Flower Prints

I recently found this idea for using the bottom of a soda bottle to make flower prints. I addition, I cut the bottom of some paper tubes to add a second flower print.

I invited both my twos and my threes to make prints with bright yellows and pinks.

I loved how their hands had to grasp the bottle. Great fine motor work!

This artist explained that the flowers were blowing in the wind. I can see it!

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds on Facebook

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds on Pinterest

Lavender Hearts

Last month we made purple play dough and invited the twos and threes to mix lavender into it.

As you can imagine, the room was quite fragrant. Very relaxing!

When we changed out our play dough, I couldn't bear to toss this. I placed the lavender play dough on the table along with rolling pins and heart cookie cutters.

And they made lavender hearts.

That I poked a hole in.

And we air-dried.

These will be for their mommies for Mother's Day.

Made with love.

My basic play dough recipe:

3 cups water

3 cups flour

1 1/2 cups salt

3 tablespoons cooking oil

2 tablespoons cream of tarter

Place all of the above in a pot on the stove and cook until dough starts to thicken and pull from the sides of the pot. If you want to add color, add it to the water first. At this point you can also add any scents, such as the lavender oil I added for the above activity.

Remove from pot onto a floured surface and knead. If it's too sticky, add more flour. 

Store in an airtight container.

Follow me on Pinterest!
Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds on Facebook

Fairy Mommies for Mother's Day

We made these little fairy mommies that our threes will add to their table settings at our Mother's Day Tea. (The materials are available at any craft store. You can see what we used at the end of this post.)

We first painted the bean pot candle cups.

I gave them a coating of polyurethane.

I pulled the petals and leaves off some fake plants we had in our collection.

The threes then brushed glue along the top of the cup and stuck 2 leaves on it.

The ball was placed on top of the cup/leaves and a petal was then added on the top of the head.

Once everything was dry, the faces were drawn with a Sharpie.

I think they turned out so cute!

Materials that we used:

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds on Facebook

 

Follow Me on Pinterest!

Making Roadways with Wallpaper Samples

I was cutting out rectangles from a book of textured wallpaper samples to use as play dough mats. (I'll have to post about that later!) As with many of my ideas, suddenly I looked over at the block area and wondered what would happen if I set out some strips of wallpaper. Would they use them as roadways?

I invited the threes over to this area by setting up a few of the roadways, leaving the rest in baskets.

They got right to work, laying out the rest of the strips to lengthen their roads.

And then they ran out. But wanted more.

I decided to bring the book of wallpaper samples to the block corner along with a container of scissors.

And we all started cutting strips of wallpaper for roads!

The teacher in me was delighted to see such fun AND fine motor practice!

The threes were delighted to be contributing. Much more meaningful.

Roads made out of wallpaper. Now tucked in baskets for more use later.

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds on Facebook

Follow Me On Pinterest!

Big Beautiful Butterflies!

My co-teacher put together the cutest butterfly activity that also involved working those fine motor muscles.

The threes first painted a dowel.

And then used watercolors on jumbo-sized coffee filters.

When assembling the butterflies, they pushed beads through the chenille stems for antennae.

Big, beautiful butterflies!

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds on Facebook