Play-dough Candy Shop/Bakery

Today, I had fun making food with play-dough. This time, we decided to make candy instead of breakfast. When I sat down at the play-dough table, the little boy from Sweden who I made Breakfast with last time came over and sat on my lap. Since I wanted him to make his own creations, I offered him a chair and then he started making cookies. We had a sun cookie cutter and an oval one. He had trouble rolling the dough out with a rolling pin, but that was because it was a huge ball and because the play-dough was a little dry after being a week old. He’d ask for help and I’d get the dough flat. Then he’d take over pressing the cookie cutter into the play-dough and then cutting around the cookie cutter making perfect sun and oval cookies. I wish I had pictures of this!

Next, I asked him what I should make and since we had been talking about cookies, I started making desserts. I started with an ice cream cone. I made the triangle for the cone and then a small oval with a flat side for the ice cream. Since the play-dough was dry, it didn’t fit together that well, but he put it in his pile next to the cookies. I asked him if he knew what it was. He said no and I explained it was an ice cream cone. One purpose for making all of these things is to practice English with him. We usually talk about food while working with the play-dough, but if there are shapes, animals and other things for cookie cutters, we practice those words as well. He repeated the words ice cream cone and then I thought of making candy. M&M’s came to mind so I made two tiny M&M’s. I asked him again if he knew what this was. He said no and then I told him what they were and asked if he liked them. He repeated the word, M&M’s and then said that yes, he liked them. He asked me to make bigger M&M’s. I got a bigger piece of play-dough and made an M&M that was the size of three or four M&M’s put together. He loved that and put it in his pile of desserts.

Since it’s close to Halloween, I made a candy corn. He didn’t know the name for that either, but I told him it was a candy corn and that it’s Halloween candy. He put it in his pile after repeating, “Candy corn.” I started making a pumpkin, but it was turning out shaped more like a Hershey’s kiss so I went with it and asked if he knew what this was shaped like. He didn’t know, but I told him it was a Hershey’s kiss. He repeated it again and then asked what it was made out of. I explained that it was made from chocolate and he was very interested! He added it to his pile of desserts.

Then I made a cupcake by making a small ball, flattening the top and bottom and then making another small ball and smoothing it into the top to look like frosting. I wish I had different colors of play-dough so it looked like the actual foods. I started to make a donut, but realized I didn’t have enough play-dough so I asked his friends at the table. They gave me some, but the donut wasn’t coming out right so I asked him for more ideas. I asked what else he liked for food and he yelled, “Hamburgers!” Meanwhile, he was working on making big pancakes. I made the bottom bun which was flat, a smaller round piece for the meat, a small square piece for the cheese and I showed him my progress by showing him each piece and labeling them; the bun, meat, cheese etc. Before I could start on the top bun, he got excited and put the unfinished burger in his pile. Then he asked me for a hot dog so I took what little play-dough I had left and made the outside role and then a tiny hotdog. He said, “No, no, no, that’s not big.” I took some more play-dough and made another bigger hotdog which he really liked. He pretended to eat some of his food and then it was time to clean up. It was a lot of fun making more play-dough creations.

I found out from his mother that he asked her if he could come to my house sometime. I joked about that with him the other day, but he really took it seriously and now asks me about it everyday. He said something about going home and I thought he was talking about going home to his house, but then he said that he wanted to come to my house and that’s how it got started. I told him he could come to my house any time! I’ve written a lot of details here that probably won’t matter to anyone but me. His last day with us is on the 22nd of October and I write about some of my favorite kids so that I can keep the memories of the short time that I have with them. It’s interesting that the kids I’ve worked with for two years are less attached to me than the ones I’ve worked with for a few months or is it that I'm more attached to them? It's my luck or bad luck depending on how you look at things. A new kid will come to the center who I’ll bond with and then I find out they have to leave. It’s happened a few times and even though it’s hard to see them go, I’m thankful that I’ve known them.

Halloween Texture Box

I’ve started to put a few things together for a Halloween texture box. They can sort all the objects by texture; smoothe, rough, bumpy, soft, hard etc. I’ve included a tin foil pumpkin that didn’t come out very well and excuse the pumpkin face in the picture. It’s my Halloween placemat set. I have some plastic spiders, plush pumpkin and ghost, plastic pumpkins and a glass pumpkin and ghost. If you use a glass item, I’d only recommend it for only one child at a time if you think they are ready to be that careful and taking it away after they’ve felt it. It’s definitely not something for a center. I included them mostly for the picture because I don’t have other plastic pumpkins and ghosts, but it is another texture that they could feel and you could talk about how you have to be careful with certain things.





Other things I’d like to put in the texture box include a felt pumpkin similar to this one.


I’ve thought of sand and construction paper pumpkins, real baby pumpkins, pumpkins cut from other fabrics, foam pumpkins, sponge pumpkins etc. You could use ghosts, witch hats, spiders, skeletons etc. Basically anything related to Halloween. I couldn’t find regular cutout patterns, but I think the coloring pages will work for tracing the shapes.

There are a lot of ideas you could add to this. I hope you enjoy it. All the images that aren’t mine, I found on Google Images.

Let Them Play

One day a week, there’s a bus that comes to our center and it has mats, rings, ladders and other things for kids to climb on. We divide the kids into three groups so that the bus won’t be so crowded. Lately, my job has been that I take the middle group which is mostly three-year-olds. I’m supposed to take them to the classroom for snack and choice time while the third group is on the bus. Usually, they eat snack, I’ll read them a book or two and then they get a shorter choice time. Today, while they were eating snack, I asked what they’d like to do during play time. The kids were all boys so of course they wanted to play with the leggos and trains. Instead of reading a book or doing something “educational,” I decided to let them play!

