An Easy Preschool Toddler Octopus Craft

Hello, hello, hello :)

After a looooong time of absence :/ due to many things that happens in life, I have decided to continue blogging and helping teachers, stay at home moms, grandparents, babysitters and all of you out there who would like to benefit from what I share here in my blog.

What I'll post here is mostly things that I do with my kids in my preschool classroom.

I hope you enjoy my blog and if you have any question please don't hesitate to ask, I love to help as much as I can :)

Well... today I am going to start with an easy octopus craft that I posted on my Instagram today, but with the difference that I'll walk you through the steps on how to make the craft and benefits for the child while working on that craft.

 

To make this octopus you only need an octopus outline that you can print from the net 

any color paint you like, I used purple

a piece of bubble wrap and

a paintbrush

 

 

I let the child apply paint on the bubble wrap

even if you are working with toddlers (like me)

you can show them how to spread the paint with the paintbrush

then teach them how to hold the bubble wrap

between their fingers and flip it upside down

to put it on top of the octopus

show them to apply a little pressure

so they can make a print of the bubble wrap

and remove.

It is very important to go through this steps patiently with the child

since you are helping them be independant

use their fine motor skills

and increase their vocabulary.

After it dries, I cut it out, and paste it on a construction paper

usually, I use the color of their choice

so the work is completely theirs.

Here is how the final project looks :)

 

 

I hope you enjoyed it.

Please let me know if you have any questions

or if you would like to add anything to it :)

I love to have ideas and input from everybody :)

Have fun,

Clemencia

 

Coming Back :) and An Important Question For You :)

Hi everybody, long time since I took care of this blog :(

Lots of things going on in my life, yeah like everybody else's :)

Is really no excuse. I think about this blog so much, in fact everyday.

I just don't think is fair not to share what I do in my classroom since I am still a preschool teacher. I hope there is still lots of you out there that can benefit from my blog and the lesson plans that I prepare. School year just started a couple of weeks ago here in Florida so I know there is lots of new, not so new teachers and parents that can benefit from my experience. Right now I have the 2 y. old classroom but in the school I teach we DO lesson plans, book activities and academics at this age.
Their work is not going to come out perfect obviously but at least with the picture I'll post here you can see the way some children develop academically.

For now I am going to leave you with this one question:

What would be the best way to share my free printables with you? Dropbox? 4shared? or anything else that I haven't heard of? lol Which one do you like better?

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog :)

New Blog

Hi everybody, I have decided to open a new blog that I named A Life Full of Passions but I would like to have your opinion about the preschool activities,

should I post them there too instead of this blog, that way I have it all in one blog? or

should I separate the preschool things and keep them here?

I would really appreciate you taking 30 seconds to give me your opinion about it...

Thank You,

Please go visit me and subscribe for updates and some love :)

Making Changes from the Inside Out

I have to admit I am a Self Help fanatic, all I read are educational books especially Self Help.

I remember when I was a teenager I wanted to be a Psychologist but growing up in South America your parents tell you if you can study what you like or not.  They didn't approve of it, because in Psychology you had to deal with crazy people. That was their believe and that was IT!

Well as you can see in my About Me page I decided to take another easier more approved route, I became a Cosmetologist (Hair, Skin and Nails Professional) and after 12 years I decided to get another short career, a Preschool Teacher, a switch that helped me be with my kids when they came back from school and be with them as much as possible.

Anyways back to Psychology... Now that I have the freedom to do more things that I like I have chosen to read Self Help books which I want to start sharing my thoughts about what I read with you.

Is there any Self Help book that you like that I should add to my list?
Or maybe a book that you've been wanting to read but haven't get to it yet?
I am looking forward for you to share with me :)

Circle Time (not so) Fun

I am writing this out of frustration hoping it helps new teachers out there.

I have been a lead preschool teacher for quite a few years now, but due to my choice of working part time I had to step down and be an assistant/floater. I am mostly with two year olds and the lead teacher that I help most of the time is new with preschoolers, she is an elementary school teacher mostly kindergarten and first grade, so two years old is quite different to what she is used to.

As I watch her “teach” a small group of two year olds, I have come to learn that a lot of things that are easy, common sense and second nature to me is not to others.

Let me start with circle time…

·       Please, please, please put a little more life to circle time that you normally would.  Circle time sets the energy for the rest of the day, either the kids are going to love it and enjoy it or hate it and start fuzzing, moving, wanting to go away or crying.

·       By putting more life to it I mean, add songs with hands and body movements, if you don’t know any… make them up. Learn sign language for the words you are using on your songs.

·       Add movement to your circle time, using songs that require children to get up and dance, stretch or touch something.

·       How about adding a marching band to circle time, maybe you can find a song that is suitable to march around the classroom giving each child a musical instrument.

·       When you see your kids (in your classroom) moving around, getting up, wanting to leave, why not follow their lead, you are not always going to have a perfect circle time, just let them get up and put a song that everybody can dance to it. And while you are all there might as well make it two (songs).

