Our Halloween Writing Trays are so fun, it's scary! Here are our variations on this budget friendly spooky letter center!
Halloween night means it's time for everyone to dress up in spooktacular costumes. But don't forget all the awesome Halloween crafts you can make for decorating your home!
I think it is so important for students to take ownership of their learning environment. I want the students to feel at home in our classroom and feel like it is their room. This year, I had the students create our alphabet chart so it was THEIR alphabet chart using their handprints. Students were so excited about this activity. Each student was able to create a letter so it became their letter. I added the little details that were finishing touches to each of the letters. It was such a fun project to complete! The students were so happy to see their handprints hung on the wall and it made them so excited about our alphabet chart since it was created by them. They enjoyed it so much, thay I also created a class handprint alphabet book for our classroom library. Is is such a great way to get students interested in learning the letters of the alphabet. This can also be made into students handprint alphabet books. You can check out this product in my TPT store by clicking on the image below. Included are directions and examples to make each of the letters, the letter and the word for each letter as well as a template for an alphabet book. For the posters, all consonants are in blue and vowels in red to help students learn to identify vowels. It is an editable product so if you have a different picture that you wish to use for one of the pictures, you will be able to! I also made little flashcards to match the handprint pictures. They can be used to help students learn letter names and letter sounds and also learn the vocabulary of the pictures. You can download the flashcards for free by clicking on the image below.
Wondering what to do with all the leaves on the ground these days? We have a super simple solution for you. Try this invitation to create fall leaves art!
Looking for spider-themed activities for your preschooler? Try these simple crafts and games that teach fine motor skills, counting, and creativity, ideal for Halloween or everyday fun.
When my oldest daughter was a toddler, we went on a nature walk to hunt down some amazing fall leaves on Thanksgiving day. (Remember, Thanksgiving is in October here in Canada). We found tons of brightly coloured leaves, but I didn't know what to do with them. I ended up drawing little happy faces with names under them with a sharpie, and then we set them out on the Thanksgiving table as place cards. And even though they weren't fancy, they were so adorable! Grandpa's leaf had a smiley face with a beard. Grandma's leaf had glasses and curly hair.
These printable Halloween masks are an easy and inexpensive Halloween craft for kids. Great idea for kid's classroom Halloween parties!
This printable Frankenstein Halloween Scissor Skills Haircut Activity is such fun! A great way for kids to enjoy developing their scissor skills this spooky season!
8 ENGAGING FALL LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS
Check out what is going on in Kindergarten in November. Everything from Thanksgiving to Veterans day as well as academic concepts teachers focus on.
It's time to dive into some SPOOK-tacularly Simple Halloween Crafts for Kids! I have so many fun Halloween crafts to share with you, you'll want to get started crafting right away so you can fit them all in. There are oodles and oodles of ideas perfect for those little toddlers and preschoolers of yours, as
An emergent curriculum is one that is guided by the children’s interests. I get a lot of questions about what this looks like in Kindergarten. In particular, many educators often express a fe…
This simple leaf rubbing project is a new twist on an old favorite. This leaf art takes simple materials and a few minutes to create this bold nature art!
Looking for a spooky activity to do with the kids? Then check out these awesome Halloween handprint and footprint crafts!
Make these delicate and simple bird's nests with your kids using old magazines or catalogs, a bowl, and some glue. Gorgeous for Easter or Springtime.
Go on a neighborhood adventure with your kids that starts with sticks and ends in Z.
Hi there! It's Megan from Homemade Ginger and I'm sharing a fall craft with you all today. For some reason, apples and back to school go hand in hand. This cute little craft is great for preschool age kids, but would work for older kids too. It's a fun activity to get everyone in the mood for fall and you probably already have most of the materials on hand! Does anyone else love apples? We have always loved them around our house. After trying many different varieties, we now have our absolute favorites. The two best types of apples (in
J’aime beaucoup cette période de l’année – les feuilles commencent à tomber, ce qui nous donne plein d’occasion de faire des activités créatives à base de feuilles ; on cueille des baiesLire la suite…
Even the littlest kids can handle these Halloween arts and crafts projects.
Today I'm going to show you this super cute Coffee Filter Bat Craft that's great for Halloween decorating or even a theme unit about bats.
You are going to love these adorable Free Tree Play Dough Number Mats Counting 1 to 10! I love using play dough number mats to practice counting skills. Counting mats for preschoolers are incredibly versatile and are a great way to introduce the skill of counting or to reinforce counting skills with older children. Your child will love practicing counting and decorating the tree with play dough apples, lemons, flowers, leaves, or whatever else their imagination can dream up!
Fall or Halloween process art craft project for kids. Marble painting pumpkins or jack-o'-lanterns! Great for preschool or elementary.
