Coloring to the Next Level

Coloring can be lots of fun, therapeutic, and helps so much with fine motor skills 

especially for preschoolers.

However, how do you take coloring to the next level? How can you make it more than just coloring?

Mother Goose Time solved that mystery as we studied

 Mysteries in the Air with our Nature Detective box.

Here, let me explain....

Level One:

My teacher guide suggested that learners first sort colors into groups 6 main groups: 

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet.

We have a container of crayons, and I set out bowls and cups from her play kitchen to help her sort her crayons.  She even scribbled on white paper to determine what some colors were.

Level One complete.

Level Two:

Number all your containers 1-6.  Get a die and roll it.  Learners must pick a crayon from that container.  Not only are learners going over 1-1 correspondence as they count the dots on the die, but they are also going over number recognition, and understanding that colors have variety.

 It is super helpful to have a wide variation of colors within that color, for example there can be 

blue-violets, cerulean blue, and regular blue sorted into the Blue container.  

Level 2 complete.

Level Three:

Add Music.  Once learners have their colors in hand, play music.  We used our Nature Detectives CD but any music would suffice.  However, when the music stops, coloring must stop.  Someone new rolls the die, colors are picked, music is played and coloring continues.  The cycle game continues until the picture is complete.

Eventually, my girl asked me to join in with her.  She would give me a red, and she would pick her red.  I would turn on the music and play it until I decided to pause it.  She rolled the die again and would choose my color from the cup along with hers and we continued to color together.  This activity probably took us at least 30-45 minutes to complete from the sorting through the coloring.  She loved it.  As did I.

I was really impressed with the end result.

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Preschool Nature Study

Nature Detectives.

That is what we have been this month- up close and personal with nature.

Pretty fitting that our Mother Goose Time curriculum sent us a book called 

My Close to Nature! book.

Our MGT activity suggested to take some up close and personal pictures of the nature items around us and then write about them.   I taught her how to use the camera on my phone and had her snap the pictures of what she found interesting in our yard. Here are a few of the pictures my girl took to add to her book....once I get these developed at Walmart....

And then we found this dead guy....

It was so cool getting up close and personal to this cicada.

The feel of her paper thin wings- as if they were only made out of the line structure themselves was really unexpected.

We observed her folded legs and counted them.  Avaleigh was definitely reluctant to touch this dead cicada, but watching me be interested in it calmed her down and allowed her to observe longer. 

I did manage to get a picture of her touching the cicada below. 

Normally, insects and I are not friends!

In fact I hate flying insects and am pretty deathly afraid of them.  If we weren't doing this nature study, I probably would have swept this carcass out of my garage and into the bushes without a second thought.  However since we are doing this study, it forced me to stop and pause.

I have watched my fear of insects pass on to my girl as she too is mostly scared of flying insects and at one point, she wasn't.  As I was brave and touched and got closer to this cicada, so did she.  

I realized how much of an impression I can instantly make on my kids.

As a parent, I have been given so much power, for better or for worse, to help mold my children.

It's a scary, but powerful thought, and 

makes me want to be the absolute very best mom I can be for them. 

Pine Cone Bird Feeder

 We are Nature Detectives for the month of July.

Our preschool curriculum from Mother Goose Time had a whole week devoted to trees: 

Climbing Tress, Building with Trees, Painting Trees, Counting in Trees, and Writing with Trees.

On our Building with Trees day, we built a bird feeder from a tree part- a pine cone!

We've made pine cone bird feeders before, but this one was the best one yet!

Here's what we used:

3 glass bowls (or containers), yarn, spoon, birdseed, peanut butter, and a pine cone.

MGT sent us the yarn, the pine cone, and a small bag of birdseed.  All I had to do was supply the peanut butter and bowls/containers!

You need 3 small bowls or containers.  One for the peanut butter, one for the bird seed, and one for the pine cone to rest in. 

My number 1 tip:

Melt the peanut butter in the microwave for a few seconds.  20 -30 seconds should be plenty.

Melted peanut butter allows for an even and smooth coating all around the pine cone which helps the bird seed be evenly distributed all around the cone.  

My girl spooned the bird seed all over the cone and rotated it to make sure all the peanut butter was completely covered.  I helped her tie some yarn to it, and then we had to search for a place that would be best to place our new bird feeder. 

She chose to hang it from a garden hook outsider her playroom window so she could watch the birds eat from it.  Currently, we have tons of red breasted robins and cardinals all around and it's been exciting to see them eat from her feeder. 

I love how we can create something like this and I don't even have to plan for it!

I don't have to have bird seed on hand;  I don't have to hunt for a pine cone, or even supply my own string!  I just open the daily discovery bag and watch my girl learn and grow. 

Rainbow Dinosaur Birthday Party

My girl turned 4 yesterday, yall.

F.O.U.R.

I seriously can not believe it.  It has gone by entirely too fast.

When she turned one, we had a You Are My Sunshine theme for her birthday party.

When she turned two, we did a Fiesta Before You Siesta taco/outdoor play party.

When she turned three, we had an outdoor bubble party theme.

All of those were chosen by me.

But this year I asked my girl what she wanted to do for her party since she has had so many different interests this past year.  Including: coloring/rainbows, Octonauts, animals, sea creatures, and dinosaurs just to name a few.

She chose a "Rainbow Dinosaur Party!"

No joke.

Rainbow Dinosaur. 

But believe it or not, Pinterest has some ideas for that and so do I!  

(At the bottom of the post I will have all my links!)

