Rainbow Streamers

This week we had a great time talking about the Letter R and Rainbows with the Little People.  Although we made all sorts of activities, my favorite was probably the Rainbow Streamers.

They were made out of strips of plastic tablecloths from the dollar store attached to curtain rings.  They ran with them, they threw them, they attached them to bars on the playground and made a car wash out of the them.

They even gathered around one of them solemnly, place their hands on their hearts, and said the pledge beside one of them:

And while I realize that there might be issues involved with saying the pledge to a non-flag, I thought the association was pretty clever.

You just never know what these Little People will come up with...

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Picture of the Day

Okay, here is my Picture of the Day for today.  This appeared today after we set out some various die cuts that start with "R".

It's very interesting to me that this year's class enjoys the die cuts in the writing center so much.  Last year's class really didn't pay attention to them at all.   However, I am always seeing interesting creations made from them this year.  The Little Person who made Mr. Rollerskating Stick Figure above is especially clever with them on a daily basis.

In fact, today she also gave me this to keep...

I love how the bunnies rabbits are holding hands.

This is really one of my favourite things about teaching the Little People.  We set out a few random things, and they work on their own to make something clever.

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A Windy Wednesday

 
Yesterday was a windy, windy day.  In fact, it was a "Windy Wednesday", which the Little People thought was a funny thing.

However, we didn't mind, since this unusual weather turned into a perfect opportunity to try out some plastic bag kites.  I had actually thought of this activity last week when we were doing the Letter K, but the wind just wasn't on our side during those days.

However, yesterday it was perfect.  To make a plastic bag kite you need a  plastic bag and a piece of yarn around four feet long.  Most of our bags were Target-type bags, but we also had a trash bag out there that worked really well.  You tie one end of the yarn to each handle of the bag (or you bunch up sections of the trash bag to make "handles", and then voila!  you have a kites.  Once the wind catches the bags, they puff up beautifully and you can "fly" them to your heart's content.

Granted, giving Little People plastic bags attached to long strings can have it's problems.  One child unfortunately let go of his string and away, away, away went his kite, over the fence and out of sight.  Presumably it floated up over the school as well, since in a few minutes a few of the elementary kids brought it back to us from the playground on the other side of the school grounds.

And then of course you have the issues with "no strings around your neck" and "no plastic bags on your head", which became extra-tricky when it suddenly started to rain on us.

Last but not least you have your "yarn + bike" equation, which led to problems like this:

However, all in all it was an excellent lesson on wind and kites, and it cost us almost nothing.  Plus, I think the Little People will be talking about the Plastic Bag Kites for quite some time.

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Reporting vs. Tattling for the Little People

Look at this great sign that I found on Pinterest:

Source: allthingskatiemarie.blogspot.com via Julie on Pinterest 

Isn't this fantastic?  And boy, do my Little People need to read this.  In fact, I might just teach them all to read early, just so they can read and process this information.  Or, I suppose that I can just do my best to teach it to them anyway.  Because our classroom lately is just a swarm of complaints and tattling. 

These are the most common complaints that I am hearing these days:

What I hear: "Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher..."
Me:  Yes, Sally.
Sally:  (in a whiny and pseudo-tearful voice) Teacher, I was lining up, and Suzie was behind me, but now Jenny is behind me!
Me:  Sally, you can not be in charge of who is behind you.  All you can be in charge of is where you are in line, and you can talk to people who cut in front of you.  It's not cutting if people change places behind you.

What I hear: Teacher, teacher, teacher -  Suzie said she's not my friend anymore.
To which I respond (loud enough for Suzie to hear): "Oh, Suzie must have forgotten how it hurts your feelings to hear that.  Why don't you tell Suzie how you don't like it when she says that."


What I hear: Teacher, teacher, teacher - Stevie said that I'm not hot lunch today, but I am hot lunch today.
To which I respond: You are the one who knows whether you are hot lunch or not.  Is Stevie wrong about whether you are hot lunch?
Student: Yes, because I am hot lunch.
Me: Then don't worry about what Stevie says.

What I hear: Teacher, teacher, teacher - Bobby says that I'm sitting on the green row, but I sit on the blue row!
To this I respond: Well, do you sit on the green row?
Student: No.
Me:  Then don't worry about what Bobby says.  Besides, I think Bobby just had a brain fog about which color your row is.
What I really want to say: Um, sweetie, I'm pretty sure that Bobby still doesn't know which color is blue and which is green, so pay no attention to that.  (Actually, I'm beginning to suspect that Bobby is color blind.)

What I hear: Teacher, teacher, teacher - Jonny pushed me with his foot when he sat down on the carpet.
Jonny - I said I was sorry already.
To which I respond: Oh, it looks like you don't need my help for that problem.  Jonny accidentally pushed you with his foot, but then he said he was sorry.  You don't even need to tell me about that problem at all.


I think that instead of all of these responses that take a huge amount of patience and careful wording, I will show them this chart (perhaps in a picture form) and then from then on respond to their complaints by referring to the chart:

Are you trying to keep someone safe?
Do you need a grownup to help solve this problem?
Is what happened an accident?
Is what happened important? 
Is someone in danger?  Is someone sick? 

If the answer is no, then I will ask them to try to solve it themselves.

Now to work on the picture version.  Perhaps a flow chart would work...

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More Mosaics

Here are a few more finished boards.  At the moment, I believe we have 45 out of 65 done.  So far, so good.

The paint brush/branch here is one of my favorite elements - I just thought it turned out really neat.

Have you ever wondered why it was only after the second trip up the mountain to get new stone tables that Moses came down shiny?  Why wasn't he shiny the first time he came down?  Was it perhaps just a build-up of shininess?  I just don't know.