Making these marbled leaves is SO FUN and the fall colours are so pretty! This fall craft is super easy - simply press cardstock leaves into shaving cream and paint and then squeegee them off to reveal beautiful paper marbling! Marbled Leaves Shaving Cream Art These marbled leaves are the perfect craft for fall! Who knew you could get such pretty marbling from paint mixed into shaving cream?! The patterns are so beautiful, and each leaf is one of a kind. These leaves coloured by shaving cream marbling were inspired by the colours of fall here in Canada. I absolutely love
Counting and recognizing the teen numbers can be a bit tricky for a preschooler. I've been working with my preschooler on mastering those numbers lately and decided to put together this preschool pumpkin lacing activity
FREE printable Fall playdough activity with a pumpkin theme. Preschool kids identify numbers and make the correct amount of pumpkin seeds.
Fall into learning with these hands-on, engaging fall activities your preschoolers will love in literacy centers. Letters, rhymes, syllables, & more!
We've got a fun and easy Fall art project that's colorful and creative! This leaf art project is for any age and requires very little prep on your part. Don't miss out on this gorgeous keepsake!
Create a construction site dramatic play area in your room! Plus how to sneak in tons of literacy, math, and STEM too! Use materials you already have in your classroom.
To recreate this beautiful Paper Sunflower Collage Art Project, you will need some brightly colored paper, glue and our printable sunflower template.
Here is a fun, free printable to make the first day of school awesome. These free first day of school necklaces are ready to print or you can edit them too.
We have moved our blog to a new website. To read this blog and more, please visit: https://passionatelycuriouseducators.com/the-learning-environment-what-message-do-we-send-children/ “ There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment.” – Loris Malaguzzi These were the walls that we had when we started in Kindergarten...and we thought they looked great! We carefully put up these bright pieces of broad cloth and busy borders. We thought this was what Kindergarten was supposed to look like. When we look back at these photos today, we feel instantly overwhelmed. We have made some fundamental changes to our environment structure and walls. When considering making changes to your learning environment or working to understand the importance of making change we reflected on some of these questions together as a team. 1) What message does your classroom send to families/students? The choices that we make while setting up and maintaining our environments send a clear and powerful message to families and children about what is important and valued. When a room is full of clutter and materials that the children are not allowed to touch - what message does that send to them? Are we setting ourselves and the children up for success if their environment is overwhelming or cluttered with too many visuals/materials? We used to use stop signs to let children know which bins they could use since we had not created proper storage for our materials. The signs were distracting and often overwhelming for the children to see materials that they couldn't access. We believe that if the children can see the materials, they should be able to access them! How can you make that change and reduce clutter? Think carefully about what materials need to be kept at school, what materials can simply be thrown out, and how things are organized in the room. 2) How does your room flow? Where are centres in relation to each other? It is important to think about the FLOW in your room. We have tried to limit the number of tables in the classroom so that we have just enough spaces for the children during nutrition breaks. Through our observations we have noticed that children often are gravitated to working on the floor so we try to ensure that there is a balance of tables and open spaces for creative thinkers. 3) LESS is MORE... Storage is always an issue in classrooms, there never seems to be enough! However, there are creative ways to work around storing materials. In our classroom we keep anything that personally belongs to us at home and we have used black fabric to cover just a couple of shelves so that teacher resources are out of sight. Black Fabric Covering Shelves on the Left Wall of the Classroom We start the year with very minimal materials out - in our building area there is nothing but wooden blocks, our art area begins with crayons, paper and pencils and our nature area begins with a limited number of loose parts and a small basket of animals. Although these areas grow and change through the year, we still try not to overcrowd shelves too many materials. We want things that are out to be purposeful and our goal is for the children to learn how to respect and use what is provided before we continue to add more. Our Kindergarten classrooms all share materials - instead of each classroom having small sets of materials, we spent a few days putting all of our resources together. This allows for us to be more intentional with the materials that we are using in our rooms. When pooled together, we have more of each resource and can make better decisions in our purchasing (e.g., not buying 4 of the same puzzle). We have created a shared storage system for each type of material (e.g., building materials, science materials, puppets, dramatic play, playdough, puzzles, sand and water). We all have some staple materials in our rooms, but we rotate in and out other materials that do not need to be there all year. Our shared storage system allows for the educators to be more intentional in selecting materials since everything doesn't have to be out at once! 4) Natural, calm colours...with a focus on student learning and work! We have had families question why the room was so bare and why it was so "brown" in the Fall. We have grown to have great conversation about how it is less stimulating than bright primary colours, explaining that when a provocation is set out it attracts the children's attention, and how documentation or student work adds colours to the walls instead of a busy ABC border or premade poster. 5) How will you present materials to the children? "When materials for learning, such as blocks or paint, paper and brushes are stored and organized in thoughtful ways, it gives the message that these are important tools for learning" - Lisa Burman When we present materials in transparent containers, when we organize paint brushes by size and markers by colour...we are really supporting the children in slowing down. You will see the children make more deliberate and thoughtful choices in the tools that they need. In addition, you will see the children treat the materials as tools, rather than disposable materials. 6) Take your time! Thinking about your environment doesn't need to cost you money or take hours of your time. The process should be gradual, it should involve the children and your colleagues, and it will take time! You do not need to overhaul your entire classroom overnight. You can simply start with one wall or one area and reflect on what changes you might be able to make.
Preschoolers will have fun exploring apples with this fun fall or back to school themed FREE Apple Science Experiment Worksheet.
