Sunday, January 30, 2011

Snowman Arts & Crafts Ideas

January is almost over but it's not too late to make a snowman. These are just a few ideas I rounded up for you all. Enjoy! :)


Snowman Globe - This was made by a another pre-k class at the school where I work. As you can see, the globe is a blue painted paper plate and the globe stand is half of a brown painted plate.

Blistery Snowman Picture - We made these in our classroom. We invited the students to use their fingers or paint brushes to make snow. After the snow was dry we added circles for the snowman body, dry black beans for the buttons, and some twigs for the arms.


Snowman Window Scene - This was made by my son who is in kindergarten. They used crayons on black construction paper to draw a scene and then they added some brown strips on top of the picture to look like the scene was being viewed through a window.


Winter Wonderland Snowmen - These were made by providing students with sequins, feathers, buttons, and other various craft supplies.


Other snowman ideas:
Marshmallow Snowmen
Paper Plate Snowmen Globes from Teach Preschool
Rice Krispy Treat Snowman from Edible Crafts
Build Your Snowman from No time for Flashcards
Create-A-Snowman Craft from Crafts-N-Things for Children

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Line Up By Colors with Floor Crayons

One of the things were we struggling with in our classroom was lining up and staying in our own personal space. We haven't exactly mastered the concept yet, but these crayons sure are helping. ;)




I admit I can't take credit for this idea. I saw these recently at a school where I was observing and really liked the idea.

Our crayons are made from bulletin board paper. First, my assistant used a die cut machine to cut out all of the letters. This was her guide for how long the crayons needed to be. Then she hand drew a pattern which she used for all of the crayons. She glued on the letters and added a black stripe to make them look like crayons. We taped the crayons to the floor with masking tape and then added large pieces of clear contact paper over the top of them for durability. This also enables the floor to be swept and mopped.

The floor crayons have many purposes:

  • As already mentioned, the crayons help to provide some structure. It gives a defining place and tells the student that this is where we should be.
  • Use the crayons as an every day way to teach the children their colors when lining up (Sarah, line up on red. Ben, line up on orange.)
  • Use the crayons to provide spatial boundaries/personal space when lining up. (Stay on your color.)
  • You could also use the crayons for a game. Our children enjoy jumping from color to color. You could use bean bags and play a toss game.

What ideas do you have for the floor crayons?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Song: Look Who Came to School Today


Here's a song we sing at school. I wrote it on sentence strips. Each child gets a turn. They come up and find their name and put it in the line. Then we sing the song to them. They can dance, jump, etc while we sing their name.

This is a great song for name recognition. I chose pigs for the names because we are learning about The Three Little Pigs. It isn't necessary to choose a new die cut for each week; this is just something I did for now. You could change this according to season or you could use the same one for the entire year.

Look Who Came to School Today
tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Look who came to school today
School today, school today
Look who came to school today
___________ did!

source unknown