Getting Excited for "Under the Sea..."

Under the Sea is one of our favorite units...and we are gearing up for a fun one!!  Here are a few of our past projects. 

Look for some more ideas in coming weeks...

XOXO, Andrea

Frankenstein

Oh, October, how I love thee.

And thy monsters.

One of the best things about teaching sweet little preschool kiddos is that I get to see Halloween through their eyes again. 

Circle time in October is full of parties and trick-or-treating, of monsters and dress ups, and of superheroes and Disney princesses.

And who wouldn't love this??

You will need:

an empty toilet paper roll for each lucky kid (you'll want to paint the roll first, green on bottom, black on the top, for his "hair.")

black pipe cleaner

googly eyes

glue

kid scissors

Step one:  supervise the cuties whilst they cut Frank's "hair."  Be sure they don't cut their own hair!!  :)

Step two:  poke a hole in each side of his head and let the kids poke the pipe cleaner through.  Some might need help with this step...

Step three:  let them use more of those fine motor skills that they are honing and glue on a couple of googly eyes

Lastly, draw on a couple of scars...on their chin, over their eye.

Totally one of my favorites!

More Octopuses...

One of my faves!  Another great around-the-house item is toilet paper rolls.  Before hand, paint these whatever color you want your octopus to be. 

This activity uses a few different FINE MOTOR SKILLS...

1.  The kids use kid scissors to cut "legs" out of the bottom of the toilet roll.

2.  Then they use their fingers to "curl" the legs (this isn't as easy for them as it sounds.)

3. They glue a fruit loop on the end of each "leg."

4.  Last step, they glue a couple googly eyes on his little face and they each get to take home a pet octopus!

Chopsticks

This is a fun "game" we use to help our kiddos hone their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.  Prep is easy and they love this game.  You can "play" different ways, like ask them to pick up all their blue fuzzies, then their pink ones and so on.  You can ask them to pick up 5 fuzzies then 4 more.  It can be used as an activity to count, add, subtract, or tell their colors.  Or they can just simply see how fast they can pick up all their fuzzies!

You will need:

training chopsticks

fuzzies

a cup or other container to put them in

You can get regular cheap chopsticks at WalMart and put a rubber band around the top of them to make them into training chopsticks, or you can buy the connectors, like we have, or you can buy actual training chopsticks.