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.

Rainbow Water Beads {fun & fail}

A few days ago, my son & I made up a tray of rainbow water beads to play in. Since I only had clear water beads, we attempt to color them - which was met with some success & some failure - but lots of fun too!

First, we tried coloring the beads with Kool-Aid (see our other Kool-Aid endeavors) - the idea of scented & colored water beads was enticing, but didn't work out... We tried to soak a teaspoon of clear water beads in water with two packs of lime Kool-Aid. We ended up with just slightly hydrated, sticky little green orbs ...

They never did get any larger than this... so we threw them out. With an older child... this might have been a great intro into a fun science experiment with the water beads (i.e. what happens to the water beads when we use different liquids to hydrate?) I'm pretty curious myself... so I might just do the experiment with my 3 year old anyway...

Instead of Kool-Aid, we resorted to traditional food coloring gels, hot water and ziplock bags. We hydrated a tablespoon of beads with several cups of water & a generous addition of food coloring for several hours. Then, I rinsed the beads in a colander before pouring them into our pan for play.  Initially they looked beautiful....

And my son had a great time playing in them....

But after a day or two, the colors faded and the whole bin was a drab shade of greenish-grey...

The moral of the story is... if you want rainbow water beads, buy the rainbow water beads that are already colored...  even though our colors faded, the beads were still quite fun!

Another Rainbow Bin {Alphabet Pasta}

All of the amazing rainbow inspired crafts & sensory bin activities that are popping up over on Pinterest have really given me spring fever! Unfortunately, winter has other ideas... primarily that he's never leaving & spring will never arrive!

Yesterday, while waiting for the snow to melt on yet another snowday, I made these fun rainbow alphabets for our sensory bin.

I love using Kool-aid for dyeing things (check out this recent post for more Kool-aid fun!) It always smells so yummy and the colors always come out beautiful. I used pretty much the same recipe and process that I used for dying the beans a couple of weeks ago.

Here's what you'll need:
6 boxes of alphabet pasta (my boxes were 12 oz each)
2 packs of Kool-aid for each box of pasta you intend to dye
extra food coloring for more vivid colors
1/8 c. rubbing alcohol per box of pasta
1/8 c. of very hot water per box.
Large Zipock baggies

How to:
1. Pour hot water, alcohol, Kool-aid & extra food coloring into baggie. Seal & shake until Kool-aid is dissolved.
2. Add pasta to colored liquid, seal & shake until coated. Only leave the pasta sit in the liquid for a short time -- less than 5 minutes preferrably as the tiny pasta begins to soften quickly & will start to stick together easily.
3. Pour pasta out on cookie sheet to dry. Allow to air dry for several hours stirring frequently to prevent pasta from sticking together.

We put ours in the oven to dry the rest of the way over night - CAUTION: Do not put pasta directly into oven, as the rubbing alcohol is very flammable!

It didn't seem to take very long to dry, but we did get some pasta clumps because I didn't stir frequently enough during the drying. I imagine if I did less pasta at a time, this clumping problem wouldn't have been as bad. When making sensory bin materials, I'm always making large quantities so that I can take them to school for my students when my son is finished exploring them... so a cup of each color just won't cut it around here! 

Here's the lovely alphabet bin that I made with the finished pasta. It reminds me of fruity pebbles in both look & smell.

I think that we'll pair this bin with Dr. Seuss's ABC book or Chicka Chicka Boom Boom sometime in the coming weeks!

Green Eggs, Rainbow Beans & other colorful stuff {Peek @ the Week}

Life has been crazy lately & I haven't had nearly enough time to write about all of the exciting happenings in the classroom & at home. Here a just a few of the things that we've been up to!

Last week, we made Green Eggs to go with Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham." They look gross, but really tasted fine. Surprisingly, my student's all liked them!

My son has been enjoying the Rainbow Bean bin that I wrote about last week... here he is playing with them! He had fun mixing all the colors together. Now they remind me of jelly beans -- perfect for Easter!

Something else that we've been playing with lots lately has been our homemade light box. I had to fix it up a bit last weekend because some of the paint was coming off of the inside - I'm working on details about how we made our inexpensive version! We found these fun drink stirrers at the grocery store a while back and they look awesome with the light coming through!

Here are some of the other items that my son likes to use on the light table:

What kinds of colorful spring activities have you been up to with your little ones?

Rainbow Beans {How To}

I want to start off by saying that I LOVE using kool-aid in my preschool classroom - but not for eating or drinking - only for arts and crafts. In the past, we've made kool-aid dough & paint and dyed silk scarves & noodles for play activities. I find the combination of their vivid colors and fruity smells to be a wonderful sensory addition to our activities. Now on to yesterday's shenanigans:

During yesterday's snowday, my son and I made a batch of Kool-Aid dyed beans for our sensory bin. I hadn't tried dying beans previously and it didn't actually occur to me that it would be all that different, so I didn't bother to research the idea at all... Overall it was a success, but after the fact, I realize that there may have been better methods.

