Cleaning Coins

Today I did quick research on what to do with the kids and took an activity out of my The Preschoolers Busy Book (ages 3 to 6 version), by Trish Kuffner. You put dish soap and water in a bowl and give each child coins to scrub with a tooth brush. I put their bowl on a towel lessens spills that go onto the floor. I thought this would get old quickly so I figured we could name the coins and sort the coins into piles of each type. We did do this, but it was after about 20 minutes of scrubbing the coins and I am not even sure they were done when I had them dry their coins off. I am always amazed at what simple task can entertain kids.
M had the idea to use ketchup, which they apparently used in kindergarten. We tried it also. It seemed to clean the coins a bit better, but was messier. The kids really preferred the soapy water anyway, so I gave everyone clean bowls and they cleaned their coins again.

Snowmen

Today we built snowmen out of marshmellows. I put 3 large marshmellows in a bowl with 2 pretzels for each child. They got to create their snowman from my example and then eat it. While they were eating it I read Hello, Snow, By Hope Vestergaard and Under My Hood I Have a Hat, by Karla Kuskin. S just kept licking his marshmellow apparently liking the taste. M had his built lickety split as well as AP. AR didn't make an attempt she just ate her marshmellows. G took her time to make her snowman and then ate it. We counted to 26 on the calendar. The kids are now having free play with our play cars from the movie Cars, from McDonald's Happy Meals, like 2 years ago, but they seem to still hold the kids interest. Hopefully we will get to be outside in a few weeks. I would love to be building a real snowman with the kids.

Marshmellows and shaving cream

Today I had the kiddos in the morning. They are all having a great time in their PJ's After a couple of hours of peaceful free play, amazing, I gave them each a sheet of paper with the letter that their name started with. We looked at each letter and talked about whose name started with it. Then I gave them all a handful of mini marshmellows to lick and stick onto their letter tracing the line. They each got to eat the left overs. AR just ate hers right off the paper. Once we were finished with that I gave each child a squirt of shaving cream on the table and let them spread it all around on the table. They had a fantastic time. I think S enjoyed the feeling of it between his fingers. It was a great day.

Educational moment

Today while we were eating hot fudge sundaes, M was talking about President Obama beginning his duties for our country. They watched part of the ceremony at school, which is more then I did. But being the teacher that I am I seized the moment to read some stories. They were history lessons at a child's level, though they are longer books. I read, The Story of Ruby Bridges, by Robert Coles and A Picture Book Of Rosa Parks, by David A. Alder. They both deal with segragation and bring tears to my eyes at how couragous both main characters were. This is a little different then what I would normally post, but the books are great. I love a lesson that has been inspired by something my children are interested in prior to it. M has also had a lot to tell about Dr. Martin Luther King, since they read a story about him at school. He is mentioned in A Picture Book of Rosa Parks and M thought that was great. I love that I have a huge collection of books from prekids to pull from when I need them:0)

Ice skating in the house

Today I had the grand idea to ice skate indoors using wax paper. My three kids quickly lost interest, but G and S thought it was really fun. You give each kid 2 squares of wax paper and they just put them under their feet and glide. It works really well. It was so slippery that I almost fell on my butt. I think that AP just didn't like it, because she didn't have the patience to figure it out today. She had just a few meltdowns during the day today and has a major runny nose. Cold season. I also read the poem that I have put in this blog. The kids all seemed to enjoy that so we read it 2 times.

Winter Time Poem
by Mary Ryer

Icy fingers, icy toes,
Bright red cheeks and bright red nose.
Watch the snowflakes as they fall,
Try so hard to count them all.
Build a snowman way up high,
See if he can touch the sky.
Snow forts, snowballs, angels, too,
In the snow, so white and new.
Slip and slide and skate so fast.
Wintertime is here at last.

This website has tons of really great winter ideas for preschoolers

http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/preschool-winter.htm

Today we made paper plate snowmen. I use one large paper plate and one small paper plate. I attached the 2 plates for the kiddos since I thought that would be harder for them to do. I cut out hats. They glued them on. I had some fun foam shapes, they could choose to glue on anywhere they wish. I had an example up if they wanted to make it look like a snowman. We talked about the different shapes that were in our bowl to put on our snowmen. M said his had the chicken pox, I am guessing he got that from an Author book. I don't think he knows of anyone who has had the chicken pox, though he does know someone who had them just not that they had them, anyway enough with the babble. All the little ones then followed suit and made their snwmen have chicken pox. I now have 5 snowmen in my window that have the chicken pox:0)

Winter indoor games

Today I made some bean bags or pea bags. I used dry peas and put them in zip lock bags, taping them with box tape in the shape of a square. I put a piece of tape down on the carpet and put a hula hoop down a short distance away. I had the kids line up from youngest to oldest behind the tape. They each had many turns tossing the bean bags into the hula hoop. While this seems like a boring task to me, the kids loved it and wanted to do it over and over again. I put on a little music, Tom Pease to be exact. Next we played red light green light. I held up a red piece of paper when they were to stop and a green piece of paper when they were to go. Before we played I wrote the words stop and go on the papers and asked them what they thought the words were. G piped up her name since it starts with a G. I thought that was great. I told them what each word was then had them look at the word and repeat it to me. We played in many different ways. They had to run, skip, crawl like dogs, gallop, and finally I had them do the crab walk, which was fun to watch since only AP know how to do it. M and S really didn't want to play this game. We also played ring around the rosie, down in a box, and bringing home a baby bummble bee.
Finally we read a story about a wombat. First we talked about marsupials, how they have pockets and that they are night time animals or nocturnal. We read the story Diary of a Wombat, by Jackie French. M found great humor in this book. The wombat destroys some of his human neighbors things, not really realizing this of course. Another good book is Koala Lou, by Mem Fox, I read this to my kids after the other 2 left just because we had run out of time and M wanted to hear it.