Monday, July 6, 2015

Patriotic projects for school age

UIn honor of the Fourth of July we did a whole weeks worth of projects. Food projects that were red white and blue.Strawberry Shortcake, jello parfaits, and others.

Hats with paper plates and  false wigs with tons of cotton balls glued to cut paper bags.


Red, white and blue candle holders from old glass food jars red, white and blue tissue paper glue and water.
Can vases(painted tin cans)Yeah recyled patriotic crafts.We even made Patriotic Eagle finger puppets with the paper plate scraps from the Statue of Liberty hat projects.

 Being that I have been in school or taught in schools most of my life I tend to think of things in terms of school years instead of calendar years.  So this last year I tried some new professional directions. After the several years of subbing, private tutoring, art camp coordinating, after school care and even a grant I started a search for fulltime employment in ONE place.  I was working with adults in a residential home. I formed strong bonds with individuals I cared for and I enjoyed the times I sat around the dining room table with them crafting.

I found another gig at a Daycare center.. So I have been working in a preschool room and will be working with school age children this summer.

So here are some highlights from what I have been doing in the last few months.

 Preschool two week themes included: Food and Manners, Bugs, 5 senses and Outer space.

We read books for learning manners the first two weeks, made paper lunch box projects that also had how we should sit and eat for meals, We used paper sandwich's  that I made up for a math center activity, Students made me sandwich's with a certain number or ingredients for more advanced students I gave them a prefilled tablet with ingredients written on them and they "waited" on me and  wrote in the number of items to put on the sandwich. We made paper sushi rolls and used chopsticks to practice picking them up as a spatial activity.

For bug week we made Lady bugs on a Leaf with painted egg cartons for the bodies, we did bug math with bug math games I created. We also created a terrium with live snails in it and worms.

For five senses week with used a mystery box, we tested scent jars with mystery scents in them, we made texture t-shirts we explored seashells and sand tubs. we did a blindfolded trust walk where teachers lead them.