We used the following items:

• 6 one pound bags of navy beans (I bet that any kind of white bean would work)
• 6-8 packs of Kook-Aid (one packet+ for each bag of beans)
• Food coloring 
• Rubbing Alcohol 
• Ziplock bags (use the freezer kind so they don't break!) 

1. We poured one packed of Kool-Aid into each bag (two for purple because I couldn't find grape Kool-Aid), a 'squirt' or two of food coloring (more for brighter beans, less for pastels), about 1 tablespoon of rubbing alcohol & 2 tablespoons of VERY hot water into each bag (my thought is that the hot water helps the Kool-Aid dissolve & the beans soak up the color more quickly). 
2. Seal bags and shake until Kool-Aid is dissolved, then pour 1 pound of beans in each bag. 
3. Reseal & shake again until beans are coated. 
4. We left the beans sit for about 15 minutes, shaking/rotating the bag periodically. 

We did one color at a time - I suggest starting with yellow because it seemed to take the longest to soak in.

The beans almost immediately started soaking up the solution & the skins started to wrinkle a bit - that's when we poured them out onto a cookie sheet covered with paper towels & tinfoil (to minimize cleanup). My thoughts were to stop soaking he beans before the skins totally came off.

I let them sit out in the kitchen for an hour or two so that most of the alcohol could evaporate, then I preheated my oven to 175 degrees and turned it off. Then I put the trays of beans in the oven overnight. CAUTION: do not put the beans directly in the oven because the rubbing alcohol is VERY flammable!

In the morning, they were still a bit damp, so I carefully took the paper towels out from under them, reheated the oven to 175 and let them 'bake' in a warm oven for a couple of hours to fully dry them.

The colors came out somewhere between pastes & brights -- and the coloring was a bit uneven. The wrinkly skins dried back out smooth and they have a nice light fruity scent. Next time, I 'll add more Kool-Aid packs per pound of beans -- maybe 2-3 packs to make the scents & colors more vivid.

Overall, I'm pleased with them and my three-year-old is begging to play with them!  I think we'll play with them at home for a while, then I'll take them to preschool next week for St. Patrick's Day rainbow activities or Jack and the Beanstalk story extension activities this spring!

Valentine's Wrap-Up

Since last week's Valentine's activities were put on hold as a result of the snowy weather, we will likely finish up hearts, friends and love themes next week.

Here are a few of the activities that we've been enjoying (when we aren't home for a snowday!)

Valentine's Themed sensory bin - Both the girls and the boys LOVE this bin, containing metallic red 'grass,' purple, white, pink and red pompoms, plastic jewels, heart boxes, silicone candy mold, tongs, foam heart table scatter, red buckets and plastic heart shaped filler. Some kids just like to explore the contents, other like to collect certain items and some kids like to bring it to the kitchen area for a tea party!

Light play with hearts - We've continued exploring different materials on the old overhead projector that I dug out for my classroom. I found these heart shaped translucent bracelets and 'links' in the seasonal aisle at a local big box store - the heart shaped jewels are from the dollar store. We talked about size and spatial vocabulary, colors and counting while playing with the hearts. Now that we've had some more experience with light play, the kids are starting to participate more, ask questions and engage with the concept more than when we first introduced it.

Heart Traywork Activities - Here's one of the activities from my printable hearts pack... and our fine motor gloves in use to help my students work on pinching the clips to open them.

Sometime next week, we'll have our Friendship party, exchange valentines & treats and finish up the activities that I already had planned (for last week) ... then, we'll be ready to move onto Dr. Seuss!!

I'm back!! {Five for Friday}

I've been away for far too long... but, I'm back! I can only hope that a rough ending to 2013 and rocky beginning to 2014 means that the rest of the year will go smoothly...

Just to catch everyone up on what I've been up to at home & in my classroom... here's a Five for Friday...

1. Gingerbread Man! Before holiday break, we read The Gingerbread Man and did lots of gingerbread inspired activities. One of my favorite activities from our Gingerbread unit was making and playing with these giant chalkboard gingerbread men:

They're made from thick cardboard, masking tape around the edges and painted with homemade brown chalkboard paint. I added some ginger, cloves, cinnamon & nutmeg to the paint for the final coat of paint to add a little gingerbread scent.

2. Snow Sensory Bin - this has been one of the longest living sensory trays out our house! Seems that my toddler preschooler doesn't tire of it and my 8 year old stepdaughter loved it too! When everyone tires of it, I plan to add vinegar in spray bottles and droppers for continued fun & experimentation!

