Tips & Tricks Vol. 2

Have you seen those Life Hacks that are all over the internet? Well here are two Educator Hacks that we hope you can use.

Watercolor Trick

 We all know that painting with watercolors can be messy with the younger kiddos having trouble keeping their little cups of water upright and the water in the cup turns a yucky brown color. With this tip, those problems are a thing of the past!

 

I found this tip years ago in an issue of The Mailbox. All you need is a spray bottle filled with water and a paper towel for each painter. 

 Just give the tray of paints a few sprays and the kids are ready to paint. When the paints start to dry, you just spray them again and they are good to go! When the kids want to paint with another color, they  use their paper towel to clean their brush before painting with a different color and the colors stay much cleaner.

We promise if you try this just once, you will forever use a spray bottle for watercolors!

Writing Tip

 

Our wonderful Occupational Therapist gave us this tip. By using a small a crayon or pencil poked through the holes in a wiffle ball, small hands begin to get the proper arch that is needed to hold writing utensils correctly.

   

You may have to cut through one of the holes on one side in order to get the crayon started.

  


Once you have done that the crayon will slide right into the ball. It is super easy to change the crayon. One of our students even did it on his own!

Look at that great grasp!

We hope these tips & tricks help you all as much as they have helped us! If you try one of our tips & tricks and you have anything to add, please comment and let us know. 

-Angie and Heather

Construction Art

Our classroom is currently immersed in the middle of our construction unit. You saw from one of our blog posts a few weeks ago how we integrated this unit into our sensory table. Our students are still happily playing with the construction sensory bin and loving it!

Today we introduced a new activity in our art center that combines art, math and construction. The activity originally came from the Frog Street Pre-K curriculum, but we have tweaked it through trial and error to fit our classroom. The Frog Street activity called for students to create an AB pattern by stamping  different types of screws, Phillips head and flat head, into paint and then onto paper. I tried this last year using real screws as prescribed but found they were a little too small and it was difficult to see the difference in the screws.  I really liked the concept of the activity but needed a different type of screw to get the desired effect. We have a set of large plastic screws with different shaped heads in our classroom and decided to try those and see how they would work. They ended up working so well we decided to do the same activity with our class this year.

To do this activity in your classroom you will need manila paper cut in half to create long strips, plastic screws with differing heads and tempera paint. Each student gets to pick two screws they want to use to create their pattern, dip the heads into tempera paint and stamp them onto the paper, alternating each one to create an AB pattern. Here are a few pictures of the process:

The activity is super easy to recreate and each student really enjoyed creating their own pattern. My favorite aspect of the whole process is the opportunity to reinforce the concept of AB patterning in the art center. We hope you will try this activity in your classroom and share the results with us in the comments!

-Heather & Angie

Tips & Tricks Vol. 1

Beg, borrow, or steal is a phrase that accurately represents the camaraderie between teachers. We are all looking for new ideas, tips and tricks to make our job easier. The goal of today’s blog post is to offer a few new tips and tricks for you to take back to your own classroom.

Anyone who has ever worked with young children knows how much they all love to use glue. The mere sight of a glue bottle is all it takes to ignite excitement into a child. However, it is also a known fact that young children + glue = a big, sticky mess. Angie found a good tip from The Mailbox magazine to alleviate the mess made by glue while still allowing the children to be independent in their work. All you need is a shallow Tupperware-type container with lid, a sponge, and glue. Place the sponge inside the container (you may need to cut it to fit) and pour the glue onto the sponge. Once the sponge is covered in glue place the lid on top of the container to ensure the glue is able to soak into the sponge and not dry out. The glue will keep in the container as long as it remains sealed when not in use. When you are ready to use glue you can set the container with the sponge out for the children to use. All the students need to do is gently press whatever they need to glue onto the sponge for a few seconds and voila! The paper will have plenty of glue on it to hold and your classroom will remain clean. This is a very simple method that allows students to work independently. 

Here are a few pictures of how we used this in our classroom:

Another tip from our classroom offers teachers a way to preserve the sweet valentine cards your students choose for you. We all get a myriad of teacher valentines each year chosen specifically for us by our students. Often these valentines end up being thrown away or placed in a drawer somewhere never to be seen again. A few years ago I attended a workshop by Vanessa Levin from pre-kpages.com and she spoke about using the cards to create a class book. After the class valentine party I will collect all the cards my students have given me and turn them into a class book. I simply take the cards and glue each one on a piece of paper and write a simple sentence underneath telling who gave me the card. The papers all get laminated, hole punched, and placed into a folder with brads. The finished product is a fun collection of cards with simple, predictive text. I like to keep this book in the library center for students to read all year long. They love to look through and see not only the valentine they gave to me, but also the different cards their friends brought.

We hope you found some new ideas today use in your classroom! Please feel free to leave us any comments or questions about these ideas or any you have.

Heather & Angie

I Build! I Create!

Welcome to our early childhood blog! Angie and I are early childhood educators who work together in a co-teach PPCD/Pre-K class. We have created this blog in an effort to share our ideas and experiences from the front lines. Our goal is not only to offer a glimpse into our world, but also to inspire and encourage early childhood educators to take a risk, try something new, and be creative!

Our district uses the Frog Street Pre-K curriculum and today began our first day of the I Build! I Create! theme. We looked on Pinterest at ideas to incorporate this theme into our sensory table and found a great sensory bin.

Here is the pin we found on Pinterest:

Here is our version:

Angie went to the 99 cent and found 2 plastic heavy duty front loaders. Then we used 3 lbs. of white beans, 5 lbs. of cornmeal, and about half a plastic bag full of woodchips from the school playground to complete the bin. The kids were intrigued the moment they saw it and absolutely loved playing in the sensory table and exploring the different textures. This pin was definitely a winner and something we will do again!

Angie & Heather