Fun Days-Teddy Bear Picnic

We often have different “themed” days in some classrooms.  Pajama day is always a fun one, and popular.

One day, however, I saw a great day in a classroom that almost made me wish I was still a lead teacher in the classroom just so I could implement it…almost, I love what I do.

They had a Teddy Bear Picnic day!

What did this entail?  Many FUN activities full of intentionality!

Everyone brings in their teddy bears.  If someone doesn’t have a teddy bear, that’s okay because the teacher had LOTS of extras!  If they forgot or didn’t have one, they were able to pick one to be theirs for the day.

The teddy bears are the children’s “students” for the day and the get to/must bring them around and share their activities with them. 

In the blocks, teddy bears were the receivers of beds made just for them…to size. 

In the dramatic play area, well, what teddy bear doesn’t LOVE coffee, cake, and plastic pizza?

During circle, they sat in a circle according the the teddy bears size!   This was a great math activity to start off and then having the responsibility of “keeping your teddy bear quiet” brought a new attention span to even the most wiggly child.

Circle time consisted of reading/singing the Teddy Bear Picnic book and going around the circle introducing the teddy bear to the rest of the group (name, favorite food, age).

At one of the tables, there were pieces of fabric, scissors, and patterns to make clothes for their bears…if they wanted.  There was one teacher close by to HELP the children stitch the things together with fat needles and thread.  Yes, the teacher allowed them to SEW with REAL needles!  Awesome practice in trusting the children!

At another table, if they so chose, the children had a picnic making activity.  Teddy bears and their owners spent time making sandwiches (math/patterning, fine motor, reading recipes), filling baggies with carrots (counting), and filling baskets with small group numbers of sandwiches, carrot bags, applesauce cups, plastic spoons, paper cups, napkins, plates, and pitchers of milk (community, counting, sorting, spacial awareness).

During outdoor time, teddy bears rode on tricycles going through obstacle courses, built sand castles, and went on…wait for it…a BEAR HUNT!  It was an awesome obstacle course!

Lunch was a picnic out on the grass!

Nap time was a breeze for the simple matter that the children didn’t want to wake their bears.

It was an awesome day!

What kind of fun days do you have?

Make it personal

One of my favorite things to do in the classroom is to bring the children into every area.  I don’t mean by physically dragging them over to the blocks or dramatic play areas.  What I mean is make each area personal for everyone.

Children love to see themselves, don’t they?  A great way to bring them into the areas and activities is to bring in pictures of them.  Here is a simple list of ideas that I enjoy:

Make block play people out of their pictures.  Print out pictures of the children making each child about 4 inches tall.  Glue those pictures onto cute and sanded 2x4 blocks that have been cut to size.  You can even take intentional pictures of the children and ask them to pose however they want.  Don’t tell them what it’s for.  They will get a kick out of it and love to play with each other’s blocks.

Recreate Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Using pictures of the children, write your own book having each child on the page.  Write the words as in the book, substituting the children’s names for the animals. “Suzy, Suzy who do you see?  I see Alyssa looking at me.”  I did this once in a toddler classroom and used laminated pages so that when a child left and a new child came it was easy to change the children’s names on the pages as necessary.

File folder games!  There is so much you can do with this.  First is a matching game.  Real simple, a picture of John matched a picture of John.  There is the puzzle one where you glue half the picture to the file folder and they have to match the other half.  Use their pictures for this!  For a bit more creative, take pictures of the children in specific numbers of group so they match the picture with the written number on the file folder board.  If they are getting more advanced in letter sound recognition, have them match the child’s name to the letter on the board.

Make lacing cards with their pictures glued to cardstock, teach them how to wave them together to make a long line of classmates together!  Have a stack of pictures where they can sort by color shoes, boys and girls, color of shirts, etc…

What other ideas do you have to integrate pictures of the children into the environment?

Block fun

Two words:

Shaving   Cream

Try it, put some shaving cream in your block area.  If you are on carpeted floor, put the blocks on a low table so you don’t mess up the carpeting.  If you are on laminated floor or something else, just make sure there is a taped off zone of no stepping shaving cream only so that they don’t slip and fall.

