Peeps Play: Easter Sensory Bin

We made a stop at Dunkin' Donuts recently & my son saw those donuts with the Peeps on top. He insisted that he just HAD to have one... I caved & his new obsession with Peeps began. Here's the infamous donut before he gobbled it up... all except for the Peep!

The first time (hey, don't judge!) he had this donut, he ate the Peep then freaked out because he ate it - thanks Dunkin'! A few days later, we got another one of these ridiculously sugary confections & my son promptly took the Peep off & set it aside. He carried that little marshmallow bird around all day. Things started to stick to it. It was a little lopsided from being smooshed a few too many times. Then he started to dry out... I eventually threw it away - two days later! 

This is how the idea for our Peeps Sensory Bin was born...

I got out the Kool-Aid beans from a few weeks ago, added a pack of plastic Easter Eggs, some jelly beans that we played with yesterday, a handful of green plastic grass, and some bowls & spoons. Oh, and of course - a few beloved Peeps!

My son enjoyed filling & emptying the eggs. We compared the sounds of eggs filled with dried beans, jelly beans, plastic grass & squishy Peeps. Then he ran to the bathroom to get his boat -- for the Peep to drive:

He made a Peep nest -- complete with jelly bean eggs. "Shhh, Mama! The eggs is sleeping"

Then he went right on to make Peeps soup!

I'm glad he's not so fond of eating the Peeps for now... that's less of a sugar high that I have to deal with! He did, however, figure out that the jelly beans are yummy to eat, not just sensory bin filler.

{Gobble, Gobble, Gobble}

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I've had turkeys on the brain lately. This weekend my toddler and I made some turkeys from pine cones - well I mainly made them, but my son enjoyed playing with them.

Here's the process... my pictures are not super organized, but you get the idea...

As I said, I did most of the crafting with this one, but my three year old did enjoy playing with them afterwards.

And, at preschool, we made these play-doh turkeys today...

They were a huge hit even though I didn't have all the 'right' items - like brown play-doh. The kids didn't seem to mind that our turkeys were yellow. What kind of turkey crafts have you been busy with?

Bugs, Birds & Frogs...

It's been a long time since my last post! Balancing work, family and all the other things has been too much lately. Here's a recap of what' we've been doing in preschool over the last 6 weeks or so!

We started with a month long focus on birds... the kids loved this topic and constantly came back to it every time we tried to introduce new materials to spark interest in other topics! We made bird feeders from toilet paper rolls -- here's how we did it:

spread peanut butter (or NoNutButter in this case)

Roll in birdseed

Add holes and string to hang!

We played in a birdseed sensory bin! The kids loved this bin and couldn't get enough of it. When we were finally finished with it, we threw the birdseed outside of our classroom windows and we attracted quite an array of bird species!

Bird Seed Sensory Bin

Bird Seed Bin

We painted bird feeders:

I introduced the book "Over in the Meadow" by Ezra Jack Keats

Here's the bulletin board that we made to go with our counting story:

... which opened up interest to other creatures including bugs and small animals! We took a field trip to the science museum and got to see many bugs up close - so cool!

We followed up with a variety of activities about bugs and spiders. Here are pictures of some of the 'insect-like' creatures my students made from playdoh.

We ended the year with pond/frog activities.. The pond sensory bin, with bugs, lily pads, blue & green flat glass stones, dragonflies and a variety of funnels and contains for scooping and pouring was a hit.

This summer, I'm preparing for a month long unit on Dinosaurs! So excited to do this unit because it never seems to fit into the regular school year and I think that the kids will really enjoy such a fun topic!