Elephants

Last week we made these Elephants - easy - but the kids enjoyed making them. I mixed an acrylic paint with a tempera paint and it turned into a thick creamy - yet grainy texture, which gave the elephants a cool look. We used small paper plates - one for the head and one cut in half for the ears. The trunk was cut out of card stock.

We simply stuck the eyes in the wet paint to secure them - no glue was required.

I thought they were cute!

Sensory Tub Counting Search

I love this great counting activity from Playing in Prep! I can see using this for the alphabet as well! The extensions on this can be endless!
http://playinginprep.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/sensory-tub-counting-search/

I first saw this linked on Funtastic Early Childhood Ideas facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=224459094245373&view=wall&notif_t=event_wall#!/pages/Funtastic-Early-Childhood-Ideas/172996439419071

Zoo Animal Fun!

Kids love animals - especially baby animals!

I searched the web for pictures of adult animals and their babies 

Printed the adults out 8.5"x11" and the babies 4"x3" - Laminated

Place the adult pictures out on the floor. There are about 16 in all.

Then give each child a picture of a baby. Ask them to match the babies with the adults.

Simple and fun for toddlers! I have done this with JK/SK and they liked the activity as well.

 Some of our favorite baby pictures turned into lacing cards.

Pictures printed - laminated and cut out - large mens shoelace used because they are longer.

OK this is my favorite baby animal for sure! :)

I turned it into a puzzle!

Identifying animals with the roll of the dice!

In our classroom we often imitate and make animal sounds - sing animal songs - talk about animals - but I wasn't really sure if the toddlers could identify the animals that we include in our program activities. I made these animal dice; one with wild animals - one with domestic and one with farm animals. I asked the children to choose one - roll it and identify the animal, mimic the sound and move like the animal that showed up on their roll. It went OK - but I want to introduce it a few times so that they can start to play independantly with friends. Some further animal knowledge needs to be gained in order to make that happen. So we will do this as a group activity for awhile.
I searched for a template to make easy paper dice. Then I searched for images that would be fun to idenitfy - overlayed them onto the dice template - printed them - then I laminated the sheets after printing - assembled the dice after I cut them out - making sure to score the lines so they folded easily. Finally I taped all open edges so the children would not pull them apart.