·       Once in a while bring something different to start the day with, maybe:

1.     Playdough

2.     A big hoola hoop for the kids to jump IN as you call their names

3.     A tunnel for them to go through as you call their names

4.     A limbo game to start the day

5.     Musical chairs

6.     Line up the chairs and pretend the kids are coming in to the school 1.     bus or train.

I mean the ideas are unlimited, maybe you can start the day with a felt story with you making funny voices for the characters.

Whichever of this ideas you decide to use just remember they are very young children that like to play and move around A LOT,  not sit for most of the day as most "teachers" believe so.

With all my best intentions, I hope this helps a lot of teachers out there :)

C is for Clay Homemade Recipe

Here is a very easy recipe for clay that is safe for kids

2 cups baking soda
1 cup Argo Corn Starch
1 1/4 cups water

Mix cornstarch and baking soda, add water and mix.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until is thick like mashed potatoes.

There you have it clay ready to form into desired shapes.
Let it dry for 36 hours.
Paint and you can also coat it with shellac or clear nail polish.

Please use your judgment of what parts kids can make depending on the age of the children :)

Please let me know what are you working on in the coming weeks :)

B for Boxes

Here is an idea for the letter B, the kids can decorate boxes.

Decorated boxes make a delightful gift, or it can be their own treasure box.

Here are the materials you need:

Small box with a lid, like those that you find at the craft stores
Paint
glue
decorations like glitter, buttons, macaroni, shells, ribbon, beans, etc.

They can start by painting the boxes.
Let them dry, then they can work on gluing the decorations to the lid/top of the box.  Just make sure it's completely dry before they take it home :)

Hope you like it :)

I'll be posting more ideas for the letter B this week.

If you are working on another letter or book or any other activity, theme, etc. please let me know if I can be of any help :)

Thanks for visiting my blog :)

Apple Theme and an Important Question at the End of the Post

At the Preschool I am working at, we are working on:
Letter A
Color Red
Number 1

The first and easiest thing to do your lesson plan on is
A for Apple, which is red also :)

But we, as preschool teachers have to come up with ideas for every day activities based on these themes, being frugal at the same time.

Here are some ideas on the themes (hopefully you can find something new here)

We can start by searching for an apple template, then we can do a few different things with it

We can paint it with a brush

Finger paint it with the whole hand or just using the fingers

Glue crumbled tissue paper on it

Glue tiny scraps of construction paper on it like a collage

Paint it using daubers

Paint it using a pom pom either holding it with the fingers or with preschool tweezers

You can print it, laminate it and use it as a playdoh mat

You name it! There are tons of things we can do with a printable outline, but in this case we are concentrating on just One Red Apple since that's the theme :)

Now if you want to do an Apple Tree you can do a few different things:

Glue pom poms as apples on the tree

Put fingerprints (apples) all over the tree

Glue crumbled red tissue paper as apples

Paint the apples with daubers all over the tree

Paint the apples on the tree with a pom pom.

They can always either paint or color the tree first either using crayons or markers.

Now I have to tell you... 

I enjoyed very much writing this post, but actually publishing it, made me doubt a lot. There are so many resources out there, not just other blogs from teachers, moms, homeschoolers, but also Pinterest, etc. is really crazy, it kind of brought me down and reminded me why I stayed away from posting in this blog for such a long time :( but...

I love blogging and I love sharing what I know, what I read, what I think it helps.  So please help me make this dream a reality, where I can share what I like and not be boring or repetitive.

How can I make this blog a better place for you?
What would you like to see more of?
I really want to help people out there, but I need help figuring out what do you need :)

Thanks for visiting me :)

By the way, you might be asking... what do I get out of it?

Self Satisfaction, a feeling of accomplishment of doing something productive with my life :)

A Teacher, A Mom and A Wife...Back With Resources Soon...

Hi Everybody:

I have to tell you, I am totally amazed since last night!  As you all can see, I totally abandoned this blog for about six months and before that I abandoned for another year or two but I am still getting comments and requests on my blog posts.  I am not proud for leaving this blog as I did, but I have been in a profound search for my true self: what is my mission? why am I here? The doubt is still in my head. But I figure... I am still a preschool teacher, a mother and a wife. And I am itching for time for myself and blog about the things I make, cook, read, etc. So here I am again, going with the flow and see if this is really my calling.

Thanks for being here with me, thanks for keep visiting my blog.

I am sorry to all those teachers who once requested something from my blog and never got. I hope you understand that besides dealing with a search of my true identity, I also had to deal with a lot of health issues.

Thanks a million to all of you :)

See you soon,

Do you like to Crochet?

For those moms or teachers that have other hobbies or would like to try other hobbies like crochet, I just wanted to invite you over to Arts Crafts and Scraps to see how I made my latest crochet creation, a Tablet Cover :)

 

Thanks for visiting :)