clip-on koalas

Are you tired of strengthening your fine motor control 

with those same old clothespins????

We have been loving these cute little koala clips!  When you squeeze their backs, their arms and legs open and you can clip them onto lots of things.  We have been clipping ours onto this wooden spice rack.  These koala clips are the perfect challenge for the child who is working to strengthen his pincer grip AND build coordination and control of his movement.  They are not easy to open - you really have to have strong fingers - but they are so much fun, even the littlest hands in our classroom will manipulate them all morning long.  

I remember having lots of  clip-on animals like these koalas when I was growing up.  The 80's were just rad like that, I guess.  I found some koala clips on amazon, but they seem a little on the spendy side to me.  Click here if you want to check them out. 
 

Does anyone have any other ideas where you can find animal clips?  

We want more!!!

busy hands

 grading color tablets from  

darkest to lightest

 writing and illustrating  

a story

 building and writing 

short vowel words

 counting spindles

{Wrapping each quantity with a colorful rubber band 

makes this lesson a hit!}  

 scrubbing chairs and tables

{This is one of our FAVORITE afternoon activities!}

All you need to get scrubbing

is a bucket of water, soap, and few brushes or sponges. 

Hope everyone has a great week!

little smudge art

We have been loving the book Little Smudge by Lionel Le Neouanic.  Have you read it?

Little Smudge asks a group of colorful shapes if he can play, and they reject him.  

{WARNING:  Their rejection is brutal.  Depending on my audience, I change the wording to be less negative.} 

When Little Smudge goes home disappointed, his parents show him a few tricks that totally win the other shapes over.  

When I read this book, the children are always shocked by the rejection scene.  

They get all like, 

Are you kidding me?! 

Don't those other shapes know that EVERYONE is included? 

Duh!

{"Everyone's included" is one of our school rules, and most of the children believe it to be universal.  Wouldn't THAT be something if it was?} 

This book leads to meaningful conversations, and some pretty fun art, too!

  

First, we made our own little smudges on heavy paper with finger paint.

After the paint dried {this took an hour or two}, we turned our little smudges into other things... 

...people, dogs, insects, transportation systems, smiley faces, etc.

We experimented by drawing with markers AND ball point pens.  

The children were very proud of their creations, and they want to make more!

For more fingerprint art, check out 5 Orange Potatoes.  I think we're going to try their project next!

L-O-V-E

according to preschoolers...

Love is kisses.

Love is my family.

Love is giving a hug.

Love is the moon.

Love is living with my parents.

Love is my heart.

Love is petting your dog.

Love is my blankie.

Love is something that you give away.

 
Happy Valentine's Day!

busy hands

squeezing pink water from a dropper

into a heart-shaped ice cube tray

{when all the hearts are full,

use the dropper to suck the water back up

OR just stick the tray in the freezer}

 constructing with 

the pink tower AND the broad stair

 using the 100 board to count to 100

on the 100th day of school

{yes, that IS a muffin tin holding the number tiles}

writing and illustrating 

a book of planets

 

painting a wooden bead 

with liquid watercolor

 two friends wearing their hand-painted

valentine's day necklaces

{we can't wait for v-day around here!}

happy birthday, hubs!

Let's go skiing!

100 days of love

Today was our 100th day of school! Yeee haw!!!
{it goes by SO fast}

One activity we did to celebrate this special day
was make this lovely heart mosaic...

As you may know, I love mosaics.

Cutting snips alone strengthens fine motor control.
But, if you combine YOUR snips with all your classmates' snips
and make a giant mosaic,
you strengthen the whole community.

TLF, ya know?

First, you need a simple outline of a heart drawn on a big piece of paper.

Then, you need to gather these supplies:
scissors
glue
paint swatches {we wrote the numbers 1-100 on ours}

Have everything? Now cut and glue!

