Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

In my preschool classes, we have been reading the book," If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." I have been feeling under the weather for the last week or so, that is why there is not step by step instructions. But I think most activities are self explanatory. First, we made mouse ears to wear. Then we made mouse puppets with white paper bags. This is a students mouse, that is why the eye is not in the normal place. We also painted triangles and decorated the triangles to be mice. Instead of triangles, you can turn the letter "M" into a mouse. You could also paint the letter"C" for cookie. Paint the "C" a light brown and add dark brown circles for chocolate chips. I also made some fake cookies out of construction paper. Hid them around the room and had the kids pretend they were mice trying to find the cookies. Tomorrow for snack, we are going to decorate sugar cookies.

We are continuing to learn about bears in my pre -school class. Today my toddlers worked on these coffee bears. I have seen this idea in several places, but it worked so well I thought I would share it. We used: A bear coloring sheet , glue mixed with some water, paint brush, coffee,a small pom-pom, and wiggly eyes. Paint the coloring sheet with the glue mixture and while still wet, sprinkle on the coffee. Shake off access. Then glue on eyes and pom-pom for the nose. This was fun and made the room smell so good.

In my 2's class we are talking about bears We read, "Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear ?" and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" For our polar bear projects we glued cotton balls on to a polar bear coloring sheet. And did a great project by DLTK, a polar bear made from circles. For "Brown Bear, Brown Bear," the kids painted the letter "B" and glued on shaped to turn it in to a bear.

In my 2 year old class we continued working on , " The Hat " be Jan Brett We made the stocking that go stuck on the hedgehog and the horse that was in the book. The kids painted red on a white piece of paper. After it dried, I cut it into the shape of a stocking. Then we took a poinsettia stamp and decorated the stocking. We also made horses from the kids traced shoe foot print. We used brown construction paper, yarn, wiggly eyes, and glue. Trace foot with the shoes on and trace the arm for the neck. And cut triangles for the ears. Glue together the neck and head. Draw on nostril holes. Glue on ears, mane and eyes.

In my Toddler's class we read,"The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Because these kids are so young, they need to do very simple projects. Here are some ideas we did. I cut out mitten shapes from paper and they decorated them with buttons and large sequence. Pom-poms would also work nicely. I put some shaving cream on some paper to look like snow and let the kids finger paint with it. Some really love this, and other do not like to get their hands messy, but it is always fun to watch their reaction. The kids painted white on a black piece of paper. The little ones love to paint. After the paint dried, I cut the paper into the shape of mittens. Some large and some small, depending on the amount they painted. We did not make this this year, but I thought this project would also work with this book. I painted the mittens and made their hand prints inside the mittens.

Today at preschool today we read "The Hat" by Jan Brett. On Jan Brett website site you can get these great printouts to make puppets. Then we made these hedgehogs. We cut paper plates in half and glued on brown spikes from brown construction paper. Glued on an eye and a pom-pom for a nose. The kids loved making these. I have another project to go along with this book. I will try to post it on Thursday.

Here is an easy project to go along with the song Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the Water Spout. We used: Construction paper, glue, crayons or marker, a drinking straw and a plastic spider. Have your child draw a picture of a house. Glue on the straw for the spout and then glue on the spider.

Today, Cheyanne and I were talking about things that live in tall grass, I thought it would be fun to do a craft to go along with it. You could also use this idea to talk about what lives in a pond. We used: 2 pieces of construction paper (white and green), markers, scissors, and stapler (or glue). I also happened to have matching foam pieces, but they are not needed. On the white paper, draw things that live in the grass. Then cut the green paper to look like grass. Cut triangle shapes from the top to about a 1/2 inch from the bottom. Staple or glue the grass to the bottom of the picture. Now peak behind the grass to see who is there.