Top 10 Craft Supplies for PreK

Ever wondered which 10 supplies a preschool teacher would take with them to a deserted island?  Well, I'm gonna tell you what we can't live without!!

#10

Yarn.  In lots of colors.  We use yarn for crafts that hang, like mobiles or garlands, to practice making letters or other shapes on paper, stems for flowers, matching games, making rainbows, balls, pictures...the possibilities are as endless as your imagination.

#9

We'll just call number 9 "garbage."  Because a preschool teacher can make anything out of garbage.  Our favorites are empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls, kleenex boxes, soda bottles, milk bottles...give us your garbage, we'll give you a penguin.

#8

Pipe cleaners, or as the manufacturer calls them...fuzzy sticks.

We use these to string beads to practice small motor coordination, as antennas on bugs, legs on centipedes, ears on Frankenstein, whatever...

#7

Craft Sticks.  They come in plain and in colored.  Use them as frosting spreaders for cookies and other yummy craft ideas, glue spreaders, puppet handles, mask handles, to stack in a building game, to make a frame, Christmas tree ornaments, fans, airplane wings, puzzles, etc...

#6

Warm Fuzzies or Pom Poms, or whatever you want to call them.  These have endless possibilities.  Besides being used as a great classroom management tool (as in letting the kids collect them in a jar when you "catch" them obeying rules), they also make a great addition to lots of crafts that just require a little (or a lot) of extra fuzziness.  They can be a nose on a reindeer, hair on a clown, a rainbow, a worm, a snowman...just Google "pom pom crafts" and you can find all kinds of uses.

#5

Ahhh, Sequins.  Sequins add that little bit of sparkle to any project.  Ornaments on trees.  Scales on fish.  Jewels on a crown.  Or just to glue on a letter, or a number, or a coloring sheet.  Sequins make any ordinary project extraordinary, and kids love them.

#4

The Googly Eyes.

Every single craft that has eyes needs these.  That is all.

#3

Paper plates/bowls/cups and COFFEE FILTERS.

  A paper plate or bowl can be made into any number or things.  Animals, masks, puppets, baskets...again, Google "paper plate crafts."   Search this blog.  TONS can be done or created with them.  Not to mention the practical uses...to hold the pieces of paper, googly eyes, etc for a project, or to put paint on for hand prints.  Cups are used to hold water for water colors, drinks for snacks, frosting for cookies.  

And coffee filters are used on a daily basis in our preschool to hold treats.  But you can make butterflies, watercolor projects, flowers, pumpkins, angels, snowflakes, turkeys, tie dye hearts...just always have coffee filters.  You won't be sorry.

#2

Construction Paper.  LOTS of it.

You can do ANYTHING with Construction Paper.

#1

Tacky Glue.

School glue and glue sticks are fine, but if you really want stuff to stick and stay and dry fast, you have to have TACKY GLUE.  Buy it in bulk.  Tons of it.  There are very few days that Janette and I do not use Tacky Glue.  Store it with the lid on upside down in a paper cup, then it's already by the tip and you just have to squeeze.

Best glue ever.

If I was going to add a #11 and #12, I'd add cotton balls and beads.  For obvious reasons.  And hopefully your artillery includes watercolors, markers and crayons.

What are your favorite supplies?  Have we missed something we should really have??

XOXO,  Andrea

Monsters!!

October wouldn't be October without monsters.  

And lots of 'em.

The most fun thing about this project is that you can give the kids lots of choices...like how many eyes do you want your monster to have?  Where do you want his eyes?  They can make the face look pretty much however they want it.  

But just as a warning, this project has lots of steps and takes a lot of fine motor coordination.

Here is what you need:

painted toilet paper rolls

Construction paper, it whatever colors you want

googly eyes

pipe cleaners

Poke holes in the sides of the rolls.  You'll need to cut the paper into a shape to use as their spiky hair, a few mouth shapes, and eye shapes.

Glue the "hair" around the top of their head.  Have them poke their pipe cleaner arms through the holes.  Glue on the mouth and eye pieces.  Glue on the googly eyes.

Make sure he (or she!) gets a cool name!!  And don't use it to scare your sister.  :)

Worms

Who doesn't like to make worms?  To work on fine motor skills, give each child a pipe cleaner and a plate full of beads and let them go to it.

You can give them specific directions (like make a pattern or use your favorite colors) or just let them be creative and tell YOU what they are making.

**Fun Christmas Variation:  instruct them to make a red/white pattern and make a candy cane.

You will need beads and pipe cleaners.