Valentine Math

Occasionally I will take time to share with you a blog or website that I feel every preschool teacher should use as a resource.  There are so many awesome people out there working to help all of us get through out tough days by sharing wonderful activities and ideas that they do in their classrooms.  Today we'll be using some activities from PreKinders website. I love this site and know you will too.

Since it is Valentine week we continue our theme and use candy hearts for math experiences.  There are so many ways to use candy hearts for sorting, graphing and counting and children get more excited about math when candy is involved.  Whatever it takes!

I love this candy heart sort and count activity.  You can get the free printable at PreKinders Valentine Math page.  She has many different printables that you can use with candy hearts. Check them out!

Whenever I expect the children to write numbers I like to write a simple number line because this helps them as they decide how they will form the letter and it also helps if they are not sure what the number should look like.  They can count from one and find the answer themselves.

Below is another candy heart math activity in which the hearts are graphed and we are able to see what color we have more/less of.  You can have the children color the graph in but I find that time consuming and have them just run a crayon of the same color down the side of the hearts so parents can see (the candy will be long gone when the paper goes home) how many of each were graphed and counted. 

I often make my own graphing sheets and printables but it is wonderful having a great site like PreKinders when I am not on the ball.  Make sure and check it out! Happy weekend everyone!

Heart Art (DAP)

Art in the classroom does not mean showing the children a pattern and having them follow it to make a duplicate of the teachers (although there are times when teachers do this as a means to an end like I did with the valentine mail truck).

Art is children taking materials provided and using their imagination to create something that means something to them.  Some children are really good at this but others who have not been given the freedom to explore art materials and different creative processes often have difficulty because they aren't sure if they are going to do it right.  Through art, children learn to solve their own problems rather than relying on the teacher to do it for them.  Art in the preschool classroom is all about the process rather than the finished product.  There is no right or wrong, good or bad, messy or neat.  It should just be fun exploration.

I always have many items on my art shelf for the children to explore but I frequently add items to encourage color recognition, color blending, shape recognition, size or texture exploration.  You can add something new to an art area almost every day because the options are almost limitless. 

Since it is Valentine week I added hearts of different shapes, sizes and colors (I only used white, black and red this time) and wiggly eyes. We read the book The Biggest Valentine Ever in which two little mice make a valentine card for their teacher.  The Valentine was made using hearts and the hearts are put together to resemble a mouse.  This is a cute book and a great segue into the children thinking about other animals they can make with hearts.  I made a panda bear using black and white hearts and showed that to them also. Although they were not expected to make either a mouse or a panda bear, seeing something like that starts getting their creative juices flowing.  They were excited to get started and below are a few of the animals we ended up with.

The children went right to work and each had their own ideas.  The above are only a few of the wonderful little animals they created.  One little girl carried her heart puppy around throughout the morning.  Children take pride in their work and they like to use their imagination.  This is a very easy project with great payoff for very little input from the teacher.

Mail Truck Valentine Holder

Every year my class makes this cute mail truck valentine holder for all their valentines and candy.  I've been using it so long that I no longer remember where the original pattern came from.  It's possibly Mailbox Magazine but I'm not sure.  If you know where it came from and are able to send me a link then I'll give credit where credit is due... until then, on to the post.

First you need 12x18 white construction paper.  Fold it in half and and cut a notch out for the front of the truck.  Staple the sides so that you now have a large pouch.  You could glue the sides but I find that the staples really help when the mailtruck is bursting at the seams with candy and cards.

Next, the children can glue on ( I like glue sticks for this) a 4x12 strip of red paper.

On top of the red paper glue a 3x12 strip of blue paper.  This gives your mailtruck it's stripes.

Next add your wheels.  These can be any size.  I give the children different size black circles for this and some of our mailtrucks become monster trucks while others eek along on little tiny tires.  I'm always curious to see what they choose.

Now the mailtruck is ready to be decorated.  Of course we use hearts for this auspicious occasion.  Some of the trucks get real fancy and almost flowery with all the hearts while others don just use a few.  I freehand cutting the hearts because it doesn't matter what they look like or how big they are. I do use at least 3 or 4 different valentine colors.

I have the children write their names and U. S. Mail and then the trucks are ready to be filled with goodies.  After all the valentines are delivered I put a few staples in the top and it's a nice little package to go home and be opened in front of Mom and Dad.

What do you use for Valentine collection?

Fingerpaint Fun

I'm not sure it can be called fingerpainting when it usually involves whole hands and arms up to the elbows.  Well, no matter what you call it, it is a lot of fun! But why do we do it? Is there any learning going on while fingerpainting?  The answer... of course there is, especially if you help it out a little.

I started with 2 colors, red and blue and the children quickly spread the mixture together to see what those two colors made.  I also added heart shaped cookie cutters and encouraged the children to make heart prints since we are talking about Valentines this week.

Heart art is also beautiful and the children love it regardless of the medium.

Making designs in the paint is fun and very relaxing.  They can quietly run their fingers through the paint, feel it ooze between their little fingers, and luxuriate in the cool smooth sensation.  

Other than enjoying the sensory input what did we learn from this activity?

• You can mix 2 colors to make a third color
• Blue and red make purple
• Fine motors were used while trying to lift the cookie cutter which suctioned to the paint
• A cookie cutter can make a thin or thick line (turn cookie cutter upside down and use the top to make a thicker shape)
• Fingerpaint is thick and does not pour like easel paint (tempera)
• Fingerpainting encourages language as children try to describe how the paint feels
• Children count the hearts they stamp on the paper
• Children use self help skills by cleaning the paint off of their hands and arms by themselves (of course I had to scrub a purple sink and soap dispenser when the project was done)

Extensions:

• Use different sized cookie cutters to encourage size exploration