Addressing Multiple Skills in Art Projects

Oh, the fall. Seems like the season of art project after art project. I am not that into super teacher-directed projects because I feel like the students lose out in building independent skills and it just makes it overall a less meaningful experience. Since we moved into our new class/modular building I knew I had to get something up on the walls outside the classroom door. I searched Pinterest forever, but couldn't quite find something I loved. So, I decided to create my own project that would address a multitude of skills while still allowing the student to make independent choices.

I cut out the brown body shape for the turkey and wrote the student's name in yellow marker across the bottom. I also drew the black lines separating the letters. For students with long names I would put two letters in each section. The student then had to trace their name and cut along the black lines. We worked together on putting the pieces back together like a puzzle and using a glue stick to stick them back on. Lastly, the student chose the feathers they wanted and I aided them in gluing them on.

Here are the finished products! I love that each turkey is unique and has the student's name right on the front. Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Just a label I put on my bulletin board for others to see what skills/standards were addressed while making these turkeys.

Bread

After completing our units on apples, pumpkins, and leaves I have decided to talk about bread. I have big plans to make our own "bread in a bag" and homemade butter next week. For today we started with reading the book "Bread, Bread, Bread" By: Ann Morris. I found this book in one of those "everything-in-your-bag for $5" kind of sale- so good. It's actual photographs and simple text. It also depicts people from all over the world, what could be better? So, after reading this my students did a bread size sequencing activity. It was super simple with only one type of bread because my students are just learning about the concept of small, medium, and big. I use the word big, but I know some people might like to use large so when I created the printable I made a "large" version also. 

I made two versions of this activity. One where the students had to independently sort the bread under each given size and one where the student is matching picture-to-picture in order to sort, so it's more of a matching activity. I differentiated because some of my students are grasping the concept of small, medium, and big and others are still in the very beginning stages of comprehending it. 

If you would like a copy of the bread size sequencing activity click here to download the PDF. 

Pumpkins Everywhere

I was hoping to get this post in under the October wire, but no such luck. Anyway, I wanted to share some of my favorite pumpkin activities I did in my classroom for the past few weeks. As any preschool teacher knows pumpkins are HUGE in the early childhood classroom. What is it about those big, orange squash that students just love?! I know my students love to point out a pumpkin where ever we are, so these activities were a big hit.

1. Pumpkin Insides Book: I got this idea from my friend Carissa who did this with her students during our student teaching semester. Check out her blog here! We glued pumpkin seeds and orange yarn as pulp and the front cover reads "What's inside a pumpkin?" I also had the students trace their names on the back because I aim to constantly expose them to their names/writing. 

2.  Mini Sticker Pumpkins: This was a last minute addition to our art center last week. I had bought mini pumpkins for our dramatic play center and I didn't want them to go to waste towards the end of the week, so I allowed the students to place Target Dollar Spot foam stickers all over them. Removing the paper on the stickers was great fine motor practice.

3. Pumpkin Measuring: This lesson exposed my students to the terms small, medium, and big as well as estimation and nonstandard forms of measurement. I had pre-cut pieces of yarn and the students had to determine (with teacher prompting/help) which string would go around each pumpkin. For example, would the tiny string go around our big pumpkin?

4. Pumpkin Seed Counting: The students worked on their one-to-one correspondence skills by doing pumpkin seed counting lesson. I modeled the pumpkin counter for them (a laminated pumpkin with a number and corresponding amount of seeds drawn on it) and how to count out the seeds/pick them up with their pincers. Pumpkin counters were made more accessible to students by drawing on the corresponding number of seeds they should put on each pumpkin. (pumpkin mats found at prekinders.com)

5 & 6. Pumpkin Play Dough: Homemade, no cook pumpkin play dough made with Jell-o brand pumpkin pudding mix added to a traditional play dough recipe.  

My pumpkin play dough recipe. I use this as a visual for the students while making the play dough.