It is an awesome experience!

Intentional Teaching where the Children are at

Continuing on our Intentional Teaching journey, let's look at Intentional Teaching that is totally led my the child's play.

Remember, Intentional Teaching is still allowing the children free choice time but adding to their play in a way that will enrich and stimulate their play in such a way to make it purposeful.

Let's go to the block area. This is a place that is real easy to get some intentional teaching but is often neglected. Typically during free choice there is a group of boys in that area. Yes, sometimes there are girls, but typically it is boys. Especially when you put out some dinosaurs or cars.

How do you get some intentional teaching in? It's simple. First thing you have to do is GO OVER AND GET INVOLVED!!! Many times we avoid this area. Don't do it. Go sit down, get involved. Find out what they are building.

One day I went to the block area and a group of boys (about 4 of them) were building a zoo. We had zoo animals out. They were making a zoo.

This is simple, right? They were making different squares with the blocks and placing different animals inside them. Here's where the intentional teaching comes in.

"What are we making?" (Notice I say WE, I have now included myself in their play whether they want me or not; but they do have the option to ask me to walk away...they never do).

"We're making a zoo."

"Oh, I see. I see you're making some pens and cages for all the animals. Look, I see the leopard is in this really small area. Maybe we should give him some more space. Can I make it bigger?"

By this time, they are giving me more blocks to make the space bigger. Then, I build up, adding a shelf while saying, "I read in a book that leopards like to climb trees and sit, I'm going to make him a shelf that looks like a tree so he can climb up there. This way he can sit up high in the tree or, if he wants to hide, he can crawl under the shelf to get away from the people visiting the zoo."

I've now given them something to think about with the other animals. "Maybe some of the other animals would like someplace to hide."

They soon quickly work on expanding and building on the other animals, making sure everyone has "a tree to climb and a place to hide."

Although, when they get to the elephants, I add, "I don't think elephants can climb, can they? Maybe they don't need a tree to climb. I wonder what elephants like to have?"

This begins a little discussion about things elephants like. Then, in my INTENTIONAL TEACHING way, I exclaim, "I have a book all about zoo animals! Maybe we should look at that! Maybe that will tell us what elephants like!"

Then, in true preschool boy fashion, they eagerly follow me to my book area to get the book out. If I didn't have the book with me, I would mention that I don't have it with me, but I will bring it tomorrow to look at...and I will make sure to BRING IT because they will want it. I can guarantee this isn't the first, nor will it be the last, day that they are building a zoo.

We take out the book and look through it to find what elephants like. We quickly discover that we need some water and they make a lake. How? Well, on my suggestion, one of them draws a lake on a piece of paper and colors it blue, then someone cuts it out to put in the encounter (yes, we now know that it is called an encounter because we found that out in the book as well).

For a couple days, they recreate the zoo, adding more and changing things regularly. They constantly reference the book I have now left in that area for them to refer to. I walk by to see how their zoo is coming, "Wow, look at all those encounters. Who takes care of all those animals?"

Now we get to discussing about the veterinarians and zoo keepers and all their jobs. Soon, we are finding out that someone has to make food for all the animals and what kinds of foods each of them make.

Then, the inevitable comments from me: "Hm, I see you have lions, zebras, elephants, and hippopotamus...but do you remember what lions eat? Don't they eat zebras? Do you think that the lions and the zebras should be next to each other? Or should they be in different parts of the zoo?"

This opens up discussions to HOW a zoo is designed. Living in San Diego, we have the Zoo at our disposal. Even if we can't go TO the zoo, we can easily get a map of the zoo and NOW we can see how the zoo is designed.

Now we can SORT the animals by types and living habitats and all sorts of different ways.

This is a project that can take weeks, if not MONTHS of free choice time. This is a project in which children learn math, science, language, and so much more. This is a project that started from the children's ideas, the teacher participated with some INTENTIONAL TEACHING, and pretty soon the children have so much more knowledge from just a little bit of play...okay, A LOT of play.

It was, however, all play. The teacher, at key moments, add information and knowledge to stimulate and enrich their play. That's what is important of Intentional Teaching.

They got suishy soft diapers!

