Contact Paper Art

Here is a super simple art activity that both my daughter and my preschool students with special needs enjoy greatly! 

Contact Paper Art

1. Cut a piece of contact paper off the roll.
2. Attach it to an easel or the fridge with clips.  (sticky side facing out)
3. Gather collage materials to stick to the contact paper.
4. Stick away!!!

(Great hair day, I know!)

Most of my students have sensory aversions and my daughter just doesn't care to get her fingers sticky with glue (covered in mud is fine...just no glue...go figure???).  Anyway, this activity just cuts out the step of using glue, but still allows the child to make an individualized masterpiece!  

Some contact paper art themes we have done in the past:

nature walk collection

pink things

cut paper

odds & ends found around the house

        Enjoy!

Gardening with my Preschooler

I have always wanted to grow a vegetable garden, and we are finally doing it!  Macy is so excited and ready to help with every part of the process.  I know this is going to be an awesome learning experience for the whole family.

Macy just loves to be outside, no matter what the activity is, so it didn't take much to get her enthusiastic about the project.  I did, however, want to prep her a little before we began, so we read some books about gardening and also watched a storybook movie that came on TV.  The movie, Planting a Rainbow, is actually a book, as well, by Lois Ehlert.

  

Even though the book is about flowers instead of vegetables, it was still a great resource to get her pumped about all the pretty colors that we will be able to grow in our garden.  

Not only will we plant a rainbow, but we will be able to eat a rainbow of veggies, too!

I also found this page that lists some great children's books about gardening:  http://www.jmgkids.us/index.cfm?did=11777

Actually, Macy's favorite book came from the library and wasn't on the above list.  It is called Ten Seeds by Ruth Brown.  It is a very simple book about a little boy planting 10 seeds.  Different things in the environment come and destroy the seeds one-by-one, such as a slug, a cat, and a ball.  It counts down from 10 to 1 but in the end one flower prevails and gives the little boy 10 new seeds.  Very simple, but a great book.

We also planted some seeds indoors.

Crayola has indoor greenhouses for children.  Macy had fun with her Granny watering the little dirt packs and then inserting the tiny seeds. 

 Danonino Yogurt is giving away a tiny seed pack with each 6 pack of yogurt purchased.  Our seeds were chives, and we planted them directly into a clean danonino yogurt cup.

  

After all of that, we tilled the dirt for our garden with lots of help from Macy to get the grass out of the dirt!  We have also visited several plant stores to check everything out.  We will definitely have to invest in some of the absolutely adorable child-sized gardening tools in the near future.  They have put Macy's excitement over the top!  

Who wouldn't want a watering can that looked like this!?!

We can't wait for the planting and harvesting to begin!  I'll keep you posted...


I'm also enjoying a little blog hopping today!

Precious Childhood Collections

Does your kiddo like to pick up everything on walks from leaves to sticks to rocks and everything in between?  Well, Macy sure does!!!  We ALWAYS have to take a basket on our walks, sometimes even if we are just walking to the mailbox!

Lately, she has been really into collecting rocks.  We pick them up everywhere.  Heck, we have even pulled the car over to score a good rock or two!

So, to make a long story short...I bought this book to help with all the questions about the different types of rocks, and, well, just to make a Teachable Moment out of our basket of rocks!  This momma might know a lot about literacy and mathematics, but put a rock in front of me, and, well, it's just a rock!

We are planning to go on some really big rock hunt road trips to find even prettier rocks and then learning a thing or two together while matching our rocks to rocks in the book.

It should be a great Teachable Moments' Adventure for the whole family!

We are also enjoying a little hopping with...

Ten for Tuesday ~ Teachable Moments Outside

1. How many different types of leaves can you find?
2. What shapes or pictures can you see in the clouds?
3. What sounds do you hear?  Instead of calling them out, print out pictures of things that you might hear, such as a dog, a bird, trees blowing, and a car.  When your child hears each item have them circle or color in the picture.  
4. On a windy day, collect some things from your home or outside that might fly away in the breeze, like a cotton ball, leaves, a feather, and a scarf.  Release one thing at a time and see which one goes the farthest.  Which things fall directly to the ground?
5. After rain or when snow is melting, place a leaf in the run off water by the curb and see how far you can follow it before it gets stuck or falls in the drain.
6. Go on a nature walk to collect grass, seeds, acorns, twigs, leaves, etc. in a basket.  Then sit under a tree and make a nature college on paper with your collection and some glue.
7. Plant flowers and care for them as they grow.  How tall do they get?  How wide are they?  Giant sunflowers are a fun choice!
8. Plant veggies and care for them as they grow.  Kids are more likely to eat them, if they helped grow them!
9. Go on a bug hunt.  Let the kids take a picture of each bug and then compare and contrast where each one lives.
10.  Play, play, play!!!  Freeze tag ~ Frisbee ~ Hide-n-go-seek ~ Catch ~ Etc.