Fall Scented painting

So for this activity I had cut out leaf shapes from cardboard and had the kid trace them on orange paper. I had then selected six different spices from our pantry and we made a glue, food coloring, spice mixture with them. He smelled all of the spices before hand and we talked about which ones he liked and which ones he did not like. The spices I chose were cinnamon, cumin, basil, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla and nutmeg. We also mixed food coloring in to make some fall colors. He then painted over the leafs he had traces and added veins to. He paused a lot to smell the spices as he was painting with them which I had hoped he would do. As the painting went on he began mixing the spices together and making new smells which I had expected and was glad that he did.

Mixing up the spices and glue with chopsticks

Drawing the veins on the leaves outline

Smelling the scents making sure he picks the right one!

In the end he was so happy painting and smelling that he wanted to make his own picture of a smelly monster. He started saying he was going to make his own tree with leaves but then after painting the branches he realized they looked more like scary arms and decided to create his monster. PERFECT timing for Halloween. A very fun activity!

Making a Star Wars Book

Since our super hero book was such a fun idea and he was really eager to do it I thought "Hey why not a Star Wars book?" knowing little boys as well a month later super heroes are no longer the obsession but not it is all about Star Wars!! As an avid "Hey you want to draw with me?" to his answer of "Sure!" followed by a one line scribble as he says "I'm going to go back and play now" He needed a little inspiration to get him to really think about what he is drawing. So based on his interests I thought this would be a great idea to really show his imagination in a way he was interested in doing. He eagerly sat down and got to work. I had printed some of his favorite characters from the movie by googling "Star Wars coloring book". Then I shrank the pictures and printed them out. Each character had their own page and their own part in the story EXCEPT for C3PO and R2D2 because everyone knows and I quote "They are always together talking". He was able to practice his writing skills and letter sound recognition as we worked together on what his story was about. Many characters face hard battles against the evil Darth Vader and General Grievous! It was a very fun time and now we have a book written by him to read whenever he wants. 

Some of what we learned:

-Letter recognition

-Sound practice

-Fine motor skills enhanced

-Enhanced vocabulary 

-Color recognition

-Recollect of characters uniform colors

Ice and Color Water tub - Mixing with pipettes

This was a pretty cool sensory tub experience. Using a small personal tub I filled it with ice and a small amount of water. I then added four different colors of water color. Using the pipettes he mixed the colors together and created new colors. He also enjoyed trying to stack the ice cubes and knocking them down by squirting water on them. What I thought was super cool about this tub was because of the ice it took the colors a long time to mix together, so it was not a sudden change from their solid color state to a brown like color like most times when you are mixing colors. This really gave him an idea of what different colors you can make by mixing as the colors did not mix too fast. Even when all the colors had spread out the ice still seemed to separate the colors enough to notice where each color met another. Watching the ice cubes slowly melt and the water level rise helped us comprehend the idea of solids vs liquids. Very simple and easy water tub!

Some of what we learned:

-Color recognition

-Color mixing

-Experimenting

-Fine motor skills enhanced

-Temperature recognition

-Comparing 

-Sense of volume

-Comprehension of solids vs liquids

Two different colors piped up from two different spots to compare the colors. 

Colors still separated from the ice. Making bubbles with the pipettes. 

Make Your Own Superhero book!

This kid is obsessed with super heroes so for June I decided to try my hand at a whole month of super hero activities. For this activity I thought we would make our own super hero book. What I did was I printed out some of his favorite super heroes. I then allowed him to create their own background or monster for the hero to fight. He would then tell me what was happening and I would write it down for him. Viola! Our own book to read together. This was actually really fun and turned out really cute. At first I thought it would take us a couple days and maybe he would draw a picture each day but once he saw the set up he wanted to finish the book right then and there.

binding the book pages together. Excellent fine motor skills!

Spiderman shooting his webs!

Water Mixing Tub

Using glass containers and pipettes I made a simple sensory tub with different colors of water. It was a perfect day to sit outside in the sun but not get too hot. A very simple idea but water tubs are always a favorite! I added blue water beads, a funnel, and some ice cubes to make the tub a little different. Loved seeing how the water beads would practically disappear when in the water.

Seeing how the water alters the ice!

Experimenting with squirting the water in through the top of the funnel.

Looking at the different layers of color and water beads. Very cool!

