I created a simple little coloring book for the kiddos this year. I really wanted very basic Christmas themed pages for them to doodle on. My oldest can use her fine markers and add details if she'd like, my middle can take the individual pages and use glue to add glitter galore, while the youngest can use chunky crayons and color away happily! They are versatile for everyone :)
You are welcome to pick and choose the pages you'd like to print or print off the entire thing for a full set of holiday themed coloring pages.
Here are some of my kiddos favorite coloring tools and materials for coloring pages!
PS If your printer takes thicker paper my daughter really enjoys me printing pages like this on multi-media paper and then she can use watercolor, artist pencils, etc to color them in!
ENJOY!
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Recently Mother Goose Time hosted a photo contest featuring our newest process based art projects. I have LOVED these fun art projects that are all about letting the kiddos use their imagination and create something unique to them! This week my kiddos created snowflakes with just a few simple materials and a whole lot of giggles, exploring and imagination. The Invitation to create came with coffee filters, glitter, and pipettes. I just added some water and paint, paperplates to keep the mess up. After they were dry we added ribbons so they could be hung on a Christmas tree or in the window. The kids were brainstorming all the different places our snowflakes could go. We foled the coffee filters a few times and then cut pieces out of them to make fun snow flake patterns! The kids have all been working hard on their cutting skills and I was very excited to see how many of them were able to use their fine motor skill to make small cuts. While everyone was working on their cutting we brainstormed about how the other materials could be used. We had watery-paint, glitter and pipettes. After the cutting was done and we all admired the pretty designs the kids busted into the materials and explored ways to use them. One reason I LOVE this open ended, process based art is because the kids get to explore and learn. There isn't a desired end goal to follow or an exact model to try and replicate. Just and idea/theme, tools and their imaginations! KK realized pretty quick that the glitter wasn't going to stick on it's own, our visitor realized after squeezing a little to hard that too much paint made it soggy and L-Bug figured out that if she picked up her wet coffee fliter the paint dripped down the sides of it. Check out more Invitation To Create Projects by Mother Goose time by using the #invitationtocreatephotocontest on Facebook, Twitter on Instagram! And post your photo's for a chance to win a month of Mother Goose Time curriculum! From the Mother Goose Time Facebook Page: "There's still time to enter the #InvitationToCreatePhotoContest! The competition is stiff - one post already has 140 likes! Here's how it works: find your favorite picture demonstrating the creative problem solving and deep learning of process-based preschool art. Share to either Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #InvitationToCreatePhotoContest. IMPORTANT: remember to make your post "public" so we can find it and tally your likes! P.S. We're absolutely loving all of the creativity so far."
To say the kids are loving art this month is an understatement! They are Adoring all the different activities we have been doing. For this younger group I have art is where I see the most engagement. The kids love talking while they work (at least those who can talk). I have a captive audience to talk to as well! I'll tell a story or ask simple questions related to the project. Here is one activity the kids had a blast with! Puppy shakers. The kids loved exploring how to make noise with these before we started the project. I had horns, microphones, drums and finally shakers! The kids loved painting and exploring the different materials I set out for them to paint with. The invitation to create has been fun because it has inspired me to step out of my normal box of clean, tidy art and give the kids things like sponges and forks to explore painting with. Not exactly art related but I had to mention another one of our favorites from this month: the puzzle! It matches the storybook for the month. It is hard cardboard and while it was a little difficult for some of the younger ones it really only took a little bit of verbal coaching from me for most of them to figure out where pieces would go. I noticed after 2-4 pieces were in they started figuring out most of the picture on their own from there! FUN :) I think this is an awesome new addition that Mother Goose Time has incorporated into the curriculum. I have a specific area where I have two puzzles out on a shelf and every 2-3 weeks I rotate a new puzzle in for the kids to explore. It's fun to watch them figure it out for the first time.