Three children worked on the mosaic at a time.
They were sometimes the most unlikely trio, too.
{I love when that happens!}

This mosaic was finished in one morning work period,
and now it hangs by the snack table for everyone to enjoy.
The children love looking for "the 100."

counting valentines

Sung to the tune of Michael Finnegan {listen to Michael Finnegan here}:

1 red, 2 red, 3 red valentines
4 red, 5 red, 6 red valentines
7 red, 8 red, 9 red valentines
10 red valentines!
10 red, 9 red, 8 red valentines
7 red, 6 red, 5 red valentines
4 red, 3 red, 2 red valentines
1 red valentine!

I love using felt manipulatives to go along with the songs we sing at line time, and counting these felt hearts has been quite a hit! In the past, I only used the manipulatives at line time, but now I make them available for the children to use during the work period, too. As you can see, they LOVE singing the song and moving the hearts all by themselves!

The hearts were cut from red felt. I numbered and decorated them with fabric paint and sequins. {This was my favorite part!} If you wanted to be really profesh, you could glue on the same quantity of sequins as the number on the heart. {the 4 would have 4 sequins, etc}

After the decorations were dry, I hot-glued magnets to the back of the hearts. The magnets I used are almost too burly for the felt - smaller magnets probably would have worked better.

At the beginning of the song, I stick the magnets to the back of a baking pan. As we count up, I bring each number to the front of the pan, and as we count down, I move each number to the back of the pan. When the song is over, the children always beg to see where the hearts are hiding on the back of the pan!

busy hands

grinding up chunks of dry bread

{a new twist on the ever popular bread grating lesson}

The child in this photo is 4, but this lesson is perfect for 3 year olds, too.
This activity helps develop organization, fine motor control, and problem solving. Children love the grinder and the sound the dry bread makes as it's being crunched up.

What does one do with a bag of bread crumbs?

Here are our most favorite uses:

• feed them to the birds
• sprinkle them on a salad
• nibble on them - straight out of the bag - at the snack table

{That last use makes me laugh at least once or twice a day!}

Read more about grating lessons here.

a display of spheres

The children often use the geometric solids to go on shape scavenger hunts around the classroom.

Other shapes include:

• cubes
• cones
  
• cylinders
• rectangular prisms

This activity is enjoyed by all ages in our classroom, especially the 3 and 4 year olds.

Buy geometric solids here or make your own set {I bet you could!}.

reading 3 letter words

The word is on the front and the picture is on the back, so the child can challenge himself AND double check his work.

To play the game:

The first child reads the word on the top of the stack. If she's right, she keeps the card and passes the stack to the next child. If she gets the word wrong, she she puts the card back in the stack and tries the next one.

The children in this picture are 5 years old and just beginning to develop accurate word recognition. We play LOTS of word games before we present readers with books.

Find awesome reading materials and info here.

clipping carabiners together

This lesson builds concentration and strengthens fine motor control.

Ta da!

The 3 year olds cannot get enough of constructing this chain. I think you can find inexpensive carabiners at most sporting good stores.

Have a great weekend!

Edit: The grinder used in the bread grating lesson is a nut grinder I found at the thrift store. Ebay has several, too. Here's the link!

excuses, excuses

Hello out there! It's the long lost itty bitty love - alive and well.
{Thank goodness, right?}

Some of you have noticed it's been a YEAR since I've last posted.
{Really? A whole dang year? That's crazy.}
I'm not really sure why I stopped blogging...

I guess it was due to a combination of things -
LIFE itself being the biggest.


I'm sort of an all or nothing kind of gal,
and I once I started putting my all into other things,
I lost track of the itty bitty love blog.
I just couldn't get back into it.


I told myself,
It doesn't matter.
I let all my bloggy relationships go.

If I let myself dwell on the fact that I'd abandoned itty bitty love
AND all of my friends,
I felt SO SHEEPISH,
I just kept on hiding out.

But I want to come back!!!!
I love to write and take pictures and share ideas and
geeze louise, I want to keep blogging!!!

SO, please forgive me for being a jerk and going MIA for a year.
I don't think I'll be posting as much a I once was,
but I just don't want to feel like a stranger in my own house,
if you know what I mean.

I hope YOU are all alive and well, too!

♥

PS: Hubs is just as great as ever - he's the one who took all the glamor shots of me in my new hat!