Nail Art Designs Collection 2011

We have collected some of the very unique nail art collection for summer 2011 ...as they are bright in colors and having 3D Nail Art effects as well as they are very in now a days....Have a look at some of the best nail art designs..Stay visiting as we have some more to come on Kawaii Nail Art And Arcylic Nail Art ....!

Nail Art Designs Collection 2011

Nail Art Designs Collection 2011

Nail Art Designs Collection 2011

Nail Art Designs Collection 2011

Pots of Gold and Lessons Learned

This is a St. Patrick’s Day project I attempted to do last year.

To make this pot of gold, you’ll need:

Paper cup,
Gold stickers,
A whole punch,
A gold pipe cleaner,
Gold materials such as ribbon, candy wrappers, Easter grass, yarn, shiny paper etc.
Glitter.
You could even use sparkly crayons or gold paint.



I punched a hole on each side of the cup and put the pipe cleaner through. On each side, I bent the pipe cleaner to make a little knot on the inside of the cup to make it stay in place and to hide the sharp ends.

In the pictures, you’ll see I’ve used a Styrofoam cup, but I don’t recommend it. One of the lessons I learned from trying to do this project was that the ribbon, Easter grass and gold lace don’t stick to Styrofoam. These would have come out a lot better with paper cups or bowls. The kids kept trying and trying, but the glue wouldn’t keep any of these materials on the cups. They enjoyed trying though. They also enjoyed the glitter and foam stickers. The glitter ended up everywhere, but that was the most fun part of the project for them since the rest of it wasn’t working. They ended up with sparkly cups on the inside and out. They had at least one gold star and a couple of other gold foam stickers. Since I didn’t have enough, they could each only have one letter. Usually, they picked the first letter of their name. They could also have one or two gold numbers if they wanted. The second lesson that I learned is to double the amount of materials that you’ll think you’ll need especially for projects like this. The third lesson was to try the project yourself first to see if all the materials work as planned. If I would have done this, I would’ve realized that most of the gold materials wouldn’t stick to the cup. Only a few of the children did this project because I got overwhelmed with the amount of children who wanted to try and with the materials not working as planned, I packed it up early. Maybe I should’ve left it out longer to see what the remaining children could do. In my own frustration, I thought it was a failed project, but maybe the kids could’ve turned it into something else by exploring the materials.



The previous year, I had an idea to do a two day project with pots of gold and rainbows. We had a rainbow printable and the kids could either draw or paint their rainbow. At the last minute, the head teacher made painting the only option. The kids liked painting their rainbows. The next day, the kids were supposed to cut out their rainbows and attach them to a small pot of gold. The pot of gold was a print out, but the kids were going to decorate them with gold materials or by drawing on them with sparkly crayons. Ahead of time, I gave them the smaller pot of gold template that I found and at the last minute, they decide to change the project altogether. They had cut out the rainbows for the kids and put them in their cubbies. Then they had printed out a regular larger coloring sheet with a pot of gold on it and then expected them to color in the whole thing. I was disappointed because my plans for the project were ruined. Not only was the creativity taken out of it, but so were the kids choices. They couldn’t choose how to decorate their rainbows, they no longer had a choice of how to make their pots of gold and an opportunity for them to work on a longer project that they would put together themselves was lost.

I learned some lessons from this project too. If you plan something, make all the preparations yourself unless you know that you and whoever you are working with are definitely on the same page.
I learned that too many people take the lazy way out. How do you expect the kids to learn to take initiative or to complete a task if you can’t yourself?
How do you expect attention spans to develop if you constantly change everything at the last minute to the quickest thing possible? I’m not saying that things shouldn’t be changed to meet the kids needs or if you are short on time. I’m talking about those classrooms that are so chaotic on a daily basis that the children can’t focus on anything. Also, how do you expect teachers to take time and pride in planning when you are constantly changing their plans and ideas without talking to them about it first? These are some questions and thoughts I’ve had over these past two years.
For this St. Patrick’s Day, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me will be to watch toddlers make shamrocks. I won’t have to worry about planning or the final product. After all, my plans have been for the kids enjoyment and to allow them to express creativity.