In love with the new art process and the Mother Goose Time activities for this year. I have a younger group of twos, so sometimes it is a little difficult. However, the I find that the kids enjoy all the projects and when something is a little more challenging I find that the kids do best when I do the project too. They follow along and observe what I do and they do it too! Check out these fun DIY play props we did this week! On this day we were learning about mommies and daddies! I actually combined two seperate days from the curriculum. The prompt for this was picnic theme with mom. Instead I turned it into how can we be helpers for mommy and daddy. Our mommies and daddies go to the grocery store and sometimes we get to go too! We can be big helpers while we shop. Another DIY activity we did this week was making glasses and pretending to be grandmas and grandpas! The kids LOVED pretending to sing and read to their "grand-babies" <3 And here is an Invitation to create activity we did! I loved the idea of putting all the materials out at once for the kiddos to explore. Some wanted to follow along with me and watched as I did different steps. Others wanted to explore on their own! So yeah! We are really enjoying the new art actives over here at Kiddie Korner :)
AND we still love some of the more classic activities. The kids LOVE doing our poster search every month. I'm actually searching for an idea on how to hang the magnifying glasses on (or near) the board so the kids can play with them all month long! Any ideas? I knew that our A to Zoo animal theme was going to be a hit! The kids are seriously in love :) We've had fun singing LOTS of different songs too! With my new group of little's I knew that singing would be a big part of the everyday fun! So, I did a little digging on-line and found songs to go with a few of our different letter days! For example on our day about B we sang "I Caught a Baby Bumblebee" and "Baa, Baa Black Sheep"! My favorite was our day about D because we sang "Five little Duckies" :) I think one of the kids favorite parts of this study is when they get to pull out their ABC Zoo books. They LOVE these little books that have animals on one side and letters on the other. See how proud they all are of their special letters?! First we started by coloring a letter picture that had the letter of their first name on it. I told them that those were their special letters! After they were done coloring we pulled out their ABC Zoo books and they each turned the pages until the found their special letter. Then I called them all by their "animal names" (their name + the animal). So I was Tawsha Tiger :)
They thought it was so cool and we pretended to act like different animals throughout the day! Our Mother Goose Time box came with so many fun art projects for this theme! Below you can see the elephants the kids made! Because of little fingers I did the cutting before hand and had all of the pieces ready for them to color and glue :) I even hid the elephants special letter for them to find! On the right you can see the kids all showing me where the "ehhh-ehhh, elephant's E" is hiding! Wow we have had such a busy and full month so far! Summer hit us hard here in the desert, but that hasn't stopped the kids from enjoying every minute of our Discover the Desert theme this month! Our first week the kiddos were Cowboys! The enjoyed making lassos, hats and boots! I think the lassos were one of their FAVORITES that week. After the project was over they spent nearly an hour in dramatic play! I had a housefly of lassoing cowboys :) First they wrangled the castle and then they went around the room catching everything from blocks to babies and dinosaurs! I heard lots of "yew-haw's" and "giddy-up's" that week! And EVERYONE was a partner! I love how Mother Goose Time includes so many fun projects that get the kids imaginations working. I see their littler personalities come out and the more fun they have while learning the more of it they remember! The kids favorite activity while we were learning about the Sahara desert was our pyramid craft! Every age group had a blast with this. They got to dip rectangle sponges into glue and "build" their pyramids with the glue and sand :) They enjoyed feeling the sand and watching it run through their fingers. It was a great sensory activity! We also got to learn about desert plants and animals! We did a sensory and discussion activity on the cactus plant and cactus seeds. We compared the tiny cactus seeds to other plant seeds we've seen before (sunflower, pumpkin, apple, watermelon, etc). The older kids enjoyed sorting the bowl of seeds to find different sizes, while they younger kids liked running the seeds through their fingers! The kids really enjoyed making their desert Cotton Tail bunny puppets. This was another art project that turned into an extended dramatic play session AND the kids learned a new song "Peter Cottontail"! They wanted me to sing it over and over until finally they had nearly memorized it! Our FCC office on post was having a summer camp for the kids. One of the days worked out perfectly with our desert theme because the Desert Wildlife Manger came out and did a lesson for the kids. He had all his animals out for the kids to see. They got to learn about and see a live desert tortoise, rattlesnake (caged) and owls! There were several other types of animals and bugs too. He had great information about how the animals live in the desert, which ones are dangerous and why. He also explained what to do if you saw a dangerous or injured animal. It was great! The kids got to pet the owl and they LOVED it! We also had a friend over late on Friday so we had a Friday Fun Day! I had done some searching and found a lesson from great old friend and someone every teacher looks up to: Miss Frizzle!!!! <3 I found a great Magic School Bus episode all about the desert. This has been such a fun theme packed full of learning and I LOVE the kids response. Because we live in the desert I've gotten reports on how many cacti were counted on a walk with the family, one child talking about a pack of burros they saw (we call them the neighborhood watch because they roam all over post), A-Bear told me all about a bunny she saw while she was at the park, and so many more great stories the kids have brought in about what they've seen in our desert :)
Play is such an important part of learning for toddlers and preschoolers! This past month the little ones here at Kiddie Korner have been playing hard :) I'm so glad that so many of our Mother Goose Time activity lessons involve play. Over the past few weeks I've seen the kids grow and expand so many different skills!
