Sunday, March 22, 2009

Spring time Flowers

I am teaching a class this week, with Spring flowers as the theme to get everyone geared up for the first flower buds to appear. I personally can't wait to see my flowers starting to bud and flourish.
In my classes we do 2 crafts, a paint craft and a glue craft. Here are the ideas for this theme:

Paint Craft: Coffee filter Tulip
PREP: I have prepared coffee filters by cutting scalloped edges on the top of the filter and attached them to long wooden Popsicle sticks using a stapler.
I then attached leaves cut out from green construction paper with a stapler as well.
I will add 4 drops of food coloring in 1/2 cup water and have many q tips ready to go.

The children will then dip the q tips in the colored water, and touch their coffee filter flower filling it all with many colors. The colors all bleed together and it makes for a very beautiful flower.

Glue Craft: Tissue paper flower
PREP: I have cut out of construction paper, a great big yellow flower, an orange circle center and the stem and leaves out of green and put it all together using a glue stick.
I have cut up pieces of different colored tissue paper into little squares about 2"x2"

The children will be able to crumple up and glue on to their flower.
Makes for a fun and unique flower craft.

Kool aid playdough

Here is a great recipe for playdough I made the other day for some of my preschool classes. The kids love the scent.

2 Cups Flour
2 Cups hot water
1 Cup salt
2 Tablespoon oil
5-6 teaspoon cream of tarter
1 pkg koolaid crystals(no sugar added)

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a microwave safe bowl. Add oil and water and mix until well combined. Put in microwave for 30 seconds at a time, take out and stir until play dough can no longer be stirred. Knead for a few minutes to get rid of any lumps and to make a nice smooth dough. Store in an airtight container until needs replacing.

The fun thing with this recipe is I can change color and scent as often as I like to mix things up a bit.

Enjoy and let me know how you like the play dough