Mad Scientist Lab

Using a wide range of materials, tools and containers I made a mock science lab. Letting him explore the different textures of each item and see what happens when some of the items mix together.
I used shaving cream, baking soda, water, corn syrup, salt, flour, vegetable oil, vinegar and kool aide powder. I added spoons, pipettes, and a chopstick for mixing. It was a lot of fun and kept him occupied for an hour. He even said "This is more fun than fighting" which from a kid who constantly wants to play superheroes and bad guys is an amazing thing to hear!!

I had also added empty containers to mix concoctions in

I added green food coloring to the corn syrup, blue to the water and blue to the vinegar in the squirt bottle. 

The corn syrup was so fun as a green slime!

WHAT A FUN MESS!

Ice Tub

Living in Southern California it has been ridiculously hot out the last couple days. So what a perfect way to cool off with a new type of water tub.

I froze ice in different size containers over night. I used large yogurt containers, small yogurt containers, and to go containers from different restaurants. I used food coloring to dye them and I noticed that since I did not stir the food coloring in it made a deeper color on the bottom and on the top of the ice it was practically see through. It was a very cool coincidence it turned out looking so cool.

It was a lot of fun seeing which pieces could be stack on top of each other and which ones could not work. We talked about why we thought some did not work, the color we thought they would make when the melted and how would could break the ice into smaller pieces.

The only thing else I added was a spray bottle filled with warm water. It did not make a big enough difference to make the ice melt faster but it was a nice relief to spray on our hands when our hands were freezing from the ice.

When we were done playing with it we left it outside to keep track every hour on how fast the ice cubes were melting. We noticed the larger ice cubes melted the slowest compared to the smaller ice cubes. Also the end result of all the colors melted together as an awful green yellow color but it was a super fun to guess which color we thought it would turn out to be.

Trying to stack the different ice

Using ice as a tool to try and break open a larger ice

You can see the layers in the color

SCENTED PAINTING

Focusing on different kinds of sensory projects I decided painting with scents would be fun! and it turned out to even be a little bit funny watching the little dudes face when he smelled some smells he didn't quite like.

I mixed oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg with watercolor and glue to make a sort of thick paint. I thought of doing the seasonings with their natural color but decided it would be more fun making them different colors.

The activity turned out great and its fun to sort of make our own scratch and sniff papers when they dried!

5 Clean Squeaky Pigs Flannel Board Story

Great idea borrowed from Story Time Katie

5 Clean Pigs

Five pigs so squeaky clean

Cleanest you’ve ever seen

Wanted to go outside and play

Oink! Oink!

One jumped into the mud

Landed with a great big THUD

They there were four clean squeaky pigs

Squish Squish

3…

2…

1 pig so squeaky clean

Cleanest you’ve ever seen

Wanted to go outside and play

Oink! Oink!

He jumped into the mud

Landed with a great big THUD

Then there were five quite dirty pigs!

Materials needed:

-Five double sided felt pigs
-One felt mud pile

-One fence surrounding mud pile

What needs to be done ahead of time? Five felt pigs. On one side of the pig have it be clean and on the other side of the pig have it be dirty. Paint brown smudges on one side to mimic the mud.  Have a brown felt mudpile for the pigs to jump into.

How is the activity set up? Place the mud pile to the left of the five pigs. As you sing and as the pigs jump into the mud flip them so that they are now dirty pigs.

Jellyfish and Shark Puppets with poem

Five Little Jellyfish

5 little jellyfish floating in the sea  (5 fingers moving slowly)

1 shark says, “Looks yummy to me!”

(Hold up 1 finger and then rub belly)

The shark swims up quiet as can be and EATS a little jellyfish floating in the sea

(Whisper with shark fins on head, then clap to eat)

4 little jellyfish floating in the sea…

3 little jellyfish floating in the sea…

2 little jellyfish floating in the sea…

1 little jellyfish floating in the sea…

To make the jellyfish finger puppets I just folded over some of the remaining felt and hot glued them half shut so that they would fit on fingers. I measured off of my fingers and just made them a little tighter imagining little fingers instead. 

Materials:

-1 shark puppet

-5 jellyfish finger puppets (I made 12)

Use:

Start with each child having a jellyfish. While the poem says five jellyfish you can either repeat with five until everyone gets a turn or give out all the jellyfish and start out with how many children you have in the class. When you get to the shark eating the jellyfish stand up, walk around, and choose a jellyfish you, as the shark will eat. Eat all the jellyfish and they if the children would like start over choosing a child to be the shark this time.  Remind the children every one will get a turn if they want one. To make the group time go by fast if the children are being impatient only allow the children to eat one jellyfish at a time.