Here are the girls scooping the chunky lacing beads out of a bowl with peas in it. A task like this may seem like nothing but play, but what you don't see are the little wrist muscles building up and preparing this little ones for writing skills! In this same activity they practiced pouring their scoops into a basket and shaking out all of the peas. Their little minds were at work connecting cause and effect: The beads are big so they stay in the basket, but the peas are little so they fall though the small holes! They practiced math by counting and sorting how many of each "type" of bead they were able to scoop out. They worked on those fine motor skills by lacing the thread through beads!
Finally once all of our beads were counted the girls practiced following directions as I gave them places to put the different types of beads, "Put the bees ON the car", "put the flowers UNDER the table", etc. Not only did they get to work their ears by listening and following directions they were also being challenged in their spacial awareness! I was assessing to see if they knew the directional phrases "on, under, next to, behind, in front of, inside", etc?
The kids enjoyed so many fun art projects this past month! Art is a time that works best for us for lessons. I have a captivated audience as they sit and work on their projects. Because they are sitting and their hands are busy they seem to listen a little better! They interact with me by answering questions, telling me their thoughts and asking their own questions. Plus they are always so proud of their finished projects :) They loved those little bee head bands so much that they wore them for nearly three days in a row doing our bee week.
During free play they were running around using their antennas to sniff each other! I guess they were listening during the lesson ;)
Aside from the fun that comes with art and the pride they have when showing off the finished product, these little ones are once again at work building important skills!
I mean look at these little fingers at work cutting and gluing! Silly giving them a piece of paper to snip at helps them build up those fine motor skills. They build the tiny muscles in their hands and gain better control at manipulating small objects.
One last important skill I wanted to talk about was writing! Many of the activities I showed you above all help build up those important muscles for writing. Scooping and pouring work on wrist movement; Beading and lacing work on that two finger pincher grip; Cutting and gluing work those tiny muscles and help with concentration.... all of these tiny finger wrist movements build up the writing skill! Kids need all of these things to learn how to control writing tools.
Can you see all of the different GRIPS in these photos above? Tripod and quadruped grasp are the best appropriate way for a writing tool to be held. These skills are things that are learned through activities like coloring, sometimes kiddos just need a little help getting their grip right :) Check out this video for a great tool to help teach the right way to grasp a pencil. Remember FUN is the name of the game for toddlers and preschoolers! Here are some great tips on helping your littles grow their writing skills!
Wondering what skills your preschooler should know? Check out this great post from Mother Goose Time with some helpful tips :) Well tomorrow I will be officially open with my first little one enrolled in care :) That means L-Bug will have a new friend to do pre-school with! She is really excited. I had to share a few fun things we did today with our Mother Goose Time curriculum. I told L-Bug this month we are going to be learning about Food, Fitness & Health and that one very important aspect about staying healthy is learning about germs and how to avoid spreading them! It was quite a comical lesson today :) When I told L-Bug that our cards were germs, she wanted nothing to do with touching them or ANYTHING that they touched. It was pretty funny, she told me she just wanted to stand and watch the story this time.
