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!

busy hands

using tongs to transfer "ice cubes"
between a bowl & an ice tray

bead work
A brief description of bead work:
The child arranges the tiny beads on a peg board shape.
{Some children just fill the board,
and others select certain colors to make patterns.}
When the board is full, a teacher irons it -
the beads melt together, holding the shape.
I can't emphasize enough how much the children LOVE this work!
Check beads and peg boards out here.

using a screwdriver
to screw bolts into a board
Check the slotted bolt board out here.
{I'm sure you handy types could easily make a homemade version!}

tower built with The Pink Tower & The Broad Stair
{No extension cards were used in its construction!}

balancing marbles on top of golf tees
{idea courtesy of the lovely Pink & Green Mama
and Jo A Bit of This and A Bit of That}

Hope you're all enjoying your weekend!
It's been snowing here!
{Yee haw!!!}

cracking nuts

Nut cracking is the thing to do around here lately!

Not only do the almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts taste delish,
but their shells split open with a satisfying "CRACK!"

Unlike apple slicing and lemon juicing,
there aren't a lot of steps,
so even the littlest ones are able to take a turn.

All you really need is a little elbow grease!



The materials:

a dish for holding the nuts
a nutcracker {I've seen them at thrift stores, too.}
a dish for serving the nuts
a crumber for sweeping up broken shells
an assortment of nuts
{Before doing this lesson, we made sure NO children had nut allergies.}

Because it's a food lesson,
the child washes his hands and puts on an apron.
Then, he chooses 4 nuts from a basket near the lesson on the shelf.
{There's a little sign on the basket that says "4."}
He sets his materials up on a mat and starts cracking!
The meat the child picks out of the shells is placed in a dish.
After the child has cracked all 4 nuts, he sweeps up the shells,
and puts the lesson back on the shelf.

At this point, the child can either serve the nuts to the other children,
or eat them himself.
The older children tend to choose serving,
and the younger children tend to gobble the nuts up themselves!
{This is slowly starting to change as they discover
the joy of sharing food, though!}

a penguin experiment

The idea for this experiment came from Chelsea
over at Preschool - What fun we have!

Do you ever imagine
diving into an icy ocean like a penguin?
{AND staying warm and toasty?}

Personally, my fantasies tend to be more on the sunny beach side...
but, the children in my classroom have a special place
in their hearts for arctic mammals
{like penguins, polar bears, and seals}
so we decided to give Chelsea's experiment a try.

First, we plunged our bare hands into a tub of ice water.
{No one was able to keep their hands in long enough for a photo!}

Then, we put on rubber gloves
and gooped our hands up with A LOT of animal fat.
{The gloves saved us all from a seriously huge mess!}

With the fat caked on our hands,
the icy water suddenly felt much warmer...
almost tropical, really.

Not only was it a fun sensory experience,
the children made their own meaningful connections
between fat and warmth.
{I barely said a word!}