spring
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Earth Day Round Up
If you are still planning your Earth Day lesson plans, or if you’re searching for activities to make the exploration last all week long, here are some of my past posts to inspire you! Quotes for Earth Day Earth Day Science Activities Earth Day Super Hero Masks Earth Day Graphing Freebie Make sure to check back tomorrow for another great freebie!
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Practicing Conservation in Preschool
Conservation can be an abstract concept for preschoolers, they haven’t had a lot of experience with the world around them, and it can be difficult to understand why they might need to save water or electricity. There are some things that you can work on in the classroom to help children understand conservation practices and why they are important. Save paper scraps in a basket for children to use for cutting or collage projects Turn off the lights when you leave the room, or leave the lights of during certain parts of the day and enjoy natural lighting Use dry erase boards instead of printer paper Set up recycling bins…
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Earth Day Recyclable Art
Earth day is on Saturday and I am full of ideas for exploring conservation and natural resources! Today I wanted to share an opportunity for open-ended recyclable art. Earth day is all about re-using materials instead of throwing them away, and using recyclables as materials for art is great way to encourage children to look at common objects in new ways and flex their imaginations. It’s also a fun way to explore three dimensional art since recyclables lend themselves to sculpture. The key to open-ended art is to make sure that the children have all of the materials that they could need, and let them use them in any way…
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Friday Freebie – Spring Opposites
Happy Friday! I may have been quiet here this week but I have certainly been busy, and I’m so excited to share some fun new stuff with you! This freebie is perfect for Spring – Help your students practice their opposites with this Spring Opposites Cookie Sheet Activity from File Folder Heaven. I love these activities, they are loo prep and can be used over and over. Go download yours and have a wonderful weekend!
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Ideas for gardening with young children
Young children desperately want to help with everything, and gardening looks like so much fun because you get to dig in the dirt and get your hands dirty. Gardening together is a great way to teach responsibility, and to help children learn where their food comes from, plus, children are a lot more likely to try new foods when they’ve had a hand in growing them. There are a lot of things that children can help with in the garden, starting with choosing the plants. Ask children what kind of plants they would like to grow. Encourage them to think about the kinds of vegetables that they like to…
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Exploring the Outdoors with Preschoolers
Children are naturally curious about the outdoors, and spring is the perfect time to take advantage of their natural curiosity. The weather is beautiful, new plants are growing, bugs are crawling (and flying) all over the place! Spending time exploring outside is also a great way to meet some Science and Inquiry standards. Encourage children to explore by introducing a few fun tools that they can use. Great science tools for the outdoors include: Magnifying glasses Bug jars Binoculars Small scoops or shovels If your students need some guidance, or you want to encourage more focused exploration, here are some great ideas: Collect soil samples from different areas (or have…
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Friday Freebie – Bug Observations
Happy Friday! This is my one and only day off for Spring Break, in fact my only day off until Memorial day, so I am cherishing it! I have big plans for my day off, I’m road-tripping to the outlet mall to do some spring shopping, but before I head out I have a really cute freebie to share with you. When it comes to spring, there is one thing that preschoolers love – playing outside. With every group of children I’ve ever worked with, they’ve always been drawn to bugs. They love to find them, watch them, catch them, try to pick them up, you name it. This Bug…
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Preschool Printables for Easter
Can you believe that it’s almost Easter? I know it’s early this year, but it makes it feel like spring is flying by! I have a ton of great Easter activities to share with you. These would be perfect for the last couple of days before Easter at school, or for the kiddos at your family celebration to do. One of my all-time favorite printables is Fill the Easter Basket. It includes 4 Easter basket mats, each of which has it’s own list of items for children to put in the basket. Children have to look at the pictures in the list, find the objects in a group of Easter-related…
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Spring art project
I found the idea for this extraordinary art project at De tout et de rien (talk about seriously amazing ideas for children!) Occasionally I come across a project that I want to do as much as my students do. They love it when I join in. We started this particular piece of art by making rainbows on 12″x12″ sheets of cardstock with oil pastels. Now I know that I’ve used oil pastels with my class before, but for some reason they were absolutely amazed with them this time around. This could be because I was smudging them into my paper too. Their rainbows were works of art, seriously, they looked so…
