Welcome Aboard the Preschool Express!

Happy New School Year!

Gosh, it's already the 2015-2016 school year, and I haven't even blogged about all the fun things we did last year!  I guess it's time to catch up!  

Last school year, our theme for the year was "Welcome Aboard the Preschool Express". We used the theme for the entire year.  At the beginning of the school year, I made a train engine and five train cars.  Our class can have up to 20 children in it, so the plan was to display the work of four students per train car.  As the year evolved, our ideas did too, so we started changing out the train cars depending on our current unit.  I will show how we changed out the train in other posts.  These are the train cars as I was in the process of making them: 

The train cars were made using bulletin board/butcher paper, glitter, glue, tape and laminated bordered papers for windows.  We used the same materials for the engine.  This is our train engine while it was being made:

Inside our dramatic play center, on the side of our loft, our student teacher created a train depot.  We changed it out as well during the school year.  

Our student teacher also took an idea I found on Pinterest to make this "where we are" board.  She cut out the pieces using her Cricut machine.  Where ever we were, the train car would be parked at the train station.  The board hung outside our classroom door so anyone who came to see us would know where to find us.  

A picture of our train engine after we hung it in the hallway for our beginning of the year display:

We used the train theme in other ways as well.  Every morning when the children come into the classroom, they have to find their name and put it in a basket.  For this theme, we labeled the basket "Passenger Check In".  They used "Tickets" from Trend Enterprises Their first day of preschool pictures were taken in front of the train engine and in front of our train depot.  They had passports to hold because they were all about to start their journeys on the Preschool Express.  

I will post again soon showing how we continued to carry our train theme through the whole year in case someone would like to do a train theme too.  

~Christa~

Hallway Displays Part 3: Enchanted Fairy Garden

  To end our school year, our last hallway display was an Enchanted Fairy Garden.  The sign above our display said: "Welcome to our Enchanted Fairy Garden where learning is MAGICAL!"  Our children made giant flowers, ladybugs, snails and dragonflies.  Giant mushrooms completed our garden.

  To make our flowers, the children painted a bowl and two large pieces of white paper with several different colors. I then cut each child's paintings into flower petals.  Then the petals were hot glued to the bowl each child painted. I used green bulletin board paper to make the stems and leaves. 

    In between the mushrooms, we added flowers the children had made showing how a flower grows and labeled with a flower's parts. (flower, leaves, stem, seeds, and roots)

  The one small flower in our garden was painted by my son, who visited us during the school year occasionally, as he was too young for our preschool program.  I'm excited because he gets to be in the three year old program this year.  :)

  We made our dragonflies two different ways - one was done using tissue paper to make them colorful, the other one was made with only glitter to look more like a real dragonfly.

  The dragonflies were made using tongue depressors, glitter pom poms, google eyes, glitter, paint, glue (school and hot), pipe cleaners and transparency sheets.  I drew the wings I wanted, then used the copy machine to transfer them onto the transparency sheets.  I was able to make four sets of wings per sheet. Each child made two dragonflies - one with tissue paper, and one without. The children used a paintbrush to paint glue on the wings.  They applied tissue paper and then glitter to one, and just glitter to the other pair of wings.  They painted two tongue depressors on both sides.  I used the hot glue gun to complete the dragonflies by glued the wings and pom pom onto the dried tongue depressor.  And then added eyes to the pom pom to finish the head.  Pipe cleaners were cut and bent to form small legs for the dragonflies.  The pipe cleaner legs were hot glued to the bottom side of the tongue depressor.

  To make our snails, the children used "paint dotters" to decorate the snails.  After laminating the painted snail, I added a pipe cleaner mouth, and pipe cleaner and ping pong eyes. (added using hot glue)


  I hope you enjoyed our hallway displays from the 2013-2014 school year.  Our new school year has begun, and I look forward to sharing the rest of what we did last year, and what we will do this year! 

~Christa~

Hallway Displays Part 2 - Jungle

Continuing the hallway displays from my previous post, our next theme was Jungle.  After cutting a LOT of green jungle leaves, I changed our winter/Candyland tree into a jungle tree.  As we did art projects for our Jungle theme, the surrounding area was filled in with many jungle animals.  Our gingerbread house was transformed into a jungle tiki hut.  

  I removed Santa and the chimney, as well as the gumdrops.  Then I covered the roof in fringed paper, put leaves on the windows and door awning.  I replaced the candy cane poles with tiki torches.  I created the tiki torches by covering styrofoam cups with cheetah print duct tape.  Inside the cups, I glued red, yellow and orange tissue paper, fluffing it up like flames.  I then attached the cups to my brown posts (covered wrapping paper tubes).  The final touch was a new door sign to replace our "Santa's Candy Factory" sign.  

  Our herd of elephants: Each elephant was made by painting a paper plate gray, adding google eyes, a trunk, and ears decorated with pink tissue paper.

  We then did a writing activity titled How Can You Help Get Rid of Elephant's Hiccups? after reading the book Hiccups for Elephant. Their writings were put on the elephant's body.  The body was then attached to the head they made, completing our elephant.  

  To complete this part of the display, we added tigers, chameleons, and footprint lions.

  A close up of our footprint lion.  Use the child's footprint as the base for the lion, then add tail, face and mane.  Our background was done with green and yellow chalk.

