Christmas I Spy Jars

Well my trip to the dollar store to get 2 things ended up in a 40 dollar shopping spree for Christmas craft items! Oh well now I don't have to go back in the Christmas rush! I was inspired by the items I bought to create some I Spy Jars for my sensory shelf!

I found these cute plastic jars!

Safe and nicely decorated!

Then I saw these styrofoam balls!

Well that just sceamed I Spy Jars to me!

Then I grabbed all the little things I could put inside!

Gotta have some of the glitter pom poms & glitter!

I had this left over from last year!

I got these at a garage sale!

So all of this and a tad more went into each jar!

CUTE!

See the stuff in there?!

Remember not to over fill with the styrofoam balls or it's too hard to see the items inside.

This can be done with coloured rice - plastic beads - or any other fill!

Don't forget to glue the lid shut with hot glue or thick white glue!

 

Counting

We often use this magnetic animal Tic Tack Toe board for counting! It's visual - easy to use and appeals to the toddlers as a great manipulative. The squared off sections makes it easy to place the animals while counting. There are 10 pieces - just the right amount so we don't get overwhelmed and most of the children can now count to 10. It's also great to do sequencing.

One of my garage sale finds! If I remember correctly it was 50 cents.

Sink and Float

Today we did a sink and float activity - this is always a wonder for the toddlers. It may be old hat for us but for them it's new and exciting!

These are some of the items we gathered from the classroom!

Beanbag fun!

So we pushed back the tables and chairs and broke out the beanbags - it was another rainy day! So we tossed them - caught them - balanced them - and walked with them on our head and shoulders! You name it we had loads of beanbag fun!

Opps - where did that beanbag go?

Love the seriousness of the face! LOL

I can balance it on my head!

We can too!

Look I can do it on my shoulder!

Weeee!

BTW our beanbags were sewn by my class partner from material I got for $1 at a garage sale and I filled them with polyplastic beads for stuffed doll making that I had on hand! They are about 4.5 inches square.

Links for winter songs - poems and activities!

http://www.mwcsk12.org/faculty/jbaycura/wintersngs.htm

http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems7.html

http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/preschool_themes/ice/ice_songs.htm

http://mrsjonesroom.com/themes/winter.html

http://www.songsforteaching.com/christmas/

http://www.preschooleducation.com/swinter.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CULyz139rIk

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/index.html

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/winter/

http://party.kaboose.com/seasonal/winter/winter-party.html

http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/Winter-Activities-for-Kids.html

Please share any links or ideas that you may have! We would love to hear from you!

Some of my favorite things to do is to make snow sculptures - make spray chalk for snow - make snow forts - do winter dressing sequncing then play dressing games like winter dressing relays. At Christmas I like to play a game where we put small candycanes into a large tub of Styrofoam packing peanuts and then have the children wear really big mitts and try to dig down in the packing peanuts to get a candycane - done as a team relay race. We do mitten matching & sorting activities. Do outdoor freezing science experiments! Shaving cream snow pictures. Yogurt bottle snowmen. Plus there are many more - I could go on but please add some in for us if you have any ideas of your own!

Yogurt bottle snowmen!

A Play Dough moment

I always have cans of 'real' play dough in the classroom to play with - but I do enjoy a good homemade dough to mess around in. Today was one of those days and we all got our hands in it to experience the blending process!
I simply use 2 parts flour to one part salt - water and food colouring to desired texture and colour.
The most fun about homemade dough is to get sticky and messy - then to finally get it to that smooth soft playable texture.

Talking about how the ingredients blend & how they feel.

Using the flour to make the dough less sticky.

No one seemed to mind getting messy and we all had fun!

Little bears prepare for winter!

Today we made bear masks - then played a game with them.

Forgive me I have lost the link for the image but I have added another below - if you know who's it is can you please link up in the comments below!

Here we are creeping through the woods foraging for food!

Our tummies are full - we are laying down for a long winter nap!

These were just plain fun to play with!

I see you!!

There is a printable mask here: animal jr

Hibernation links for you to enjoy!

http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/hibernation.html

http://stepbystepcc.com/hibernation.html

http://www.preschoolplaybook.com/2009/01/hibernating-bear.html

http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/hibernation/

http://www.theteachersguide.com/hibernation.htm

http://www.preschool-plan-it.com/hibernation.html

http://www.kidssoup.com/Animals-Winter/animals-in-winter.html

http://mrsjonesroom.com/themes/hibernation.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/bear-essentials-of-hibernation.html

http://www.bry-backmanor.org/actpag24.html

http://lilteacher.com/hibernation.html