Towers, Slides and Finger Paintings

Yesterday was my second day volunteering with the toddlers. It was a little confusing at first because they had a few extra people there. There were two high school students who were there to observe. At least that’s what it looked like. Then a community reader came in and she sat in the reading area for a while. Some toddlers stayed with her the whole time reading books and the others chose to play in other parts of the room. They were really into the blocks still. When I arrived, they had the foam blocks scattered all over the floor. One of the toddlers started jumping on them again while grabbing my hands. This didn’t last long because she had found the container of small blocks. She wanted to build tall towers. I started building a tower on my own with the foam blocks. A few seconds after I had the tower three blocks high, a boy had knocked it to the ground. We laughed and I started to build another tower for him to knock over. This went on for a few minutes until he went over to cook in the kitchen area. Meanwhile, another toddler came over and handed me an empty bowl. I asked him what it was. He didn’t answer so I asked if I could eat it. He said yes so I pretended to eat and then asked if he’d like some. Then he took the bowl, pretended to eat and headed off to the kitchen area.

I went over to the small table where the little girl was building tall towers. I told her that her tower was really tall so she started knocking it over and laughing. After the tower was completely destroyed, she started rebuilding it. Another toddler came over and started knocking blocks on the floor. I kept picking them up and putting them on the table for the other girl to use for her towers. I started to label some of the blocks telling her which ones were round, square, white, red, big, small etc. she’d repeat the words as she built. I counted her two towers and then she counted up to four by herself. I think she thought she had four towers instead of two, but that’s okay. Finally, she found a new game. She thought knocking all the blocks off the table was fun. I told her she’d have to pick them up which she did, but it was really fun for her to keep knocking them over. Another girl noticed and she started doing the same thing only this time, she was scattering them across the room. That’s one thing about working with toddlers; you clean up even during play time. If we didn’t, everything would be on the floor all at once. I find it’s easier to pick things up that aren’t being played with. If they take them out again, it’s okay because we can pick something else up that’s not being used. I ask the toddlers to get involved by having them put books back on the shelf or by bringing foods back to the kitchen area. Even if they don’t put the foods back in the baskets, it’s a start to have them bring the things back to the right area.

The structured activity of the day was sponge and finger painting. They were using these foam sponge type things. They weren’t exactly sponges, but a thicker foam material. They were washable. There were hearts, numbers, dogs, rhinos, etc. The idea was to have the toddlers stamp with them. We had a few trays of paint with different colors and the toddlers could use any of the stamps or colors that they wanted. We practiced asking each other for stamps or other colors of paint since everything was divided up among three tables. This turned into finger painting after a while and stamping handprints onto the paper. A couple of kids decided to fill their whole paper with different colors. This was another mess to clean up, but it was fun for them. As long as it was fun for the kids, it’s worth the trouble. I saved the teachers some time by cleaning all the paint trays and stamps.

Later, they had a circle time where one of the teachers sang songs with the kids and looked at books. Those who wanted to participate could and those who didn’t were busy on the climber. It has a slide that the kids love sliding, crawling or walking down. Some even like to go up the slide. This is one place where there is constant negotiating. Kids are either in each other’s way or there are too many people on the slide or the stairs at once. I kept telling them, “One at a time on the slide, please.” After hearing this a couple of times, one of the little girls started repeating me when she saw too many people on the slide. For the most part, the toddlers listen.

In the afternoon, we ate lunch and then at 12:30, it was nap time. I was disappointed because I was there until three O’clock and they slept all through the rest of my time there. They usually wake up earlier, but they had a busy morning.

Activities for Dental health Month

Since February is dental health month, here are some activities we did last year.
Snack:
Give the kids an Oreo and let them use mirrors to see how their teeth look after eating it.
Then give them an apple slice and have them look at their teeth again.
The children’s teeth should be cleaner after eating the apple. Explain that some foods stick to our teeth more especially sweets and that it helps to brush our teeth after eating these foods. This was a lesson that stuck with the children. They mentioned it several times during snack time over the following week.

