Trios and the Sticky Easel!

Here's a look at two of the most popular activities in our classroom over the last couple of weeks.  The sticky easel and Trio building pieces.  It's been really fun to watch the kids work together and create with these items.  They have put together some amazing things that I wanted to share!

The sticky easel is made by taping clear contact paper to the easel sticky side out.  The kids have added foam shapes and numbers, straws, strings and laces, clear colored plastic pieces, popsicle sticks and colored plastic shapes.  They have worked in groups and alone to fill the easel and explore the materials.

TRIOs are small building pieces that snap together and can incorporate gears.  Most have step by step instructions for building items from bugs to space ships.  We have been working with the kids to teach them to read the instruction sheets.  Others like to build their own structures such as drills, houses, periscopes, and many flying objects.

The kids have been very proud of their work and love to explain how they made it and what it can do!

Sensory Play

The sensory table is almost always busy in our classroom.  It's a very important part of a preschoolers day.  We try to vary activities so that all children are drawn here.  For children that don't like to get their hands messy, there are things like sand, rice, beans or bird seed.  For those that relish the mess, there's jello, shaving cream, and different doughs.  At the sensory table children are able to experiment, refine small motor skills necessary for writing, develop hand eye coordination, cooperate, observe and discover.  Sensory play is also a very calming, relaxing experience for many children.  We use both the sensory table and smaller containers that are usually limited to one child at a time.  Here's a look at our recent sensory activities.

Water Beads

Water beads are traditionally used to keep house plants moist.  They are very small until water is added.  They slowly absorb water until they grow to about the size of a marble.  

The children added them to water in the sensory table.

After lunch, they had grown to this size.

The children enjoyed scooping, squishing and exploring them for a few days.

Gingerbread "Dough"

One morning the children wanted to make something new in the sensory table so we dug through the cupboards until we came up with gingerbread mix, oil, flour and water.  They dumped and mixed with their hands.

We decided it still needed something so we added lots of sprinkles.  What isn't better with sprinkles??

They scooped, sifted, packed and made ice cream cones for the entire morning!

Jello

We recently made Jello for the sensory table and added a potato masher, some scoops, bowls, measuring cups and a mesh produce basket.

The kids loved this activity!  Unfortunately, the Jello only lasted a day but we will do it again soon!

Water

Currently, the kids are playing with water, bobbers, plastic fish, fish nets and pails.  The table stays busy all day!

Bird seed with bugs, magnifying glasses and bug boxes and catchers.

Individual Sensory Boxes

Colored pom poms, plastic tiles and textured balls with sorting cups and tweezers.

Wooden beads and thimbles with lacing string and pipe cleaners.

Colored popcorn seed with a scoop, small pitcher and different containers.

Colored rice with small containers and scoops, people, animals, fence pieces and trees.