On the Felt Board: Snowman

I've been a little obsessed with felt this school year. There are so many fun ideas out there for ways to use it, and it is a cheap and easy material to work with. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but it still feels a bit magical to me to place felt up on a felt or flannel board and it sticks there without velcro, or magnets, or glue. It is simple, and I love it. I use felt a lot in my preschool classroom, but this love has carried over into my home life as well.

I made my son a felt board using a large piece of cardboard, flannel fabric, and a glue gun. (Even though the backing is made of flannel, I still like calling it a felt board because all of the playing pieces are made of felt..) I secured it to the wall at his level using command strips. It was so easy.

The pieces on his board right now are snowflakes and snowballs, with things to make a snowman just for fun. When I made this, I was anticipating that winter was quickly on its way. However, we have not had moisture or even very cold weather now for weeks. So it's not very relevant to his experiences right now, but that's okay.

Sometimes I will interact with him while he plays, and we will talk about the snowman, his hat, his nose, his eyes, the snowflakes, etc. He will usually rearrange anything I put on the board, and gives it a nice pat to make sure it sticks. Sometimes this will keep his attention for quite awhile.

Inevitably his play always turns into "rip everything off as fast as you can," which is also fun. :)

Book Love: The Sweet Smell of Christmas

When I saw this book and awesome interactive read-aloud idea on one of my favorite blogs, Teach Preschool, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into our holiday activities this year. It fit in so well with our overall theme of families and the things that they do together.

The Sweet Smell of Christmas by Patricia M. Scarry

This cute story follows a family of bears as they get ready to celebrate Christmas. From baking in the kitchen to picking out a Christmas tree, each event has a smell associated with it. The scratch and sniff stickers inside the pages already make for a fun interactive element, but I loved the way Deborah at Teach Preschool also added real items for the kids to touch and smell. So we did something similar!

We read this on the same day that we made our gingerbread cookies, so we were really able to imagine what the bear's kitchen must have smelled like when they made the cookies. Using our sense of smell (and taste once or twice...) really brought this story to life. This book is definitely a new holiday favorite for me.

Baking Gingerbread

Some families like to bake special treats around the holidays, including fun and festive gingerbread. This week we explored the story of the gingerbread man and the process of working together in the kitchen to bake gingerbread.

Books

I checked out several different versions of the gingerbread man story from the library, but we didn't have time to read them all. For our main whole group read-aloud, we read The Gingerbread Man by Eric Kimmel. I like this version because it is the simple, straightforward story without extra details or really wordy text. It is a great way to familiarize students with the story, so they have some background knowledge before moving onto other fun variations like The Gingerbread Girl or Gingerbread Friends.

Dramatic Play

This was probably the favorite activity, and it evolved from baking/kitchen play to decorating play as time went on. I just traced one of my gingerbread men cookie cutters on felt to make the cookie pieces.

My little guy was also interested in this activity.

Sensory/Fine Motor

We made gingerbread play dough, using this recipe and this hands-on process. Ours turned out a little lighter in color than the recipes I looked at, but it still smelled great. 

Baking 

The final, culminating activity was actually making our own gingerbread cookies. I looked around for a simple recipe, and finally settled on this one.  Since our time is limited and we had experience making dough earlier with the play dough, I decided to mix the dough ahead of time and then let the kids help to cut the cookies. 

We made predictions about what would happen to the cookies in the oven. Would the dough stay soft or get hard? Would they change in size? Would the color change? The dough was enough for several batches, and the kids would take a peek at the oven throughout center choices time to see how the cookies were doing. They were also quick to remind me that the oven timer went off and it was time to take out the pan. The cookies were cooled just in time for everyone to have a taste during snack. 

Paper Chains

I planned on using paper chains throughout this month to review patterns, assuming we would add a little bit to it each day during our whole group time. But the kids showed interest in it during center choices time as well, and so I gladly turned the activity over to them.

The process of making a paper chain takes some fine motor skills and problem solving. Threading and then curving the paper, ripping and then placing the tape- it all takes some practice. Selecting the appropriate color to complete the pattern also takes some thought and planning.

Once the chains started to form, the students were eager to begin hanging them around the classroom as a decoration. Our clothespin art display was currently empty, so that worked perfectly. This added a whole new element to their play, as displaying each chain side-by-side  really highlighted their length. Several kids started talking about how long or short their chain was, and a somewhat friendly competition began over making the longest chain.

I decided to continue on with this interest at our next class by making "name chains." We practiced our names using the strips by putting the letters in order and then writing each letter, before making them into chains.

Later we compared the sizes of the chains and counted the letters in each person's name to confirm which one was the longest and shortest, and if any were the same. It worked really well for using math vocabulary for measurement and comparing numbers.

I was really glad that their interests led me to think beyond my initial plans for how to use the chains. I love it when that happens.

The People in My Family

This is a simple activity that we did along with talking about the people in our families. I pre-cut different sized circles and helped the kids to determine and count how many of each size they would need. Then they colored each one to represent the different people in their family.  I also modeled my own family so they could see the process in action.

I liked that this process was simple enough to allow for individuality without taking too much focus away from the topic at hand. It provided a concrete base for each child to work with, regardless of their current level of fine motor skills.

The finished product can also serve as a meaningful visual for discussions about family size, and how families are different and the same.

Alphabet Ornaments

We've been decorating our classroom for the holidays this week, as part of our focus theme of families and things that they do together. I pulled out a small, artificial tree that we don't use anymore, and let the kids decorate it for dramatic play. But I decided to add a literacy element so that we could also use the tree as a learning tool.

I cut red and green foam into circles, wrote an alphabet letter on each one, and punched a hole in the top. I decided to do both upper- case and lower-case letters on separate colors to help scaffold a later activity. 

Here are some activity ideas for using these letter ornaments. 

Fine Motor

I involved the students in helping me to finish the ornaments by threading pipe cleaner through the hole, and twisting the top to secure a hanging loop. Many students jumped right into identifying the letters on their ornaments, and some searched to find the letters in their names.

Sorting

When they finished threading an ornament, they sorted it into my sorting box by color. 

We might return to this sorting activity later, with a focus on upper and lower case letters. 

A letter formation extension to this process could be tracing over the letters with glitter glue or puff paint and letting them dry before placing them on the tree. 

Dramatic Play

Once all the ornaments were threaded and ready to hang, we added them to our other tree decorations in the dramatic play room. The kids were really excited about decorating the tree. 

Letter Matching

 I strategically placed the tree next to the world wall so that we could make connections between the ornaments and the letters and words we use on a daily basis. At first when I noticed kids selecting alphabet ornaments, I would give them a challenge to find that same letter on the word wall before putting it on the tree. This opened up conversations about the letter name, sounds, and even words that started with that letter, if there was a word for that letter up on the wall. Some of the more tricky letters also led to conversations about letter formation and made for great visual discrimination practice. After a while I let the kids interact with the ornaments on their own, but some students would still come up asking about a certain letter they didn't recognize. 

We will still be using the ornaments even now that the tree is decorated. This ABC order, matching puzzle is one example of an activity that could be student or teacher led.

You could also take down a set amount of upper- and lower-case letters to play a memory matching game. I kept upper- and lower-case letters different colors for this reason, to give a visual cue for the type of letters. Depending on the level of the student, you could play this game with the letters face down or face up. 

Letter Hunt/"I Spy"

We will also play a letter hunt or "I Spy" game in different ways, depending on student needs. For example, I may ask one student to find a letter on the tree that makes a certain sound, or to find a letter in their name, etc.