Halloween Silhouette Painting

Our preschool class made Halloween silhouette paintings last week.  The inspiration for this project can be found at That Artist Woman’s site.  Gail has many great ideas for elementary school art, many of which can be made doable with preschoolers.  This project took a week to complete.  A small piece was completed each day giving preschoolers ample time to do each step of the project well and not be overwhelmed with completing the entire project in one sitting.

We used water color paper that was taped to the table with blue painter’s tape to form a frame around the pictures.   The children used yellow and orange tempera paint cakes to paint the bottom third of the paper.

Red was added next.

Blue was added to the top of the paper.   The tempera paint cakes work like water colors and allow the colors to mix.  This was the first time I tried the paint cakes and love them!  I found a school supply store in Canada that carries 28 colors!  This is going to be my next purchase for the preschool.

The next day a contact paper mask was place over the top 3/4 of the picture.  The children painted the bottom 1/4 of the picture black.

Misty-Jade created black Halloween cut-outs for the children to paste over their paintings.   The pictures were then framed and put up on our new bulletin board.

 

This picture reminds me of the cyclone in the Wizard of Oz.

 

 

This was the first experience this group had using the tempera paint cakes.  Some of the children figured out how to make their paintings brighter by using less water and getting more paint onto the brush.

Little Pandas Preschool

2011 Halloween Party

Here are some pics of our Halloween party. Enjoy!

Slideshow made with Smilebox

Glow in the Dark Pumpkins

The kids went outside on a warm fall day to paint pumpkins with acrylic glow in the dark paint.

The children could choose from pink, yellow, orange, or green paint.

The goal was to cover the pumpkins completely with a thick coat of paint.

After the pumpkins dried the children played with them at the light table.  

The children were fascinated with pumpkins glowing in the dark.

 

 

Halloween Zoo Phonics with Magnetic Letters

This is our second year using the Zoo Phonics curriculum.  The kids love it and learn the lower case letters and their sounds fairly quickly.  This year we’re learning letters associated with our science themes and other activities the children are working on. We started the school year in September with “m” for measurement and “b” for ball.  During October the focus has been on “h” for Halloween and “p” for pumpkin.  

I printed Halloween word strips accompanied by a picture onto magnetic sheets. Enough letters for each word were also created. The children were all given a cookie sheet and each chose the Halloween word he or she wanted to work on. Their task was to match the order of the letters on the word strip to form the word.  All of the children were very successful and proud of their work.

This activity is great for continual review of letters we learned in the past and also helps children to recognize that letters are used to create words.

Little Pandas Preschool

Music & Chinese Circle Time

I upgraded my blog to include video and just had to share a few clips of our kids during circle time.  Amber sent pics of Spooky Loo to me last week (above), but it’s much better on video.  I keep writing that the kids are learning Chinese while participating in other activities, but seeing what Gloria has accomplished is even more impressive.  She has changed the words to the song that lets the kids know it’s  circle time.

Amber is very passionate about music and enjoys singing with the kids.  She’s holding one of our new children so you don’t see her in this video, but she and Gloria both taught the kids Spooky Loo.   Even with a few mishaps the kids are having a great time.

This is the kids favorite Halloween song.

I hope everyone enjoys the videos.

Little Pandas Preschool

Playing with Light & Shadows

Playing with flashlights and creating spooky shadows is a perfect science activity for Halloween!  The kids have made some great observations about light and shadows. 

They learned that shadows can be large or small depending on the distance the light is from the object.

After some discussion about the color of shadows the children experimented with white and black paper and concluded that shadows are black.

The flashlights are a very popular item, so I will need to buy a few more!

Little Pandas Preschool

Pumpkin Seed Art

The kids created pumpkins with the seeds they removed from the pumpkin they opened last week.  Since we needed about a 100 seeds per child we supplemented our collection with seeds purchased in bulk from the grocery store.   The seeds were dyed a bright orange.

Kids poured glue onto their pumpkins.

Seeds were added to the pumpkins.  The pumpkins are displayed on the bulletin boards with other art work created by the children.

Little Pandas Preschool

Halloween Candy Corn!

A new sensory bin containing Halloween candy corn was added to our preschool classroom.  The kids loved it!  The idea came from Teach Preschool, but we changed it a bit and added plastic spiders, snakes, skeletons, and bats to the mix. The Halloween cups and orange spoons added to the festive mood.

Sensory play is a critical component of a preschool classroom as it is the primary way in which children gain knowledge.  They have been learning since birth through touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound.

Children need to have many sensory play experiences in order to fully develop this avenue of learning.

Sensory play is also part of the scientific process where children use their senses to collect and process data.

Sensory play enhances language, social, and cognitive skills.  Here Gloria interacts with the Children in Chinese.

An excellent must read post about sensory play written by Amanda Morgan can be found here:  A Handful of Fun: Why Sensory Play is Important for Preschoolers | Not Just Cute

Little Pandas Preschool

Our New Light Table!

I have been wanting a light table for many years and finally asked Kerry to build one.  We’re still working out some issues such as the number of lights needed, but it is functional and the kids are loving it!  

The kids are playing with Halloween gel window clings.  The colors are vibrant and the Halloween figures makes the activity irresistible for the kids.

With the approaching holidays coming the light table is a perfect addition to our preschool.  I have so many fun ideas planned for its use.

Little Pandas Preschool

Pumpkin Seeds!

We needed some pumpkin seeds for an art project so the kids and teachers cut open a pumpkin.  

All of the kids wanted to see what is inside the pumpkin.

But  only two brave souls would actually touch the pumpkin’s innards!

Little Pandas Preschool