Thanks to Mother Goose Time, our preschool curriculum, my girl became dino obsessed when we received our Dinosaur Dig box back in January.  You can read my posts about our dino unit here.

Honestly, I never thought to show her dinosaurs, and I am so thankful that MGT sent that box.  

So I basically created a colorful dinosaur party.  Crepe paper is the best!

 

It's HOOOOOT in Texas right now- like triple digits and it's still 90+ degrees after 8pm.  

The party needed to be outdoors, because.... they're preschoolers.

Messes and destruction is the name of their game.

So water play was an absolute must, but we tied in some super fun dino activities!

Like a dinosaur dig!

Avaleigh and I made Dinosaur Eggs and Dino fossils a week ago. I dug up some sandy dirt from my backyard and put it in a busted baby pool.  I then hid our fossils and dinosaur eggs in said dirt.  The kids loved this station!  They used a wooden hammer to bust open the eggs and found dinos inside.

I also made 3 dinosaur paper mache eggs (pinatas) and filled them with dinosaur paraphernalia from Oriental Trading.  I used a blown up balloon, newsprint that I had from my art teaching days, and made a paste out of flour and water.  Put 2-3 coats of paper over the balloon and leave a small opening to put in toys or candy once it is dry.  Use more paper mache to cover up the hole and then paint when dry.  Because it is so hot here, this took 3 days, but you would need a longer period of time depending on the heat.  Avaleigh and I painted them on Friday for her party on Saturday. 

 I only spent money on the filler! Everything else I had at home.

I hid the Pinata Dinosaur Eggs in the yard and after about 45 minutes of guests arriving and playing, I gathered all the kids and challenged them to find the dino eggs and bring them to me.  I then let the kids take turns bashing them open and revealing all the dinosaur goodies inside!  They loved this.

Then is was time for more water play.  

For three years now, we have used this tarp for a water slide in our yard.  This might have been it's last year, but the kids have LOVED it EVERY year!  It never gets old.

A sprinkler and some baby soap to make it slick is all you need.

Bubbles are still a great hit!  Partnered with a fan, you never get tired of "blowing" them!

And don't forget the baby pool(s)!  Throw a couple of dinosaurs in there and even 

the babies love them!

The carnivores ate dino nuggets and grape jelly meatballs.

Our herbivores ate red, orange, and yellow sliced bell peppers and grapes.

We also had dino scales (chips) and claws (bugles) to munch on.

Simple food is the best.

I ordered white cupcakes with white frosting from Walmart, because it was cheap, easy, and they taste good.  I added rainbow sprinkles and a small dinosaur toy.  They were so cute. Sorry this is the best pic I have. 

I am so grateful we received that Dinosaur Dig box 6 months ago from MGT.

It has instilled a love in my girl for something I KNOW I would not have shown her yet.

So thank you Mother Goose Time, for helping me create lasting and unexpected memories.

 

LINKS

Mother Goose Time Preschool Curriculum

Dinosaur Happy Birthday Banner -- this is not the exact one as above, but close.  I couldn't find the                                                               one we used anymore :( 

Oriental Trading Dinosaur Pinata Filler bag

Box of 72 Dinosaurs for Cupcake toppers and Dinosaur Eggs

Large Dinosaurs for decoration and play 

Dinosaur Masks (take home gift)

144 Rainbow Lollipops for $6.99!! Used in Paper Mache Egg and take home gift bags.

HOW TO:

Salt dough dino fossils 

Dinosaur Eggs for dino dig

Paper Mache Dino Egg Pinata

My favorite Dinosaur Party Post I found on Pinterest.

Detectives Need Magnifying Glasses

Nature Detective.

Our newest preschool theme, and I am smitten.

Our newest Mother Goose Time box had this awesome magnifying glass,

 and it has made being a detective so much fun!

My girl took the magnifying glass outside as soon as we took it out of the package.

She went all around the driveway inspecting things.

She found this bee sleeping on our zinnia! He didn't move at all for quite some time.  Using our magnifying glass, she could really see his stripes and fuzzy body! It was so interesting!

Earlier in the day, we had traveled to our local zoo.

It is the perfect size for younger kids, especially preschoolers.  The zoo has tons of peacocks roaming freely, and one male peacock had started molting, leaving his feathers all over the zoo.  

We grabbed this one before we left. 

 

My detective used her magnifying glass to find all sorts of things in our thematic poster.

I would ask counting questions like, "How many things are flying?" or 

"Can you tell me how many trees there are?"

Using her magnifying glass, she counted the request using one-to-one correspondence- pointing as she counted aloud. 

Later in the week, we used our magnifying glasses to do a nature hunt!

MGT sent us this great Nature Collection book, and so I created a list for her and we hunted the yard for our listed items.  Please excuse the blurry picture below, but it's the only one I have of this great book!

 

After collecting and inspecting her items, my girl then glued them in her booklet, and I will write about that post a little later.  I really want to show you all her work, and it would make this post way too long ;)

I love this magnifying glass.  In fact, each month I am always impressed with the quality of the manipulatives that MGT sends us.  I am planning on sharing with yall how I have used them to make my girl some quiet time boxes, so please keep your eyes peeled for a post on that.

I always get so tickled that something so small like a magnifying glass can truly change how a child feels about their learning.  When I think back to teaching in my science classrooms, my students' most favorite days were our lab days, or when I went above and beyond to truly create a learning experience (such as moving our chairs to make us feel like we were on a bus tour in Mexico).  Those days were also my favorite too.

And now I get to share those moments with my girl 

because a simple magnifying glass transforms her into a detective.