Simple Summer: Mind Blowing Science

My mom got a Mind Blowing Science Kit for my son for Christmas. He has enjoyed it over the months and has especially enjoyed it this summer. This kit comes with everything you need to do do 11 different experiments. The instructions include prompts on making hypothesis as well as an explanation as to why things happened the way they did. This is a great kit to get for days you need something simple that is already prepared for you. It retails on Amazon for 20 and right now is on sale for 15.

 

Simple Summer: Face Painting with Colored Pencils

At a recent birthday party, my girls had their faces painted. But the mom at this party did it the genius way--she used colored pencils. Just regular old colored pencils. What you do is take your colored pencil and dip it in water until it is soft enough to write easily on skin. Then you paint away. Not messy! So much so, that I let my girls do it to each other at home, which thrills them. Give it a try!

Simple Summer: Simple Preschool Cirriculum

source

While browsing my online library, looking for eBooks, I cam across this section that has a lesson plan for you for every month of the year. I thought it would make a great resource for simple summer learning! I find the biggest time suck for learning activities is the actual planning and preparing--not the doing--and in the summer, I really don't want to be sitting and planning and preparing. So I thought I would pass the link along to you if you are interested--it is linked right to June:

http://preschool.uen.org/curriculum/June_s/calendar.htm

For more fun summer ideas, see these:

• simple summer
• Family Outings
• Outdoor Bubble Bath
• Outdoor Fun: Mud Paint
• Paint Free Painting
• Pitch a Tent!
• Pouring Yourself a Drink
• Preventing (or minimizing) Summer Setback
• S'mores (new way)
• Simple Summer Fun: Bubbles
• Simple Summer Fun: Cloud Watching
• Simple Summer Fun: Coloring
• Simple Summer Fun: Easy Crafts
• Simple Summer Fun: Gardening
• Simple Summer Fun: Museums
• Simple Summer Fun: Popsicles
• Simple Summer Fun: Reading
• Simple Summer Fun: Sand
• Simple Summer Fun: Sidewalk Chalk
• Simple Summer Fun: The Zoo
• Simple Summer Fun: Walks and Bike Rides
• Simple Summer Fun: Water Play
• Summer Bridge Activities: Four Types of Reading
• Summer Bridge Activities: Four Ways to Squeeze Reading Into Your Day
• You Pick Farms

Teacher Appreciation Meal

I am fortunate to have a friend who is a master at serving food to large groups of people. She always helps me with the meal for Teacher Appreciation Week. This year, we did Navajo Tacos. This is a fried scone (Utah style...I think often called "elephant ears" in different parts) with meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream...whatever you might put on a taco. We bought all of the ingredients for 130 at Sams.

We had room moms and volunteers bring a dessert. People love bringing desserts. Most people can easily throw something together. Teachers loved the variety of sweet treats. We also had a variety of drinks.

We finished the meal off with each teacher getting a gift card--teachers love gift cards!

Teacher Gift: Pamper Set

We wanted to give the teachers something they could use to just pamper themselves. 

We did a lufa, nailpolish, bubble bath, hand lotion, and chap stick. We were able to get a lot of the things from AVON for a really reasonable price. Here is a link to the gift tag: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B984Wp7G0yTWbUVwSDkwSEcyMDQ/edit?usp=sharing 

School Supply Gift

To go along with the theme of "You've Colored Our World, Now Let Us Brighten Yours," we gave the teachers a school supply kit with the colors of the rainbow. We included crayons, glue, pens, pencils, pencil top erasers, notebook, tissues, and sanitizing wipes, all in a cute bag. We bought most of these supplies last summer during the sales that lead up to the school year starting off. The pencil top erasers were purchased through Amazon--they have some great deals there. We bought them in gross boxes and then divided them up in those little treat bags.

Here is a link to the tag we put on it.

Teacher Appreciation Week: Door Decorations

Here are the door decorations that went with the theme: You've Colored Our World, Now Let Us Brighten Yours

Teacher Appreciation Week: You've Colored Our World, Now Let Us Brighten Yours

Our theme this year for Teacher Appreciation Week is: "You've Colored Our World, Now Let Us Brighten Yours."

This is the gift we gave Monday to all faculty and staff in the school.