  Our herd of footprint giraffes.

  A closeup of one of our footprint giraffes.  You need two footprints.  I used the same foot twice.  Then using the same paint color, I painted leg, ears and a neck.  After they dried, I then added the brown spots, tail, and horns.  I used black for the nose and eye.  I used chalk for the grass and sky.  I had to create the color paint I used by adding yellow to orange paint until I had the shade I wanted.  The lion was done with the same paint, but I added even more yellow.

  I hope you enjoyed our jungle hallway display.  We still have our Enchanted Garden hallway display to share, as well as our Jungle classroom. 

  It's almost the start of a new school year.  I have already been working in our classroom, getting it set up for a new year.  I'm excited to meet the new little ones!!  I hope this year is as much fun as last year was.

~Christa~

Hallway Displays Part 1

  This past year, to go with our Tree for All Seasons,  the rest of our hallway display were based on the current tree theme.  I'd like to share those pictures with you.  As I posted, our tree started out as a Fall tree, and we had filled it with Fall themed art projects.  Each child had made one of everything, so some of the squirrels, acorns and Fall leaves were on the bottom, as if they had fallen or climbed out of the tree.  Some were displayed as if they were falling.  We also added our class turkey at Thanksgiving time.  Each tail feather was decorated as a family project by the student and parents.  This is an annual tradition for Preschool at our school.  

    For Christmas time, we decided to add a gingerbread house to our display.  "Santa's Candy Factory" was one of my favorite accomplishments this year.  The children painted the gumdrops used on the gingerbread house. Also added, was a Reindeer stable.  The reindeer were colored by the children, as were the stockings hanging on the stable.  I searched Pinterest and Google for inspiration, and then we made our version of each.

  When we returned from Christmas break, we turned our Reindeer Stable into the "Relaxation Station for the Reindeer Nation."  The children made cups of cocoa, using fingerprints to make "marshmallows".  This activity tested their ability to count to ten.  The students also did a writing activity about 3 ways to relax after Christmas
.  

  Surrounding our tree, we went with the Candyland theme we had based our tree on.  We added footprint penguins and giant lollipops.  The children also did a writing based on the story "The Mitten".  

  Next time, I will show our hallway displays for our Jungle theme.  I hope you enjoyed our displays for Fall, Christmas, and Winter.  

~Christa~

Tree For All Seasons

  When Fall was approaching, I decided I wanted to make a Fall tree for our hallway display.  I painted white bulletin board paper with brown finger paint.  Paint was rubbed all over the paper with hands. A brush was used on parts of it.  I loved how it turned out because it was textured and random, much like the bark of a real tree.  Then I cut a trunk and branches from the painted paper.  After mounting it on the wall in the hallway, it was decorated with various Fall themed projects.  As the children made the art projects throughout the two weeks we were learning about Fall, the art was added to the tree and surrounding area.  The children loved seeing their projects on display. We put leaves, acorns, squirrels, and owls on our tree.

  For Christmas time, our Fall decorations were replaced with child made angel and dove ornaments, gingerbread men, and Christmas cookies (bell, tree and star shapes).  

  After Christmas, we turned our tree into a Winter/Candyland tree.  We kept the cookies and gingerbread men.  We added peppermints, snowflakes and snow.

  

  When we began our unit on Jungle, we turned our Candyland tree into a jungle tree.  Our tree was home to many jungle animals: parrots, toucans, monkeys and tree frogs.

  

  Finally, for Spring, we had an Enchanted Garden theme, so our tree was decorated with our parrots, ladybugs, flowers and giant butterflies.

  Our children loved seeing our tree evolve and change as the year went on.  It made making the work involved in making the tree worth it, as we were able to use it almost the entire school year. I hope these pictures inspire you to create your own Tree for All Seasons.

~Christa~

Paint Your Way Through Pre-K

  It's summer time and school is out.  It's time to plan for the upcoming school year, and I am excited to see the theme come to life.  I am hoping it will be lots of fun, but I will hold off on writing about it until school starts in August.

  Until then, I thought I would flashback to my favorites from last year for the next few weeks.  We had a wonderful time bringing a new curriculum to life.  Our school system adopted the Pearson O.W.L (Opening the World of Learning) Preschool curriculum.  We were not familiar with the curriculum, so we just adapted as we went along.  We taught the units of the curriculum, but also interjected holidays and other subjects within it.  

  The classroom theme for the year was "Paint Your Way Through Pre-K".  To start out the year, I made a big banner for the hallway outside of the classroom.  I painted the words on it, turning each "o", "g" and "a" into a paint palette and the sticks of the letters into paintbrushes.  I also splatter painted all over the banner to add color. The sock monkeys were added for cuteness.

  Throughout the year, the children had several different experiences with painting.  They painted with many different painting tools, as well as many different paints.  We used tempera paint, fingerpaint, watercolors, paint dotters and tempera blocks. We tried out metallic, glitter, textured and pearlized paints.  Their first paintings were marble paintings.  They had fun rolling the marbles around on their paper through the paint.  They also painted with textured rollers and bright colors at the beginning of the school year.  

  I did several foot print and hand print paintings with the children as keepsakes for their portfolios.  The children painted regularly at the easel in the Art Center.

  

   Painting our way through Pre-K was just the start of our creative adventure last year.  I look forward to sharing more of what was created!

~Christa~