sidewalk paint

We mixed equal parts corn starch and water to create this paint. The children helped stir in food coloring to make the paint come alive. 

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather and painted the sidewalk:

The result was a beautiful mess of what the children called butterflies, rainbows, houses and letters. I love how the cornstarch gives the paint a smooth texture when it dries. 

The end!

sorting bottle caps

We have TONS of bottle caps thanks to our cook and donations from parents. Since we were running out of places to store them I figured it was time for a sorting activity. I set out different colored paper onto which the children could match the caps. That was all that was needed as the children intuitively 'got' the intended invitation. 

The children pointed out that I was missing a few colors so I added black, tan and purple paper as well...

There were only a few 'tricky' colors that did not quite match (like a cap that was an orangish-yellow). But they indeed drove us all nuts because they didn't quite fit in either category. 


The end! 

Paint rollers and deck shade

My parents were getting rid of one of their broken, faux bamboo deck shades and offered it to me before throwing it out. Of course I took it and squirreled it away in our recycle room. It HUGE and it made a great canvas for using our paint rollers. I set it up in our atrium which is a great place to do large, messy work. 
So far we've painted it blue, yellow (which turned it green) and red. I figure we will just keep painting it different colors until the children lose interest or come up with a different plan. 

I know when adults walk by and let out excited squeals it's a good activity. Anything that brings out a grown-ups an inner child is A-OK with me! 

Post-it note patterns

This idea came from the Bakers and Astronaut Reggio-inspired blog. I started the children off with an AB pattern and encouraged them to continue it. It began left to right but the children gravitated to a vertical flow because it was easier for them to understand that yellow goes under blue and blue goes under yellow. 


Once they understood that, the post it notes flew! 

They filled the bottom half of the door:

Since they ran out of space on this door we moved to the other door and I offered the children their choice of colors:

Three colors was much more challenging, and they worked together to correct mistakes noticing when the pattern was off. 


Hopefully they will get the concepts of patterns soon and I can stand back and let them design their own creations out of color and shape. 

3D Robots

A little while ago H expressed his interest in robots. Today I asked him if he would like to create another robot using recyclable materials. Indeed he did. We worked with wood glue and duct tape to create this masterpiece:

After he drew a representation in his journal and told me about it:

"It has a weapon. It can go to a planet."


While H was creating his robot M decided to make one too:
Journal:

M had this to say:


First the white thing's under the robot. Then the arms are over here so he can wave. The circles are so in case the robot falls. And he can talk a lot and he has a helmet too. And then it has two eyes. And there is  the part of his body. And that's his neck. And this is his head and this is his chin. And that's all. 


C wanted to create a robot too, but she chose to add objects to paper, perhaps because she created her journal first, then created her robot or because we glued to paper previously:

C said hers was a robot girl with hair and buttons. 


The end! 

a store for monster food- a construction & journal

This summer our campus has been under a lot of construction. One day on the way into work I saw some electricians sitting on empty spools of wire. I convinced my coworker Taryn to ask them if they were going to throw them away and if we could please have them if so (I'm too chicken to talk to strangers- I desperately want to ask the laborers for some tidbits as well but I'm too scared!). 

Anyway, the next day the following showed up on our doorstep:

Recently we added them to our atrium. The children stacked them and added empty raisin, cottage cheese and other empty containers to the ledges. This is the result:

T had this to say about her structure:

Mine is big. A monster built it for another monster. It's a store for monster food. It costs 60 or 70 or 80 dollars. Monsters like to eat bugs. Monster bugs. 

C said this is what the monsters look like:

To be continued! 

Magnets, metal & black beans?

This week our sensory table features black beans. I love the black color of the beans and how they make the colors of the other objects inside pop. After an initial period of just exploring the beans with spoons and bowls, I decided to change out the pouring materials for some metal and non metal objects.

 I added metallic materials like washers, clips, screws and other miscellaneous objects. Also added were nonmetallic items like plastic and wood.

As the children played we discussed what kinds of materials stuck to the magnets. The metal did, the plastic and wood did not. 

The end!