Dinosaur Diorama

The diorama! Can you believe I have been a parent for almost nine years and have not yet done a diorama? Truth be told, I am not all that "into" artistic things, and neither is my first born. My second born, now five, however, is a major artist. She loves, loves, loves to do art. She found this in a book and immediately wanted to create it. This is found in the book Cats Sleep Anywhere published by D.C. Heath and Company. (true...strange title for a book with a dinosaur activity in it?).

Supplies:

• shoe box
• rocks
• twigs or small branches
• bandaid
• paper
• scissors
• pencil
• crayons
• tape
• one straw

Make the Dinosaur:

1. Fold your paper in half.
2. Draw a dinosaur on one half of the paper. Make it so the top of the head and the back are on the fold of the paper.
3. Cut out the dinosaur. Do not cut along the fold where the dinosaur's back and head are.
4. Color the dinosaur with the crayons.
5. Cut the straw into four equal sized pieces.
6. Tape one straw piece to each leg of the dinosaur on the inside of the dinosaur.

Make the Home:

1. Cut one long side of the shoebox off so it is open at the top.
2. Color in the sky, grass, mountains, a sun...you could also make these out of paper and glue them in place.
3. Take your two twig pieces and adhere them to a large rock with the bandaid.
4. Put your dino and rocks in the shoebox. Ta-da!

Play Doh Fine Motor Work

Play doh is a great activity for working many learning areas. You have sensory, art, creativity, colors, and fine motor work. You can easily add in even more.

When I had only one child who played with toys and made messes, I thought play doh was such a huge mess and cinged when that activity came to the forefront. Now it is my favorite! The children sit in one spot and play for an extended period. Sure, little bits of play doh get stuck to the counter and spread on the floor, but the reality is that it is so much easier to clean up than toys spread around the toy area. 

Right now, we are loving using toothpicks with our play doh. You flatten out the play doh, take your toothpick and practice whatever needs to be practiced. You can write letters, write names, do math problems, draw shapes, and draw pictures. We love play doh! 

Clover Handprints

McKenna made this at a friend's house. I love crafts with the child's handprint! This is simple, you just have the child dip her hands in green paint and then make a clover. You can do three handprints or four. Then use a finger to make the stem. You then have a cute craft decoration!

Hibernating Polar Bear

This is a fun winter craft. This is an art project that works fine motor skills and adds sensory input.

Supplies:

• Blue or black construction paper
• White paper
• Crayons
• Cotton balls
• Glue
• Scissors
• Polar bear printable

Activity

Have your child color the polar bear. Cut out a white mound of snow. Have your child glue cotton balls to the snow. Your child can color the construction paper to have snow and snowflakes if desired. Glue pieces on.

Ice Skate Craft

This activity provides a fun winter decoration while working fine motor skills.

SUPPLIES

• Yarn or string
• Popscicle sticks
• Aluminum foil
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue or tape
• Paper hole punch

METHOD

1. Cut out skate shapes (older preschoolers and older can do this step).
2. Punch holes for the "laces."
3. Have your child wrap the popscicle sticks with the aluminum foil. Tape or glue one to the bottom of each skate.
4. Have your child string the laces through the holes (tape down the string on one side--you can see that done on the skate on the right in the picture). Go through both skates with the yarn. Then tape it down on the other skate when done lacing.

Pattern Block Piece Picture

First off, sorry about my very long hiatus! I really needed a break from worrying about getting posts up here, so I took it. Sometimes you just need to let things go, you know?

We of course didn't let doing learning activities go, so on with the posting!

This is a great activity to work math skills. 

SUPPLIES:

• paper
• glue
• crayons (optional)
• scissors
• pattern blocks or pattern shapes printed off of your computer (you can make the shapes in a Word document and print them out)

ACTIVITY
Have your child trace the pattern block pieces onto a paper and then cut them out. If you don't have pattern block pieces, just create some shapes in Word and print them out. If your child isn't able to trace and cut, do this for your child beforehand.

Have your child take the pieces and create a picture. Older children can use their creativity. For younger children, you will likely need to give direction (like, let's make a cat with these shapes).

Have your child glue the pieces in place and use crayons to add some details to make the picture if desired.