Potato Printing and String Painting

Potato Printing 

I'm sure you've heard of this and probably have done it as a kid. I decided to try it out with Snugglepuppy. He thought it was pretty great. Here are some pics of what we did. I cut the potato in half and carved some lines and dots into the cut surface. Then used them as stampers to print on the paper.

I decided to try mixing some colors with a toothpick, so of course Snugglepuppy wanted one too.

The we decided since we already had a mess, we would try some string painting. 

String Painting

We each got a medium length piece of yarn and dipped it in the paint. Then, we pulled it across the paper to make lines and patterns. Snugglepuppy decided he wanted to form his string into letters. You can see his P below.

What are some other types of painting you have tried with your little ones? I am thinking about trying some edible paint with baby Ladybug.

Macaroni Art

Here is some of macaroni art projects we made last week.

We glued the macaroni on the first day, then waited for it to dry. The next day, we painted our pictures.

This is great for working on fine motor skills. By using glue bottles, children have to squeeze just the right amount out at one time while controlling where the glue goes. Also, while we allowed the children to make anything they wanted, you could give a topic for them to create or they could try to write their names with it. 

Also, you can experiment more with this activity by adding salt to the paint for example to give it a rough texture. Or come up with your own ideas!

Have fun and MACARONI on!

Thinky Linky Thursday

<a href="http://preschoolteacher81.blogspot.com/search/label/thinky%20linky%20thursday"><img alt="Preschool Teacher" src="http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r103/loriajones/ThinkyLinkyThursButton.jpg"/></a>

Here are the featured links from last week:

Homemade Glow in the Dark Paint 

from Train Up a Child

Practical Life Projects for Upper Elementary

from Mama of Many Blessings

Bugs and Butterflies Unit

from Sunflower and Sprout

Congrats and I am pretty sure all the winners already have my "featured" button, so good luck this week to everyone else. We need some more competition!

Quantifying and Number Stamps

quan·ti·fy [verb] to determine, indicate, or express the quantity of.

Good old quantifying, one of our friendly math objectives. How do we teach this to preschoolers? Well, we started out with having the children put a button on each flower (to go along with our plant study). As they put each one on, they counted it. So, not only are they counting, but they are counting objects (1:1 correspondence), quantifying (indicating the quantity), and representing the amount with a number symbol. And they just thought they were playing a game!

We had more of these cards all the way up to the number 20.

Then to reinforce the number symbols, we had the children use number sponges and paint to make prints on their paper. We asked them to identify the numbers as they were stamping. Here are some photos of what we did.

 

The kids had lots of fun with this and made a much smaller mess than I had anticipated! 

Here are some books about numbers and counting (and one about comparing sizes: The Best Bug Parade) that might also be helpful.

Happy quantifying!

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Shaving Cream Fun

This week, we have been revisiting the 5 senses, specifically our sense of touch. So, we began exploring with shaving cream. 

I just placed some on a tray with a small amount of paint and encouraged the children to mix it up with their hands. Surprisingly, some did not want to get their hands messy and some wouldn't touch it at all.

Then we smoothed it out and tried writing in it with our finger or a popsicle stick. 

Then, the kids got the idea to make their hand prints on paper with the colored shaving cream still on them.

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More Snow Activities

Snow Painting: Mix equal parts glue and shaving cream. It dries puffy! So we drew an outdoor scene and added the snow.

Playdough snowman.

Here is an activity we did to work on the -at family words using snowflakes outlines and letter stamps. The children stamped letters in the circles around the edge of the snowflake that could make a word when added to the beginning of -at.

Here is the home enrichment activity we sent home. The children were to draw a picture of what the current weather is like in the country their family is from. I love the results we got!

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