Space Week

We were out of this world with our Space Week. My toddlers had so much fun gazing at the stars in our dramatic area this week.

 

To make these fun star gazing boxes you will need to collect a one or two large boxes. I started out by cutting a square opening on one side of the box. I then  painted the boxes black to look like the night sky. After that, I cut out stars to glue to the outside of the boxes.

 

You will need to find a sharp knife or scissors to poke holes in the top of the box. You can do as many as you want. I did a lot so that it would look like a sky full of stars. When all that is done, It’s time to fish out those white Christmas lights you backed away. You will want to take a bulb on the strain and poke each one through a different hole. The last step is optional, but I added the words “Star Gaze” on the front of the box just for effect.

 

Younger kids might not stay at this activity for very long so you might want to add some space books so that they can look at them under the night sky.

Fun in the City

We had a great time exploring the city with our "Fun in the City" Theme. Most toddlers don’t understand the difference between life in the city and life in the country. That’s why we decided to play different sounds we would hear in the city. The class had a great time trying to figure out what noises they heard.

With this theme you will want to start out by collecting big boxes ahead of time. If you can’t find any you can go to your local grocery store and ask the manager if they have any extra boxes. You might have to dumpster dive for them a little but it will be worth it. =)

 

If you have tall boxes you might want to cut out the window like I did with the bus so that the class can see out of the box. You will need to start by wrapping the boxes like you would a present, cutting any windows out of the paper. Next, you can add windows (if needed) and wheels. If you want the cars to be more realistic you can add any extra decorating features you want.

 

For the next step, you need to tape blue paper to the wall to make a sky background. I then added picture of airplanes, helicopters, clouds, and a sun.

For the buildings you can tape black construction paper together making the buildings different heights. I used yellow post-it notes to make two rows of windows going down each building. I drew a picture of a super hero kid on poster board just for fun. This is optional.

 

I thought it would be fun to add a little gas station to this dramatic area because my class always likes to pretend to get gas. I started off with a tri-fold board with a square cut out of the top middle. After that you can just paint a simple rectangle around the cut out square and add the word “gas” to the top. I saved back an extra laundry detergent container to put in the cut out square for the gas pump.

 

This dramatic area will require some thinking ahead. Don't forget to save your laundry detergent containers and big boxes!

Carnival Day

We aren’t just clownin’ around this week! Every year we do a special event called, “Create your own Holiday”. This year we picked Carnival Day. My wonderful assistant put a lot of this together and it was so much fun.

 

 

 

 
We wanted this day to be as realistic as we could, so we started off with a ticket booth. Using two tri-fold boards, we hot glued them on top of each other and then painted red vertical lines on the boards. We completed this project by adding yellow flags at the top and a sign that showed how many tickets it took to get in. To make this even more fun we gave each child a few of those tickets so that they could pay to get in and play the carnival games.

 

 

 

Every good carnival has fun games to play and ours was no exception. To do this we started off by making signs and placing them in stations outside of the carnival tent.

 

Large Motor Skills





Large Motor Skills- If you have access to a bowling set, this is a fun game that our toddlers loved to play.



 

 



Eye-Hand Coordination

 

 

 

Eye-Hand Coordination-This game was a very easy game to put together. All you need is clothes pins and a bucket to play the traditional pin drop game.



 

 

Sensory Table

 

 

 

Sensory Table- We enjoyed exploring water play as we swam our ducks around in the water. Our class thought it was so funny to make the ducks “Quack”.

 

 

 

 

Large Motor Skills

 

 

Large Motor Skills- To make this bean bag toss you will need a tri-fold board. My assistant cut out a circle shape in the middle and then added a clown face around it. She then drew some balloons beside the clown face. The class was able to practice throwing the bean bags through the whole. Later that day we used the clown tri-fold board as a prop for our photo shoot. Each child was able to look through the clown whole as they gave their cheesiest smiles.

 

Small Motor Skills

 

 

 

Small Motor Skills- You will need pictures of different fish and a poster board for this game. We started off by making a fish scene on the poster board and taping it up to a door. We made a stick with a magnet attached to the end of the line. We then put a magnet on a laminated picture of a fish. The class was so excited when they saw a fish on the other end of their fishing pole.

Just For Fun

 

 

 

 

Just for Fun-What carnival is complete without a face painting station? There’s no need to run out and get some expensive face paint. Although it doesn’t come off of clothing, Acrylic paint wipes right off of skin. So that’s what we used. You might want to be careful to make sure that no one is allergic to it the paint by testing a small part of skin first.

Just to add a little decoration to the ceiling, we t out banner flags in alternating colors of red, yellow, and blue.

 

The best part of our holiday was our tent. This was also one of the hardest parts. We started this project out by tapping a small parachute to the ceiling using scotch tape.

We then needed to add the walls of the tent. For this you will need to start out by cutting large pieces of white and red paper that will reach from floor to ceiling. Before taping it to the ceiling you will need to lay it out on the floor and tape three stripes together alternating red-white-red. We then took scotch tape and taped the paper to the ceiling around the parachute. Repeat this step again on the other side leaving a doorway in the middle. This tent can be a little heavy and will fall easily so you can also use white and red vinyl tablecloths from the dollar store instead.

 

Since we put so much work into our tent, we decided to watch a carnival movie inside. Of course every carnival needs a special snack. We picked up some Popcorn bags from the store so that the class could enjoy popcorn during the movie.

 

This day took some work, but it was priceless to see the excitement on all of their faces.

Hope you enjoy it just as much as we did!

Dinosaur Week

Our toddlers aren’t going extinct with our Dinosaur Week. When you think of dinosaurs old and boring usually come to mind, but we found some great ways to make dinosaurs fun and exciting.

 

The concept of dinosaurs can be a little hard for a toddler to understand. So, why not make it come to life a little. We started off by having a small discussion about if dinosaurs lived in the zoo or jungle and if we had ever seen one before.

 

 

After the class has become a little more familiar with the idea of dinosaurs, it was time to get them up and moving. We had so much fun pretending to be dinosaurs as we went through the motions of this song:

 

What better way to make our theme come to life than to make a 3D dinosaur cave for our dramatic play. I started off by tapping four strips of brown paper together using scotch tape. After taping the brown paper to a secure area, I took a hula hoop and wrapped the open end of the paper around it. I finished it off by cutting some jungle looking leafs out of green paper and adding it to the opening of the cave. My class loved pretending to be dinosaurs as we read dinosaur themed books in our Dino Cave.



Our Dinosaur Stomp game was a great way to practice our gross motor skills. I started off by cutting out green dinosaur foot prints. I then used contact paper to laminate the prints to the floor. My toddlers had a great time as we stomped over the prints roaring as loudly as we could.

 

 We had such a great time learning all about dinosaurs.

Hope you have a roaring great time also!