chicks {real ones coming soon...}

We saw lilla a's cute, felt chickies over on The Crafty Crow this morning, and just had to make some.  Not only are they fun to put together and sweet to look at, but they double as fab finger puppets, too!  Check out lilla a for the photo tutorial. 

peep, 

     peep!

busy hands

the ridiculously popular

bead work lesson, 

in action

building towers 

with the knobless cylinders

 skip counting by eights 

{can YOU do this?}

building and writing a useful word 

with the moveable alphabet 

{useful words are words that get used frequently, 

but you can't quite sound them out - the, is, of, are, was....}

exploring objects from the 

"l" drawer of the alphabet box

{explore OUR alphabet box here}

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!