The are absolutely adorable! I never would have consciously ordered them on my own, but for about $23, they are awesome! The other day I got the urgent call: "You need to order $300 dollars worth of toddler toys by tomorrow before 8 am or we're going to lose this grant." Note: It was 5:00 at night and we were already closed, I was standing at my husbands center and quickly flipped through their catalog to do the order.

As I flipped through, I saw these large wooden animals with what looked like, to me, squishy bottoms. I figured: wooden, animals, block play, soft bottoms would be good for texture...let's try it! I am so glad I did. I got them today and when I opened them up you'll never believe it: IT'S A DIAPER ON EACH ANIMAL!!!

That's right! I fluffy little diaper that matches each animal. They each have a tail sewn on too making it even cuter! Now, I don't figure on the diapers sticking around for long; but maybe they will since I have a teacher in the toddler room that is very good at teacher the children to be responsible with their toys. But, even without the squishy bottoms, they are very sturdy solid wood and look like they will last a long time.

What is the best thing that you have purchased without knowing how great it really is?

Dinosaur Curriculum

Okay, I bunch of you have been searching and asking for some Dinosaur Curriculum. So, here are my five best ideas:

1. I have talked before about the sensory table and an archaeological dig. This is always fun!

2. Of course there is my favorite song. This is great fun to act out, use at transition times, or just to sing together. My favorite time to use in transition is getting ready for lunch. It gives plenty of time between each child to go potty, get their hands washed, put out their blanket, and sit down for lunch. This doesn't work if the children are going from one activity to line up and wait for everyone. They wait in line way too long!

3. I also love to have the children see how big dinosaurs actually were! Find the measurements for dinosaurs. There are so many different types and sizes I can't begin to give you links. You'll have to look those us. But once you get those lengths, measure them out on the playground. Use chalk and draw a line on the sidewalk or wall to show the length. You can also use yarn, but make sure you attach is securely so it doesn't come undone and trip people up. Have the children lay head to toe to show how long they actually are. Another way is to have them stand with their hands wide spread. Mark along the line how many children it took to measure the different dinosaurs. Make sure to post pictures of the dinosaurs you choose to use to show how tall they were.

4. You can do the same with the weight, in a way. This takes more math for the bigger dinosaurs, so stick to some smaller ones. Using a picture of the dinosaur, find out how much that dinosaur weighed. Then, weigh all the children. You'll have to add them all up; unless you have a really big scale! Take a picture of the groups of children that equal the weight of the dinosaur and post it underneath the picture.

5. Sorting dinosaurs by type (land, water, flying, meat eater, plant eaters, etc...). Have pictures or play dinosaurs and let the children sort them. Even better: help the children make a land area in the block area or on any expanse that can be left out where they can put the dinosaurs accordingly in the areas.

Roads roads and more roads!

I have a few boys in one of my morning classrooms that LOVE cars. For the past 2 or 3 weeks they have spent their free play time building complex roads with the blocks. They bring in their own matchbox cars to supplement the ones we have here (because the 15-20 we have are just not enough). So, when I was doing my order, I saw this item and decided now was the time to get it. I had seen it before and thought it was totally cool, but I didn't really have anyone who would absolutely love it as much as me. Plus, I had been watching them create ramps (short and long) across the classroom and knew that this would help in exploring these creations. So, I put it in the classroom yesterday before any of the children arrived. They immediately were drawn to it and had no problem at all assembling the pieces. I thought they might have a problem at first in connecting the pieces; but they needed no help at all! These pieces fit very easily together, and their size allows for them to easily create turns, ramps, bridges, and anything else they dream up. The set also comes with two battery powered cars; they just turn them on and the cars stay on the road! They liked using those cars because they were a novelty, but soon they were using all the matchbox cars, too. The picture doesn't show this item any justice. Those color sections are actually a bunch of individual pieces already put together. So, in reality you can also take patterning into the block area with a child who just doesn't care about math play yet. You can use these pieces to make a pattern in the road. Since the way these pieces connect allows for the connection to turn and bend in all directions, it's easy to incorporate the blocks in making bridges and hills; however the set does come with 4 ramps to place under the road to make a hill. There are seemingly endless possibilities with this item! The only thing it doesn't have is the ability to make a fork in the road (you know, the road could go left or right) or make corners (intersections); but I don't think that has bothered them yet!