Science:
Place a hard boiled egg into a jar of Coke or Pepsi for 20-30 minutes. You could also do this as an overnight experiment, but we chose to only soak the egg for a half an hour. The kids noticed that the egg was stained brown. Explain that the shell is like teeth and that staining and cavities can happen to our own teeth if we don’t brush them. This lesson had stuck with a few of the children as well. We explained that soda was really bad for teeth. One of the teachers brought soda and the kids were quick to point out that soda was bad for your teeth.
There are other variations on this experiment I hadn’t seen. You can use a toothbrush and toothpaste to try to get the egg back to its normal color. It removes some of the stain.
Other variations are to soak eggs in different liquids and compare them. Some liquids to try are water, Coke, orange juice and vinegar. (see link below)

Art:
We took this tooth picture, made copies and let the kids cut them out and paint them with toothpaste. Some kids chose to cut their’s out and others didn’t. The kids painted with toothbrushes. They enjoyed the smell of the toothpaste. We had three tubes at the table and the kids could squeeze out their own toothpaste. Some kids had big globs of toothpaste on parts of their tooth and others had lines of it covering their whole tooth.

We also took copies of this same tooth picture and laminated it. The kids drew on them with dry erase markers and then cleaned them off with toothbrushes and water to simulate brushing teeth.

Dramatic Play
We had some toothbrushes, toothpaste boxes, a plastic tooth set and some other dental props in the dramatic play area. The kids enjoyed taking apart the teeth set, brushing it and putting it back together.

Some other ideas for books and activities can be found here.

Hot Coco Craft

For this hot coco craft you will need:

1 Styrofoam or paper cup,
1 Brown paper lunch bag,
Coco powder or hot chocolate packet,
Cotton balls,
Glue
And scissors.

I started off with a plain white Styrofoam cup. Then I cut up pieces of the paper bag and glued a small piece into the bottom of the cup.


Next, I took larger strips of the paper bag and glued it around the inside of the cup so that all the white was covered.


I thought painting with a coco powder and water mix was a good idea, but all it did was make everything wet and the glue wasn’t sticking.


Luckily, I didn’t do this for very long and was still able to do the next part of the project. I decided to just spread some glue around the inside of the cup on the sides and the bottom. Then I sprinkled some coco powder in the cup and swirled it around. It made the cup smell like chocolate and made it look more realistic.

The coco powder and water painting might work well for scented water colors. I only used maybe half a t-spoon of coco powder and mixed it in a small bowl of water. I might have used half a cup.



Finally, I added some cotton balls as marshmallows by gluing them to the bottom and edge of the cup. I only put one on the bottom and two on the top, but would’ve put more if I had a larger cup. You could also use real marshmallows as well.





This came out pretty well and only took about fifteen minutes including the time it took to gather the materials. I’ve seen a few different hot chocolate activities on the blogs lately, but wanted to do my own version of one. Plus I wanted to try a hot chocolate craft with the kids and after trying this myself, I think it would work well. I’ve learned after one planning disaster that it always is better to test the activity yourself first especially if it’s an arts and crafts activity.

Homemade Christmas Cards

I usually don’t make cards for people, but a couple days ago, I came up with some ideas and I think they came out pretty good. I made them last night to give to people today. The only problem I’m having with them is they aren’t folding like they did before they were dry, but I think they still can make a nice decoration.

Since an eight by eleven sized sheet of paper wouldn’t be big enough, I taped two pieces of oak tag paper on top of each other to make them thicker. Then I took two more pieces and taped them together the same way. Finally, I taped the two pieces together side by side which made the surface bigger.

The first card has a snowflake, Christmas tree and wreath made of garland. There is puff paint snow all over the card as well. I mixed a half cup of glue, a half cup of shaving cream and a t-spoon of glitter to make the puff paint. It came out well and is still puffy textured, but it’s hard instead of regular puff paints that stay kind of soft.

For the snowflake, I took a cupcake liner and folded it into eights and then cut along the creases. I glued it onto the paper and then glued three cotton balls in the middle to make it more 3d. I added puff paint and glitter on top.



For the Christmas tree, I took part of a toilet paper tube, glued it to the paper and then glued garland over it to cover all the cardboard. Next, I glued cotton balls. The first row has four, then three, then two and then one for the top. For the topper, I added a glittery foam star sticker. For ornaments, I took mini pompoms and glued them to the cotton balls. After the tree was done, I added puff paint and glitter.



For the wreath, it was simple. I took a strip of garland and made a circle which I glued to the paper. For the top of the wreath, I glued some gold ribbon above the garland. I put a little puff paint and glitter over that as well to make it look like it had snowed.