It's a pretty simple recipe: baking soda, hair conditioner, buffalo snow. We used a couple of cups of baking soda, about half as much hair conditioner and a couple of cups of shimmery buffalo snow.

And we've since added other items to the tray for playing... currently it's filled with little construction trucks from Christmas!

3. Maryland Science Center - This year, instead of tons of useless toys for my 3 year old, we put his Christmas gift money towards a membership to the Maryland Science Center so that we can enjoy weekend activities all year long! I've decided that memberships are really the way to go, usually only 2 visits makes it economical for a family of 3+... here are a few pictures from our first visit of the year...

4. Looks who's Three! My toddler just turned three last week. I love watching him grow and learn every day... I just cannot believe that he's growing up so fast!

5. Back to school & mother nature - the 2014 school year has been off to a shaky start... we've had several snowdays & 2 hour delays that have interfered with getting back to the normal routine. Not that I'm complaining about a few extra hours of sleep ... but looking forward to getting back into the groove.

{snow}

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we've officially moved on to "Winter" themed activities in my classroom. I currently work at a school that does not really celebrate any holidays; our mantra is something like 'educate don't celebrate' ...  so this season can be a bit challenging!

Although we don't have any snow (yet), we've moved on to books about snowmen, snow, hot chocolate and other wintery themes. This week might be uncharacteristically warm, but next week they're calling for snow!

Here's our new sensory bin for the week- Snowballs Bin! containing cotton balls, a bag of glittery decorative balls from the craft store, plastic snowflakes, tongs, scoops, pots, pans, bowls and spoons!

 A few new fine motor trays - one for using tongs and one specifically focused for pincer grasp. Both contain simple items: various size pompoms (some sparkly), ice tray, empty oatmeal container and tongs. We also use both of these trays to practice reaching across mid-line by strategically placing the bowl and the tray/canister so that the students much reach as far across mid-line as possible -- then we switch placement, so that they must reach with the other hand across the other side.... my students HATE when I do this... so we only do it for a designated period of time, then I allow them to complete the remainder of the activity however they choose!

And this afternoon's craft activity - make-a-snowman gluing activity... contents included simple pre-cut shapes for mittens, stick arms, hats, boots, buttons, scarves, mouth, nose and eye stickers. The snowmen were cut from watercolored paper from earlier in the day - we painted with liquid watercolors using turquoise, blue and sliver paint and sprinkled salt over the wet paint for a 'snowflake' effect!

I think that our snowmen turned out great! There's more winter fun to come! What have you been up to?

Cranberry Sensory Play...

I picked up a few bags of cranberries on sale the the other day at the store and wasn't all that sure what I was going to do with them. Aside from cooking them up into some yummy dishes, I was thinking I'd take them to school for the kids to play with for a bit. In my mind, I had planned a counting activity where they'd count them into numbered cups and a fine motor activity where they'd push them onto skewers... but only one of those ideas actually happened... here's how it went....

I did get a counting tray set up. Simple, but new and interesting counting materials. The kids enjoyed this tray and the cranberries... We simply counted them into numbered plastic cups.

When I went to set up my fine motor tray with the skewers, I realized that I left them sitting at home on the counter!! Ugh! So no skewers -- maybe next week.

Then, my students were so interested in the cranberries we started playing with and examining them... we poured them into a large plastic container and added water to the mix. It was a great opportunity to talk about the concepts 'sink' and 'float.' We added a few items from the kitchen to scoop, fill, sort and move the cranberries between...

Then I remembered that I had purchased turkey basters from a discount store a few weeks back, so I pulled those out to add to the water play... and we ended up with a great Thanksgiving Sensory Bin of cranberries, water and kitchen items!

This sensory bin has been hours of fun for my students!

 

This was great out of the ordinary Thanksgiving fun...

Peek @ the Week

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to post the last two weeks... here's a quick peek at what we've been up to this week!

We've been reading books about food, fall and family in preparation for Thanksgiving! Here's our bookshelf this week:

We've focused heavily on the books "Feast for 10" by Cathryn Falwell and "Today is Monday" by Eric Carle.

We're working on a take home book based on "Feast for 10" .... here's our artwork so far - 2 pumpkins, 3 chickens, 6 bunches of greens and 7 pickles... 

Our sensory bin the week has a variety of beans, play food, pots, pans, funnels, spoons etc.

Here's one of our morning work activities - bean sorting.

I introduced some light play using an overhead projector with a handful of translucent plastic leaves, leaf shaped sequins (table scatter decor from the craft store) and plastic letter tiles.

And we learned about letter 'L' for leaves since the leaves are still turning colors and falling - Here's our Rainbow writing letter 'L' with smashed up leaves sprinkled over glue. Simple but fun!

That's all for now... what are you up to this week?