carried some of the germs with her to her house! At her house Lindsey's mom and dad gave her lots of hugs and kisses, so the germs Lindsey brought home got on her mom and dad too. Lindsey's dad went to work and brought some of the germs with him. When he was making lunch for his friends at work he touched the food and the germs got all over the food. Everyone who ate the food got the germs on them. Then I explained to L-Bug that germs are what cause people to get sick. After the story was done I asked L-Bug if she knew why Sarah didn't take any germs with her. She told me: "because she remembered to wash them off of her hands!" :) She got the message! So that led perfectly into why hand washing is important. She did a fun art project that she got to hang on the bathroom door to help remind all of our friends to wash their hands. L-Bug and I also talked about Lindsey's dad making food for his friends and how he spread the germs to them because he didn't wash his hands before he touched all of the food. So L-Bug and I went and washed our hands before we moved on to our next project... making snack and talking about safety in the kitchen. We talked about things in the kitchen that are hot (oven, pots, pans, spoons on the stove, food that hasn't cooled, etc) and we talked about things int he kitchen that could cut us (knives and scissors). I helped show her the right way to hold a knife and we talked about keeping our fingers away from the sharp part while we cut. Then she sliced up her banana with a butter knife! After snack was over we played a fun sorting game with her mini-veggie manipulatives :) The best part of the lesson today was so funny... every time I touched the germs L-Bug would not let me touch her. She didn't want me anywhere near her! Haha And if I did touch her she had to go "wash her hands". She went to her pretend sink and washed them up! Once we were done with the lesson and L-Bug was putting her barbies away she told me she needed to wash their hands or else they were going to bring the germs to the doll house and all over it.
Yup... Mission Accomplished! She learned something ;) My last week of training is finally here! I'm hoping to get my inspections finished up so I can open my in-home preschool sometime in March :) Luckily for me L-Bug still has some school projects I can do easily with her in the short amount of time I have after classes and before dinner/ night routine. Thank you Mother Goose Time for making life easy for me in the busy moments! One of her favorites from this week was an art and science combo project about beetles. Here you can see L-Bug checking out this beetle poster with several kids of beetles on it. We observed the poster and she described the things she saw on the beetles! We talked about their antennas, legs, wings, colors, eyes, pinchers, etc. We picked out our favorite battles and tried to color ones like them. L-Bug's favorite beetle was the colorful one in the middle! Her observations were that it had colorful stripes, so she tried to recreate it and she did a great job. Later we took the beetles to daddy for him to put in his locker at work and L-Bug told him what she learned about beetles. She told him that beetles smell with their antennas and they use their wings to fly! It's incredible what children can learn from an easy 30 minute lesson!
This month has been packed full of fun and exciting art projects! L-Bug always get's excited when she opens up a workbox and sees an art project. She loves to color! And when I pull out some strange bowl, cup or plate to color on she's always feeling the material and telling me if it's smooth or bumpy and then trying to decide if she should use markers, crayons or pencils! As much as she loves coloring she loves pulling random things out of the box and seeing how we are going to use them and what we are going to make! Mixing up materials is so fun to her. I usually show her all the pieces before we get started and see if she can guess what we are making! We talk about all the different materials we have and what we could use each piece for... She also really enjoys using different kinds of materials and tools and seeing how they work. Though they frustrate her, scissors are one of her favorite tools to work with! She is learning how to control them better, it's usually the paper she gets frustrated with because it moves all over the place while she's trying to cut... I hear "ugh, mom it WONT HOLD STILL" a lot when she's using them :) Kids learn a lot of important skills through art. They learn how to become more comfortable holding writing utensils and they gain more control over them. They learn how to cut and paste.... The pick up on the fact that one item could have several different uses (pipe cleaners can be for making bracelets or bug antennas, straws can be animals legs or stand for signs, etc).
Of course then there is the fun afterwards of playing with your art creation :) |
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Proud supporter of Mother Goose Time curriculum!All the posts in this blog are from real life experiences. We've taken the activities and materials provided in the Mother Goose Time curriculum and modified it in different ways to fit our lifestyle. Enjoy the read!
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