My second card has a present and a Christmas tree on it. For the present, I took a tiny gift box and cut off one of the sides so I still had a square piece of cardboard. I glued the cardboard to the card and then put puff paint over it. Since my gold ribbon wasn’t sticking to the gift box, I added garland. I tried to make two little loops so it looked like a bow was on top of the box, but it got a little scrunched up while I was gluing it. It still looks shiny and kind of pretty.


For this Christmas tree, I did everything almost the same except the tube was a little bigger so I used more garland. I started my tree with five cotton balls on the bottom and worked my way to one at the top. When it came time for the topper, I realized there wasn’t enough room for a foam star so I took a different shiny star and glued it to the top cotton ball. Next, I added a few mini pompoms and shiny circles for ornaments. Finally, I put puff paint and glitter on the tree. I also put puff paint and glitter over the rest of the card to make it look frosted.





I gave one to my boyfriend already and he loved it. We’ll see if my mom will like hers tonight when I visit her and the rest of my family for our Christmas Eve celebration. I think I’ll do this again next year. I had a lot of fun making them.

Making Snowmen Sensory Tub

Making Snowmen Sensory Tub

You could use this tub for just exploration and playing or for an art project.
What’s in it:
Cotton balls,
Pompoms,
Colored stones,
Plastic mittens, boots, scarf and hats,
Shiny stars,
Shiny circles,
Buttons,
Bells,
Christmas lights,
Ribbon,
Garland,
Shiny pipe cleaners,
Googley eyes,
Plush snowman
And snowman candle.



These are all things you could use to make a snowman. You can include paper, scissors and glue so that they can glue the snowmen to the flat surface. Cotton balls could be the main body. Stones could be the main body as well if you draw circles first on white paper and then fill them in with clear stones. It would make a frosted look. I included boots, mittens, hat and scarf as models or for tracing. They were decorations taken from my birthday cake this year. The second hat came from an old Bath and Body Works Bottle. I thought the colored stones, buttons, bells, lights, stars and shiny circles and tiny pompoms could be used as accessories. The lights are extra little bulbs that weren’t attached to a strand, some of the stars are foam stickers and the bells were from old cat collars. For the picture, the tiny bells, buttons and lights are sitting in a sea shell so they wouldn’t role around and get lost. The ribbon, garland or pipe cleaners can be used as the scarf. The pipe cleaners can be twisted to form a hat too. It’s obvious what the googley eyes are for although you can use any of the other circles for that. The plush snowman is there as a model snowman and the candle is there to make the tub smell good. You can add a little shovel or scoop with some cups too, but I forgot to put them in before I took the picture.












Some other ideas for things to add are felt, snowflakes, yarn, different colors and textures of ribbon, fake snow, white garland, large pompoms, coffee filters, cupcake liners, fabric etc.
I hope you enjoy this idea.

Christmas Collage

Christmas Collage

As I was wrapping some gifts over the past week, I thought about all the scraps of wrapping paper, ribbon, old bows etc that are just thrown out. The kids can use these things for different art projects. One is a collage. You can even use extra materials from decorating the tree or from homemade gifts you might be working on. I don’t have any examples of these, but I thought the idea might be useful for someone’s lesson plan or project at home.

Materials that you can use:
Glue,
Paper,
Wrapping paper scraps,
Old bows,
Scraps of ribbon,
Felt or other fabric pieces,
Garland,
Pompoms,
Candy cane or other Christmas candy wrappers,
Pine needles,
Pine cones,
Glitter,
And anything else you might have that would fit in with a Christmas collage.
Another idea is to sprinkle on a little bit of cinnamon, coco or another powdered spice that might remind you of winter and Christmas.
If the kids are old enough, they can cut out a snowflake, gingerbread man, gingerbread house, snowman, stocking, Santa, Christmas tree, candy cane, or any other winter pattern and glue the materials to it.
Give them the materials and see what they create!

Cotton Ball Polar Bear

Cotton Ball Polar Bear
What you’ll need:
Polar bear picture, coloring sheet or cutout,
Cotton balls,
Shiny circles, beads or googley eyes for the eyes,
Glitter
And other optional materials.

We used these two coloring sheets.
Polar bear
Polar bear mother and cub
If you don’t like either of these, there are so many coloring pages or cutouts to choose from online.

