basement is being dug out right now, so we headed outside for the morning.  Some of the kids wanted necklaces and some bracelets.  We used a thick string to string the macaroni.....I like to use that instead of yarn......easier for the kids to string.

All the kids modeling their necklaces and bracelets.

 

 

D and R made both!

 

I dyed different shaped macaroni to have on hand for the kids to glue on paper or make more jewelry with.  It's nice to be able to pull some of that out from time to time to just create! 

 

 

Painting

Yesterday we finally did our paint project.  Each child painted on a piece of white construction paper......whatever they wanted.

Once they are done painting (make sure the paint is really wet) then take saran wrap and lay over the top of the paint......it's ok if it crumples a little, it's actually better for the design if it does.

Leave the saran wrap on for awhile, then peel off and let it finish drying.  You will notice the design from the saran wrap on the paint (that's why it's good for some to be a little more crinkled).  Some of the kids had more paint than others, so the wetter the paint the more you will see the design.

The kids all love to paint, but this just added a little something more to their painting project........you could lay all types of different things into paint to give different designs......this was just a subtle way to give some texture to a painting.

COLOR!!!

This morning, we had a birthday to celebrate!  E turned 5 today and I let him choose what he wanted for his treats......ice cream with different toppings or colorful chocolate chip pancakes......surprisingly he chose pancakes, which I was thrilled about cause it went along with our color unit!  He chose green and the other kids wanted blue and pink.  Sorry, didn't take very many pictures this morning.....very busy and crazy morning!

 

We didn't do a craft this morning......we had several other activities we were doing and ran out of time.
Here is one of our many activities, we did a color scavenger hunt.....I gave each child a bag with a color on it, their instuctions were to find 2 items in the house that matched the color and fit in their bag.  Everyone (including Maddox, who is only 2) found objects that matched their color.  We did this several times so the kids all had a chance to do different colors.

 

Each child got up in front of their friends and shared the color they had and also what they found.

Color Mixing Bags

I like to start our preschool year off working on colors.....most of the kids know their colors, but it's fun to start learning what colors you can mix together to make a different color and I always think the repetition of things children already know is good as well.....helps them to not forget!

Today we filled some freezer baggies (stronger than regular baggies) with shaving cream and 2 different colors of paint (red, blue or yellow).  Seal the bags and then reinforce with tape at the top.....this is also a good idea if you have kiddos that like to open the top.....prevents a mess!

Then have them squish the paint and shaving cream around and see what happens....what new color did you make (this can be done with just paint as well or food coloring and shaving cream works too).

 

Once they are done mixing the colors, you can practice writing letters in the mixture or just squish it around.  We will save these for Thursday and practice "writing" our A's on the bags.

 

I love to make these bags.....there are so many possibilities with them.....you can add little objects or letters to find, add glitter, hair gel, jell-o, water and oil, pudding, etc. The nice part is there is no mess to clean up and they can play with it over and over again.

Time Capsule

I wanted to start the year off by making time capsules for us to open at the end of our preschool time.  We started out by decorating a piece of construction paper......this is going to be wrapped around an empty paper towel roll and will be the capsule for the children's papers.

I then had each child answer some questions (favorite color, favorite toy, favorite food, what they want to be when they grow up) and then they each wrote their name, I weighed them and measured how tall they were.  Then each child looked at their self in the mirror and drew a self-portrait.

 



We rolled up their papers and put them in their own time capsule.

We placed them in a box along with this picture and won't open until May 2013 on our last day of preschool together. 

 

 

When we open in May, I will have each child answer the same questions again, write their name and weigh and measure them and see how much they have changed.

 

 



1st Day of Preschool

 

Well our preschool time officially began this morning!  I am so excited to get back into a schedule with my kiddos, make some fun crafts and work some more on writing names, identifying letters and numbers, counting, and all the other fun stuff we will do along the way.

 

Remember my group of kiddos last year.....some of the faces have grown up a bit along with a few new friends as well.  We were missing E this morning, so we will have one more to add to our photo.

 

 

Trying to get them all to look at me and smile at the same time was a bit challenging this morning.



We started our morning getting our journals ready for another year......we had to beautify them with some stickers!  I had to laugh because 2 of the girls asked if we were going to use glitter glue like we did last year......it's amazing what they remember!

I think they turned out super cute!

 

 

Stay tuned on Thursday for our Time Capsule that we started......hoping to finish it up on Thursday and share with you what we did.