At first while they were busy with leggos, I started cleaning up the room and checking in with them every couple of minutes. I heard about space ships, telephones, bridges, towers, trains etc. What they could build was endless. After about ten minutes, I went over and sat with them. One boy told me that he was building packages so that he could deliver them. I asked what was in the packages and he told me it was candy. Another boy told me how he was making a bridge. I asked about his bridge and where it could take you if you walked across it. He told me that you have to walk underneath it and that it would take you to the woods. Another boy told me about his space rocket and that it was really big and loud when it crashed and broke apart on the floor. He decided to rebuild it as something else.

A couple of the boys built phones. One boy told the other to call his grandfather and he did. Then he told me that his grandfather hung up on him. I asked why and he said that maybe his grandfather’s phone was dead or that his own phone was dead. I asked if he was going to charge it and he got some more leggos and plugged his phone into the charger and started to call his grandfather again. Then another boy picked up his phone and called his grandfather too, but a similar situation happened with the phone getting disconnected.
We could’ve done work sheets or coloring pages, but then the boys wouldn’t have expanded their ability to build things and take them apart. They wouldn’t have been able to use their imagination and creativity to make up stories about calling their grandfathers or delivering packages of candy. It’s not only dramatic play, but it develops language skills and is a precursor to literacy. They wouldn’t have practiced sharing or conflict resolution when one boy would take a leggo or toy car from another and they had to work it out. They wouldn’t have practiced how to collaborate. I asked for some extra round pieces of leggos so I could finish making my donut and the boys happily found what I needed and wanted to help me build. Finally, there was clean up! They wouldn’t have had the opportunity for some extra team work when we all had to rush to put all the leggos back into the bucket. They would’ve missed out on a lot if I hadn’t decided to let them play!

Pumpkin Patch Match

Here’s a Halloween theme match game. You can print them out onto cards and laminate them or do a file folder game with one set glued to the folder and the matching set as separate laminated cards. I hope you enjoy it!

 

 

All images can be found on Google Images and are clipart.

Books of the Week

Here are the books I brought to read to the kids this week. I’ll try to post the books that we read every week especially when I buy new ones.
Bluebird's nest
This book is no longer available on Amazon, but I recently bought it off Ebay and the kids enjoyed it. It's a better read during spring, but the kids liked watching the nest get bigger and they enjoyed the 3d illistration of Bluebird at the end. We talked about how she builds her nest in the fall to keep warm through the winter.




Where Is Skipper's Bone?
It has nothing to do with fall, but the kids liked moving the slider up and down as we looked for Skipper's bone. This turned into a discussion about our own pets. Some of us had dogs, dogs and cats or just cats.



C is For Coco
The kids loved pointing out things in the pictures. When I asked who Coco was, one boy said, "She's a chick." Then another boy said, "Coco is like hot chocolate." It's a good book for introducing letters to toddlers. Some of the kids recognized the letters right away. When a letter came up that was the first letter of one of the kids names, they'd point it out. We also had little discussions about some of the pictures.



Very Hungry Caterpillar
We read this book often. The kids love it. Some of the kids pointed out some of the foods that they like or don't like. They love the pictures too. It's a favorite of our's at the center year round.

Fall Colors Lesson Plan

Art:
Fall Color collage
Use construction paper or card stock as the background where the kids can glue different colored materials. For fall colors, use orange, green, red and yellow. The materials can be anything you can find around the house.
Paper,
Felt,
Other fabric,
Pictures of things like pumpkins, apples, leaves etc,
Pompoms,
Leaves
And whatever else you can think of for fall.

Coloring Pages:
Here are some fall theme coloring pages that I found.
Basket of apples,

fall leaves,
or
acorns.


Literacy:
Make a fall colors book.
Fall Colors Book

Sensory Play:
Fill a tub with fall colored pompoms, plastic apples, plastic pumpkins, acorns, leaves etc along with some cups and scoops.
There are a lot of good ideas for sensory tubs out there.
Autumn Sensory Tub
from School Time Adventures.
Autumn Sensory Bin
from 1Plus1Plus1.

Play-dough:
Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Play-dough Recipe
Add apple spices and food coloring.

Movement:
Take a nature walk.
Talk about the colors you see.
The leaves changing,
Fallen leaves and acorns,
Dark clouds,
Talk about other things you see, smell, hear and feel.

Math:
Take a platter or tray with dividers.
Cut pieces of red, green, yellow and brown construction paper and tape them inside the tray.
Have the children sort objects by color such as leaves, acorns, pumpkins, apples, etc. Basically, you can use any objects that are the colors you want them to recognize.

Matching:
Fall Colors Matching

Fall Colored Snacks or additions to Meals:
Red: Apple, strawberries or anything with tomato sauce.
Orange: orange slices, pumpkin, carrots.
Yellow: Corn, pineapple, bananas, cheese.
Green: Grapes, apple, Broccoli, celery.
Blue: Blueberries.
Brown: Wheat bread, whole wheat oat meal, brown rice, chocolate.
Idea inspired by the following post from: Counting Coconuts.

Fall Colors Matching

Here’s a fall matching activity for color recognition. I only used five colors, but I’ll do some different activities as the seasons change and use the other colors for those. You match the colored shape with the same colored object. I’m using this as one of the activities in my fall colors lesson plan which will be posted either tomorrow or Saturday.

Brown

Green

orange

Red

Yellow

All images can be found on Google Images and are clipart.

What's in My Toy Box? Part 2

For this toy box activity, you can print out two sets of the pictures for a file folder matching game or a memory game with cards. Another way to use the pictures is to have one set of cards and if your child has these toys, he or she can search for the actual object.

 

 

 

All pictures were found using Google Images and they are clip art.