Some kids picked the polar bear by himself, but many picked the mother and cub. I only have a picture of one that I made, but couldn’t get pictures of the rest.

We started by gluing cotton balls to the bears. Some used very few cotton balls while others filled in their whole bears. Some kids added a lot of shiny circles and stars. Others only added a couple. Most of the kids added a lot of glitter on top of everything. We covered the cotton balls with glue and sprinkled glitter over the glue. Some of them even got added to the end of the year portfolios.

It’s a simple, but fun winter craft. Even though it has a finished product, there is a creative process by adding different materials. Kids can decide where to place them and they can even go outside the lines to make the bear apart of a scene.
Other ideas:
Add cotton balls or white puffy paint to the bottom for a snow scene,
Use different types of materials to give the bear more texture,
Cut out the bear and place him in another winter scene that the kids have created,
Do a similar project with penguins or snowmen.

Fall Colors Lesson Plan

Art:
Fall Color collage
Use construction paper or card stock as the background where the kids can glue different colored materials. For fall colors, use orange, green, red and yellow. The materials can be anything you can find around the house.
Paper,
Felt,
Other fabric,
Pictures of things like pumpkins, apples, leaves etc,
Pompoms,
Leaves
And whatever else you can think of for fall.

Coloring Pages:
Here are some fall theme coloring pages that I found.
Basket of apples,

fall leaves,
or
acorns.


Literacy:
Make a fall colors book.
Fall Colors Book

Sensory Play:
Fill a tub with fall colored pompoms, plastic apples, plastic pumpkins, acorns, leaves etc along with some cups and scoops.
There are a lot of good ideas for sensory tubs out there.
Autumn Sensory Tub
from School Time Adventures.
Autumn Sensory Bin
from 1Plus1Plus1.

Play-dough:
Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Play-dough Recipe
Add apple spices and food coloring.

Movement:
Take a nature walk.
Talk about the colors you see.
The leaves changing,
Fallen leaves and acorns,
Dark clouds,
Talk about other things you see, smell, hear and feel.

Math:
Take a platter or tray with dividers.
Cut pieces of red, green, yellow and brown construction paper and tape them inside the tray.
Have the children sort objects by color such as leaves, acorns, pumpkins, apples, etc. Basically, you can use any objects that are the colors you want them to recognize.

Matching:
Fall Colors Matching

Fall Colored Snacks or additions to Meals:
Red: Apple, strawberries or anything with tomato sauce.
Orange: orange slices, pumpkin, carrots.
Yellow: Corn, pineapple, bananas, cheese.
Green: Grapes, apple, Broccoli, celery.
Blue: Blueberries.
Brown: Wheat bread, whole wheat oat meal, brown rice, chocolate.
Idea inspired by the following post from: Counting Coconuts.

Open Ended Projects and Creativity

Yesterday, I worked with the kids on an art project that had specific directions, but could be creative. I didn’t come up with the idea. Since this week’s theme was fall colors, the kids had to take five foam shapes, one of each color and glue them to construction paper. After they glued the shapes, they were aloud to draw with markers.

At first, the kids avoided the art table and only came over when another teacher sent them. I tried to get them involved in the activity, but they were bored and I understood why. I felt I had to hold the shapes container so that they wouldn’t take more than five and one of each color. I didn’t want to have to keep telling them, “no, only take one” or, “you have to use all five colors.” I preferred to have a more open ended approach where there was maybe one condition. I might say that they should use all five colors, but it wouldn’t bother me if they decided not to. As long as they were creating something, making choices about where they wanted to place things and which colors they wanted to use it was fine with me.

With the first few kids that came over, I had them follow the directions. When I’d ask them what they made or to tell me about their picture, they were so disinterested. They said they made something but they didn’t know what it was or they were done after gluing the five pieces. They weren’t interested in drawing at all unless they didn’t want to glue.

When the next group of kids came over, I decided that I’d try my open ended approach to see if they’d be more excited about this project. First, I gave them the five pieces, but when they were done, I asked if they’d like more and put the container between them. I told them to use whatever shapes and colors they liked. They started to have fun gluing shapes and using more glue than was necessary. They started naming their creations. One boy called his a beaver and was pointing out where his head, eyes and tail were. The other boy was calling his a race track and talking about engines, a caboose and the door that you went through to get on to the track. I think it was a cross between a train track and race track, but it was creative anyway. I was glad they were having fun at the art table! With kids, less direction leads to a lot more learning and creativity.

