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Chestnut and Acorn Animals
Another day with glue guns. This time around we decided to embrace the season and use all the amazing fall treasures the kids have been collecting. Plus, I must admit that I really enjoy this! When I was little, I loved making these animals… hiking and picking up chestnuts with my grandma, cleaning them and…
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Writing is Their New Thing
I believe that three-year-olds and worksheets do not mix well. It is not very productive, nor it is useful to have them fill out paper after paper. They need to do hands on activities that relate more to their world and to their passions. That is why we do not really use them, aside from when…
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Pumpkin Painting Hedgehogs
After we hammered our pumpkins, we decided to reuse them. The natural thing was to carve them up, scoop them out and wash the seeds. It was a wonderful idea, I thought, but the thing was – nobody wanted to touch the pumpkins once we cut them open. We had to give them spoons but…
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Of Pumpkins and Hammers
Last week I brought two nice looking pumpkins into the classroom. I put them on the table with 125 golf tees and couple of large wooden blocks. It did not take long before the kids started hammering the tees into the pumpkins. You could hear the knock, knock, knock all the way outside. And they…
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Leaf Making Factory
Watercolors and diffuse paper are always a hit. Sometimes we use pipettes and liquid watercolors, other times we do brushes and regular cake watercolors… but it is always fun for the kids. They love seeing how the ‘thirsty paper’ drinks up the paint. They love watching it spread by itself. They love to experiment with…
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Colored Glue Fall-inspired Tiles
Ever since we did our colored glue project, kids have been asking to do it again. And ever since one parent dropped off a huge stack of white tiles at our school, I was trying to figure out what to do with them. Today we decided to combine these two – and were pleasantly surprised…
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Salt Dough Mandalas
We have been collecting chestnuts, acorns, pumpkin seeds and berries for a while. We love fall and kids (and I) love bringing a lot of signs on fall inside a classroom. We have a big ‘fall treasures’ box by the door that we have been adding to… and it was time to start using these…
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Glue Guns for All!
We love glue guns in our preschool. And we especially love the new super cold ones we got last week. Before that we had a low-temp ones but they could still burn your finger so I helped the kids with their creations (especially the 3s) and I took only two kids at a time. We…
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Sensory Walk
I went to the Zero Landfill Seattle event couple of weeks ago and scored all these amazing treasures! It is a priceless (and yes, free) event where designers give away all of their old samples to artists, craftsman and teachers. I brought two wagons and filled them all! First thing we did was a sensory…
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Slime Exploration
Who would not like slime? It’s fun to make it, color it and then squeeze it, cut it, pour it, paint with it, measure it, pull it, etc. The limit is only your imagination – meaning in our classroom the uses are limitless. This year we decided to follow three different recipes. Slime 1 cup…