I'm on Spring Break . . .

... and I should be doing this:

but instead I find myself occupied with this:

I am spending way too much time making these little glass tile necklaces.  I started off drawing/painting - branched off into looking through my sticker collection - discovered some of my vintage children's book art- and ended up spending an entire day involved in this!  I know that I'm procrastinating but I can't help myself.  Maybe today I'll get some packing done . . . but the beach is calling my name :)

where do leprechauns live???

Perhaps they live in glittery fantastic toadstool houses?

We cut toadstools from tagboard.  Watercolors were available to paint the houses.  The next day we added doors, windows, chimneys, and other details with construction paper and markers.  Glitter and glue gave the houses that extra something that is pleasing to both leprechauns and preschoolers alike.  

The leprechauns are drawn with crayon.  

St. Patrick's Day Trees

Filling trees with all things green (and a little gold thrown in for good measure)  to celebrate St. Pat's Day.
A sheet of Con-tact paper secures the tree and it's decorations nicely with no glue needed.

Printing with Big Foam Letters

I found a foam alphabet puzzle mat in the back of my closet & we've been having fun with it.  I distributed a letter to each child and then played several alphabet songs.  As each child hears the letter that he's holding, he stands up and dances around.  This week, we used the letters for a printing project.  Once the letters were dry, the children were invited to find stickers, photos of themselves, and magazine pictures to make a name collage.

rain sticks

marker designs on cardboard tubes
end taped with duct tape - beans/pasta poured into tube - other end taped
shake, shake, shake

Story Basket

I found these cute and inexpensive wooden shapes at JoAnn Fabric.  I'm using them in my classroom as story elements for the children's dictated stories.  On Day 1, I have the basket out during center time for the children to explore on their own.  On Day 2, I sit with the basket and invite one child at a time to sit with me and choose some of the shapes to tell a story about.  I write their dictated stories and then type them up and bring them back for the children to illustrate.  For some of the children the shapes help them focus and their stories come more easily.  I also have fewer re-tellings of cartoon and/or Disney movies :)

straw painting

Pre-cut umbrella
liquid watercolors
eye dropper
plastic straws

I always love the way these watercolor paintings turn out.  Some of the littles like to apply just a bit of paint with the dropper and some like to apply a whole lot!  Once the puddle of paint is on the paper,  the children use a clean straw to blow the paint around the paper.  We added dictation on raindrops as each little told us what he/she likes to do on a rainy day.