Construction set

I have a few dad's in my center who work in construction. So, when I saw this item I knew it would be perfect for some of the children in our center. I can actually name off 4 children off the top of my head who will greatly enjoy this. I was pleasantly surprised when it came yesterday to see how good it actually is. There are so many fabulous parts and the pieces all look sturdy enough for the classroom. There are some very small parts, so this will probably never see the inside of my 2 year old classroom; but my threes and fours will have a blast with this. I'm sure some of the smaller parts may bend and break eventually; but I consider that reasonable wear and tear.

Now my praise for Discount School Supply: Their orders always come very fast! The order was put in Friday and the entire order was delivered yesterday. That's less than 2 business days! When the order came I went through everything. one of the tractors had the bucket broken off. I contribute this to the shipping and handling. The boxes were pretty beat up when they got here and the set was at the bottom corner of one of the boxes, so I am sure that this is where the damage happened. When I called to let them know, I was planning on them just sending me the replacement tractor. No, they are sending me an entire new set! I don't have to send back the set I just received either. Now that's customer service! I have experienced the same thing with other orders in the past with Discount and have always been impressed.

Things homemade friday-Block people

This is the best idea I have ever seen! I wish I had some pictures to share, but I have a description in how to make them. I walked into a classroom the other day and the teacher had made Block Play people with the children in the classroom on them! The kids LOVED them! It was the greatest idea ever, and of course my over working mind came up with all sorts of ideas.

First, take a full body shot of each child in the classroom individually. Print them out so they are about 3-4 inches tall. Glue the pictures onto cardstock to give them some sturdiness. Then cut out around the shape of each child. (The children had all posed differently for their pictures and it was adorable! Some were laying down, some were jumping, it was great!)
Next, get some 1x1 boards and cut them to a 2-3 inch height. Glue the pictures of the children onto the peices of wood. Make sure to put the picture close to the base of the wood, but not past it. You want the pieces to be able to stand on their own.
Then the play begins! These were in the block area and the children had a blast with them. It's fun being able to put yourself into your block play.

Of course, here is where my ideas ran to:
Add pictures of the teachers in the center
Make pictures of all the family members of the children. How fun would that be!
Use the children's pets!
Did you have a guest speaker come to the center? Add them in, they can "recreate" the experience.
This is an endless idea! You can make your own theme sets.
Another thought would be to strategically put the pictures on with velcro so that you can easily change the pictures to fit different themes, however they are so cost effective, it would be okay to just glue them.

What would you make?
Take pictures and send them to me if you do this! I would love to see what you make!

Things Homemade Friday-Toddler blocks

Toddlers love to build and break down. It's part of being a toddler. However, the wood blocks are not safe for this purpose. Yes you can buy cardboard and foam block sets, but you can also make them yoursefl! These are perfect for stacking up and breaking down. Throw balls at them, run through them, kick them! And you don't care if they get all smashed up because they hardly cost you anything! It's very simple:

Take 1/2 gallon cartons (empty milk, orange juice, etc...)

I've also use the smaller copacitie's too (quart, pints, etc...)

Make sure to clean them out real well. And let them dry very well too! This is important. I will even leave them in the sun for 3 days just to make sure they are very dried out!

This next step is up to you how you handle it. I like to cut two of the four top sides so when I tape them down it makes a real sturdy closing. I know others who just completly cut the tops off and others who cut each diagonally so that the four sides meet in the middle.

After you cut the top to your preference, I like to fill it with crumpled newpaper. This gives the blocks a little bit of weight and stability, but again this is not necessary. Then tape the end down so that you now have a brick like shape.

Then get some colorful contact paper and wrap them up!



These are also great outside with older kids. They like to build them up into walls and run their bikes through them. It's okay because they can't really hurt them or anything else.



It's also a pretty easy project to collect for because you can usually get parents to bring them in. One time I actually made a whole block set using cartons and frozen juice cans, cracker boxes, and pretty much and food container I could find that was lightweight.