watercolor + rubber stamps = happy

I'm sure that this has been done before - although it's the first time I've tried it.  I was looking around the classroom today, trying to find something to put out with watercolors at the art table when I came across a basket of rubber stamps.  The littles thought the idea was genius.  (Gotta love those littles for my daily ego boost.)  We simply brushed watercolor on the stamp and pressed it on the paper.  A few tried using a light wash of color on the paper first.  It seemed to work best when the watercolors weren't too wet.

cutting up calendars

I'm just beginning the process of lightening my load.  And you know what?  It feels pretty good.  We are moving into a much smaller home, forcing me to abandon my pack-rat ways and discard many of my treasures and trinkets.  I am a sentimental saver and did not go into this with a light heart.  However, my head was eventually able to convince my heart that I do not need to hold on to so many of my daughter's old toys, every single piece of art work she has ever created, or a slew of other things that live in boxes and seldom see the light of day.  My level-headed girl helped me go through the dizzying amount of memorabilia and save a few things.

One of the other things I'd been holding on to were pretty calendars.  The art work was lovely but I own a lot of beautiful art books and really don't want to proudly display a bunch of old calendars in my bookcase.  And so I spent an evening cutting some of the calendars into free form hearts.  I brought the hearts to school today and the littles were enchanted with the gorgeous colors. (That's one of the things I love about preschool.  Some simple paper hearts are just as likely to hold a child's attention as something from the toy store.)  I put the hearts out on the art table with glue and heart doilies and let them play with patterns (or not) and create some valentines. It was interesting to watch certain children sorting through the hearts as they would puzzle pieces, looking for the pictures or colors that went together.  When the children were satisfied with their heart placement, they added their photographs and the words Happy Valentines Day and we called it a day.

I wonder what else I can re-purpose rather than pack?

Being a preschool teacher

Being a preschool teacher means
Understanding that tears don't always mean that someone is hurt
Tears can mean I need some extra attention today
I didn't get enough sleep last night
I don't feel well
I miss my mom
I'm frustrated
Tears can come quickly and be gone in a flash
Tears can linger all day long
Coming in short bursts at a moment's notice
Being a preschool teacher means
Listening to the tears
Rather than blocking them out
Rather than accepting them as part of the background noise
Being a preschool teacher means
Remembering when your own feelings were so close to the surface

sweet & simple

I have a bad head cold this week and I'm also in the beginning stages of packing up my house to move across town, so --------- I needed something super simple that I could do with materials at hand.  No time to search through my stash or run to the store for something that I just packed up in a box.  I gave the littles watercolor paper and liquid watercolors and let them go.  On Day 2, we cut hearts from the watercolors and the littles outlined each heart with a black Sharpie and dictated "I love ..." There is something about less is more that I love.

drum circle

My daughter likes to attend a drum circle that they have in a park near our home and I thought I'd like to try a drum circle with the littles.  I've been collecting various types of drums from garage sales and thrift stores but I still don't have enough for each of the children in my class -  so this week we made coffee can drums. We used colored masking tape and stickers to decorate them.  I found a DVD to introduce the concept of drum circles before we began.  It's called The Drum Along Drum Circle Video.

Goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo . . .

I have that Raffi song stuck in my head today.  Wonder why? :)

Today we drew zoo animals with Sharpie markers and colored them in with watercolor paints.  After they dried we cut them out and mounted them on styrofoam meat trays (thank you Publix!).  The littles were pretty pleased with how these turned out and I was amazed by how much attention they paid to detail.  I love this point in the year when you can see so much change.

Messy Monday

I love when things that seem so simple to adults and older children seem like magic to 3 and 4 year olds. Today we experimented with white paint.  Each child got one hand painted white and then got to choose  a color for the other hand.  When hands rubbed together the magic began - lovely pastel shades of pink and baby blue, lavender, and pale orange.  One of my littles is just learning to speak English.  He doesn't often hang out in the art area but today he smiled up at me and said, "Again!  Again!"  Ahhh - - - every Monday needs a little magic.