Simple Ghost Puppets

I remembered this idea the other day while I was working with the kids in the art center. They had free choice and were drawing and started making trick-or-treat bags. It made me think of Halloween and ghosts. I had found this activity years ago and hadn't tried it. We didn't have pipe cleaners out, but we had popcicle sticks so that's what I used. I prefer using the pipe cleaners because later, I tried making one at home and with the pipe cleaners, the ghost is more like a puppet. The activity is very simple to do.

Tissue Ghost Puppets

Materials:
Two white tissues,
pipe cleaner,
black marker.


Steps:
1. Have your child lay one tissue open on a table and have her crumble the other tissue into a ball and place it in the middle of the opened tissue.
2. Pull up the corners of the flat tissue and twist the tissue to create a ball head.
3. wrap one end of a pipe cleaner around the neck of the ghost, holding the head in place.
4. Loop the other end of the chenille into a holder.
5. Using the holder, show the child how to manipulate the ghost up and down or to fly.
6. Draw a face on the ghost with a thin black marker.



Here’s the variation on that activity.
using a popcicle stick. I used some white scrap paper to cover the stick for the ghost I made pictured below. I used different colors for the mouth and eyes to try to get the kids interested, but they had finished making some trick or treat bags and moved on to another activity. You could also add googley eyes instead of drawing them on. That would be neat for the ghost because those eyes move.

Fall Theme Lesson Plan

Literacy:
The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle
A counting book, The Case of the Disappearing Acorns
Math: Sorting leaves, pinecones and acorns by color or type of object.
Sensory: Grab bag.
Contains fake apples, pumpkins, gourds, acorns and other fall related objects.
Children are to guess what’s in the bag before looking at it.

Apple Match
Cut out apples of green, yellow, and red. Put corresponding apples on a manilla folder.
Have your children match the apples.
You could also do this with pictures of food made from apples or make another matching game using pictures of different types of leaves.

Fine Motor:
Have two baskets.
Fill one with nuts and a set of tongs.
Have the children transfer the nuts from one basket to another using the tongs.
If some of the children are allergic to nuts, use fall colored pompoms or acorns.

For dramatic play, you could turn an area into a farmers market since they are selling fruits and vegetables through the fall.
You could include:
Cash register,
Fake money,
Fake fruits such as apples, peaches, pears, pomegranates,
Fake vegetables such as corn, gourds, pumpkins etc.
You could include boxes and or jars of foods that can be made with those fruits and vegetables.
For an extension of that area, you could set up a small tub of water where the children could pretend to wash the fruits and veggies.
I thought of this idea on the spot so if you can think of anything to add, feel free.

Movement:
Take a nature walk to collect leaves and other fall objects.

Art:
CRUSHED LEAF MOSAIC
Materials:
Dried leaves,
Construction paper,
Glue.


Steps:
1. Gather a small bag of fallen leaves.
2. Dry them out completely.
3. Crush the leaves.
4. Cut a piece of paper into a leaf shape and give it to the child
5. Cover the leaf shape with glue and sprinkle on the crushed leaves.

Discussions: Different types of leaves and the trees they come from. Also, discuss when seasons change and the cycle of how leaves fall off trees and new leaves grow next spring.


Leaf Wreath
What You Need:
Leaves (various colors preferred)
Paper Plate
Paste
What You Do:
Have your children collect interesting leaves.
Next, cut the center of the plate out and let your children attach their leaves.
Painting with Apples
Cut an apple in half and let the children stamp or paint with it.

Recipes:
Frozen Pumpkin Treats
For each child, mix 1 tsp. pumpkin-pie filling with 3
Tablespoons whipped topping. Spread on one graham cracker and top with another
Graham cracker
. Freeze.

Individual Pumpkin Pies
For each child: Measure 1/4 cup of vanilla pudding, 1
Tsp canned pumpkin and dash of pumpkin spice; mix together. Put mixture in single bowl. –serve with graham cracker crust and top with one candy pumpkin.

