Celebrating Friendship, Eating Yummy Food, and Enjoying a Good Book

We all long for friendship and in preschool we

celebrate it daily, but maybe on days like today

we just express it a little bit more. I felt that

the song You've Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story

was a fitting tribute to our post today. Enjoy!

What a fun day!! We began with passing out 

friendship notes/Valentines to all our friends.

We then began our Friendship Cherry Pies!! 

Each child placed a graham cracker in a ziploc bag

and began crushing it. Some used their fists,

while others tried their elbows.

After the graham cracker crumbs were in the cup

each child would put cherry pie filling in next.

I put the whipped topping in for each child 

and then they placed the cups on a tray.

The trays went in the fridge until after lunch 

when we thoroughly enjoyed our treats.

Had to share this hair!! One of my

parents found this inspiration on Pinterest

to do for her daughter's hair. Awesome!!

 I then shared on of my favorite Valentine's Day stories,

Slugs in Love by Susan Pearson. In the story Marylou the slug

has a crush on Herbie the slug. Great story and lots of 

opportunities for discussion as words are introduced,

such as: bashful, sublime, and more. I've shared this

story for 3 years and this year's group were the most

engaged in the story that I've experienced. There was

even talk about how Marylou began a little shy and got

less and less shy as the story went on and questions

about how she wrote with her "slime". Love it!!

How to Lure Them In

I had the distinct honor of being able to spend a week at Stanford University's Bing Nursery School during the summer of 2010. During that time I was able to learn about their philosophy, speak with the nursery school teachers, and view their amazing environment. 


One thing that really struck me was the care and thought that went into setting up the environment each day in such a way as to draw the children to it. They call these provocations. The way I describe the provocation set-up is providing enough materials to set a foundation for discovery, but open-ended enough not to dictate a specific result or product. After returning to my preschool I began setting up my own provocations to entice the children to check out the materials and get those creative juices flowing. These are some of the provocations I have set up in my classroom.


Note: These are ideas and suggested materials. Children are always able and encouraged to pull additional materials from the classroom into their creativity. 


The provocation is always aesthetically pleasing and often incorporates natural materials such as baskets, wooden materials, flowers, etc.

A variety of skin tone paper dolls were available with a variety

of pants, shirts, and dresses. Also available were glue, crayons, 

and a variety of hair color choices (pictured below).

Provocations for the Science Area encourage children

to come over, touch things, look closely, and just check

it out for themselves. This included a clock with a 

different bird call each hour, bird nest, magnifying glass,

owl puppet, guide books, and posters.

This part of the Science area included a sound machine with a

variety of bird calls, a print, bird houses, a variety of bird feathers,

bird images, and a tiny nest.

A variety of materials available in complimentary colors: 

colored yarn, pompom balls, colored popsicle sticks,

tape, glue, blue and orange paper.

Our Dramatic Play area was a restaurant:

plaid tablecloth with clear plastic cover, square wooden plates,

wooden/velcro pizza set, wooden bowls with red (tomato) and

green (lettuce) foam cubes, cups, and napkins.

This was the art setup during our first mini-day of school.

Each child was encouraged to create a masterpiece: 

small cardboard box/bases, ribbons, paint-chip samples, 

packing peanuts, mini tiles, tape, glue.

Art Area: Still Life Art

Sunflowers, art paper matted on brown and green papers,

paint colors in flowers: green, brown, and yellow and clear 

bowls of water for brush rinsing.

On this day I had different sunflowers that didn't have the brown centers. Art paper matted on brown paper, but this time only yellow and green paint. The kids quickly noticed that the flowers didn't have brown centers and that there were only two colors of paint. Keen observers!!

Try out provocations and see if you notice a difference in your little ones' interest level. 

Who Doesn't Love Crayons??

After posting some of recent activities with a Friendship/Valentines theme in mind, I began looking back at some of the things we did last year. Most of my students spend two years in my state preschool program. We do have a specific curriculum that our district has adopted that we are required to use in the classroom, but I try to add lots of other interesting things in the mix. With those "different things" I try to vary them from year to year so a child gets to have a variety of experiences. 


We decided to make our own heart crayons using older crayons we had lying around. The children participated from start to finish in the process. The first thing that had to be done was peeling ALL those crayons. They were eager to get started and before long we had several children working diligently to remove the papers from the crayons we were going to use.

After we finished peeling the crayons, each child chose the two colors they wanted to go into their special heart crayon. We then had to break the crayon into pieces small enough to fit into the heart-shaped tin. This was harder than you'd think. I didn't think they could do it, as it was rough on my hands, but they were persistent and succeeded. I did make myself a guide that you can see below so I would know which child chose which colors.

We then had to maneuver the pieces around to fit into the heart shape. Sometimes this required a little more breaking, other times they fit perfectly.

After our tin was full we placed it in an oven set on a low temp (250-300 degrees) and kept watch on the process. You just want to see that they are completely melted. Keeping the kids at a safe distance, we removed the tin from the oven and placed it on a countertop to cool completely.

They turned out beautifully. It was so cool seeing the colors blend together, yet stay separate. The one downside we discovered was that they didn't work as well to color with as they did in their original form. I don't know if melting them changed something in their integrity or what. You could still color with them, but the colors weren't as vibrant as I had hoped. However, one can't deny how beautiful they look.

And it begins...

OK. Here we go. After lots of encouragement from friends who have viewed my photos on Facebook and my desire to try something new, this marks the beginning.


My goal is to share a little of my passion of being there "for the children", of creating inspiring environments "for the children", and going through each day with the children in mind.


I found this quote awhile back and honestly wish I knew who said it so I could give them credit, but it blew me away and I felt like it was something that summarizes my passion: 


"In this classroom, relationships are fostered, families are respected, and children are honored. In this classroom, nature's gifts are valued and children's thoughts are captured. In this classroom, learning is alive and aesthetic beauty is appreciated."


I plan to post images of the fun and amazing activities we plan and those wonderful ones that "just happen". Thank you for sharing this journey with me!!

We've been very busy this week doing all kinds of things. We've been doing lots of heart art, writing friendship notes, and more. That's amore!! The pic above involved 5 different colors of paint, heart cookie cutters, and two tp rolls creased into heart shapes and held that way with tape. Must give credit to Pinterest for the tp roll idea. You can only use the roll for one day since it's cardboard and gets kind of mushy after being dipped in the wet paint after awhile. But, oh what fun my little friends had!!

I found paper doilies at the dollar store and my friends expressed themselves with liquid watercolors from Discount School Supply. Love how they turned out!

We put out some common words: Mom, Dad, Love, Your Friend, To:, and From: and had strips with the names of all the children in the class available to them. Lots of creativity took place with cutting, gluing, writing, and coloring. What fun!!