Art Activities for An About Me Theme

Reflection Paintings

Materials:

Plastic Spoons
Aluminum foil
Food Coloring
Corn Syrup

Instructions:

Allow the children to paint on aluminum foil with a mixture of food coloring and corn syrup. When they are done, they’ll have shiny paintings and will be able to see a reflection of themselves.

My Placemat

Materials:

Construction Paper
Paint
Picture of Child
Glue

Instructions:

Give each child a piece of paper. Let the children either paint or trace their handprint on the paper.
They can also decorate the paper any way that they want. Finally put their picture
And name somewhere on the page and laminate it. Use the placemats during meals or let the child use it how they’d like.

Photo Collage


Materials:

Construction paper,
Photos of the child and his or her family,
Glue,
And anything else the child would like to decorate their picture with.

Materials:

Let the child glue pictures onto the paper. They can also decorate the empty parts of the paper how they wish. While working on the project, you can talk about when the photos were taken, family members in the photos etc.

Ocean Theme Lesson Plan

Ocean Theme Lesson Plan

Literacy:
A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle
or
By the Seashore : A Natural Trail Book (A Touch and Feel Adventure)
or
Islands of Ice: The Story of a Harp Seal
Ocean theme word wall with pictures of sea creatures labeled.

Music and movement: Ocean finger plays:
Five Little Sea Creatures


Five little sea creatures
On the ocean floor;
The lobster walked away
Now there are four.
Four little sea creatures
Living in the sea;
The octopus crept away
Now there are three.
Three little sea creatures
Wondering what to do;
"Good-bye," said the starfish
Now there are two.
Two little sea creatures
Not having much fun;
Off swam the sea horse
Now there is one.
One little hermit crab
Sad and all alone,
Back came the starfish,
Back came the sea horse,
Back came the octopus,
Back came the lobster,
Then all five went home.


Five Cranky Crabs

Five cranky crabs were digging on the shore.
One swam into a net and then there were four.
Four cranky crabs were floating in the sea.
One got tangled up in seaweed then there were three.
Three Cranky crabs were wondering what to do.
One dug a deep, deep hole. Then there were two.
Two cranky crabs were warming in the sun.
One got scooped up in a cup. Then there was one.
One cranky crab was smarter than his friends.
He hid between the jagged rocks.
That's how the story ends.


Math:
Shell sorting,
Pouring water or sand in the sensory table,
Seashell Match Up
Sensory:
Sensory tub with sand and water: have kids dig for shells.
Water and fish in the sensory table with nets to catch the fish.

Science:

Ocean Bottle
Materials:
Plastic bottle,
water,
blue food coloring,
glitter,
pebbles,
sand,
shells,
plastic fish
and some hot glue.


Steps:
1. Clean out an empty plastic pop bottle.
2. Add water, blue food coloring, glitter, and maybe a few pebbles. Also, you can add sand, shells, or plastic fish.
3. Seal the bottle closed using a little hot glue and allow to completely dry before the children can play with it.


Note: Have the children tip or role the bottle to see what happens.

Discussion: What happens when you role or tip the bottle?
What happens in the actual ocean?
What kind of creatures live in the ocean?
How do those creatures get their food?
What do we get from the ocean?

Extension:
Listen to sounds of different fish, sea birds and the ocean atmosphere.
Make a guessing game out of different sea sounds.
Take a trip to the beach.


Fine motor:
Make shell or starfish imprints in play dough.

Art:
Sea shell rubbings with crayons.

Sand art in beach buckets that cover like the ones below.
Take small cups of sand and add food coloring.
Mix well.
Have the kids scoop the sand from the cups to the buckets in layers so they can create a cute beach bucket while practicing their pouring and scooping skills.


They came in packs of three and they had bubblegum inside.

Pasta Shell Painting
Use large pasta shells and paint.
Let the kids paint them any way they want and you can discuss how no two shells are alike.

Dramatic play:
OCEAN PLAY AREA


Directions:
Turn the space under a card table into an ocean hideout for your child.
1. First, hang some blue crepe paper streamers or twisty ribbon all around the table so that it hangs down to the floor.
2. Next, place some pillow "rocks" inside for your sea creatures.
3. Provide your child with some plastic or stuffed sea animals to place in the den.
4. Decorate with pictures of the sea and place books about the sea inside.
You can add plush animals like the ones below to any ocean themed dramatic play area or put them on display.