All during the making of this one I was thinking it was Pharaoh being mean the the slaves (hence the angry eyes).  However, when I got the original clip art to check how the bowed-down people looked, I noticed the caption said Joseph forgives his brothers.  Whoops.  Might have to remove the angry eyes and replace them with kinder, gentler, forgiving eyes.

Lots of blue going on here.

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Valentine's Day

Well, another Valentine's Day is now behind us. Numerous valentines were passed out, goody bags were carted home, and who knows how many cookies and cupcakes were consumed.  We graphed conversation hearts, made cards for family members, and practiced some fine-motor skills with popsicle sticks, sugar cookies, and frosting. All that is left from the day are some residual candies left after the boys commandeered my own Valentine's bag once I got home from the school.

This year we tried a new type of Valentine's bag.  I decided that I wanted to try making bags out of two layers of clear Contact paper with tissue paper hearts in between the layers.  The plan was to layer the items between the Contact paper, fold the paper in half, and then tape the edges to make it into a bag.  It looked so cute and easy.

Indeed, they did turn out cute.  But they were not easy.  In fact, that Contact paper just about drove me to madness right there amongst the Little People.  Granted, this was my first experience with the Little People and Contact paper, so I had not yet learned some of the helpful hints that can prevent one's Contact paper experiences from being fuel for a classroom breakdown.

The first hint I learned was to tape down the Contact paper before the kids start putting decorations on it. I learned this the really hard way.  At first I blithely thought I could just lay the Contact paper on the table sticky-side up and warn them to try not to touch the paper too much.  Bless their hearts.  I had one Little Person on the edge of tears as she desperately tried to get the sticky paper off of her hands, arms, clothes and ultimately out of her hair.  I finally was able to wrestle it away from her without causing any Contact Paper Removal Abrasions and cover it with a second piece, trapping no less than three or four or her hairs in the process.   Finally I shooed all of the children away while I took several deep breaths and started over by taping the contact paper securely to the table (sticky side up, of course).

The second hint I learned was to adhere the second sheet of contact paper on very carefully.  I learned that it was best to first just peel back an inch or so of the backing paper on the second sheet all the way down one edge.  Once this long inch of paper was exposed, I lined it up with the already-decorated sticky paper (which was still taped to the table) and pressed this small part together.  Then I slowly pulled the rest of the backing paper off while running my other hand down the papers to seal them together.  Trust me, this is much easier than taking all of the backing off of the second sheet and then trying to maneuver it right on top of the first sheet and then trying to adhere them smoothly together.

Now that I've figured out a few tricks to make working with the Contact paper easier, I might conquer these additional Contact paper ideas found on Pinterest.  They might end up containing some air bubbles and a few stray hairs, but I'm sure they will be wonderful:

Source: thechocolatemuffintree.com via Jaclyn on Pinterest

Source: messforless.blogspot.com via Abby on Pinterest

Source: totschool.shannons.org via Jenny on Pinterest

Source: megduerksen.typepad.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: nurturestore.co.uk via Julie on Pinterest

Source: artfulparent.com via Deborah @ Teach Preschool on Pinteres

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The Classroom Tree in Spring Mode

Well, believe it or not, we are seeing definite signs of spring here in California.  Just today I broke off a couple of twigs from trees and took them in the classroom to show the Little People how new leaves were coming out of the leaf buds.

With onset of spring in mind, I spent some time wandering in the Dollar Tree today trying to find a way to make our classroom tree look spring-ish.  I wanted it to have flowers (since it's supposed to be an apple tree, after all), but since I didn't give the tree flowers last year, I didn't have anything already planned or stored away for this look.

I went into the store thinking I might look at the bunches of artificial flowers with the goal of pulling the flowers off of the plastic stems and sewing them together on the sewing machine to make a flower garland.  However, it quickly became apparent that it would take a lot of bunches of flowers to make any significant amount of garland.

But then at the front of the store I saw them:  "Wedding" flower garlands

Each package had 12 feet of garland.  Each white flower was separated with what appears to be a piece of clear drinking straw.  Now that I think about it, this idea could easy to be replicated at home, but certainly not for the cost of a dollar.

 And certainly not for $.50 each, which is what they rung up for when I took my eight garlands up to the cash register.

After school I began to drape the flowers up on the tree.  I actually thought I got all eight strands on there, but then after I was finished I  found one more strand that I had not put up yet.  Then I went back to the Dollar Tree after school and bought 11 more strands. (I was a little worried that they had changed the price to a dollar in the three hours that I was away, but hooray, they had not.)

Here is the tree in the first stage of its spring look.  As you can see, seven garlands hardly made an impact on the tree at all, but adding 12 more tomorrow should do the trick.

I wasn't really sure how to string the flowers up so I just randomly tried a few methods as I went along.  However, after I was finished I could tell that I didn't like this "wraparound" method shown below...

...as much as the "group and clump" method shown here at the far end of these branches.

 So tomorrow I'll be doing lots of "grouping and clumping", which of course are highly technical tree-decorating terms.

As you can see in the picture above, the garlands did have other things on them.  They came as both flowers and holographic hearts, or holographic doves, but I went for the hearts.  I took them off the garland and then added them to the Valentine's creative art center that was a choice today:

Actually, I almost feel like just the cool silver hearts were worth the $.50 alone.  I think I'll take the ones that they don't use on their art and put some of my blank yard sale address labels on them and put them in the writing center for Valentine's Day cards.

So, a tree's worth of apple blossoms, plus over 100 large holographic hearts to use for various purposes for only $9.50.   Not a bad deal at all.

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#7 and #14

Here are #7 and #14 with all their glass on:

Here are Abraham and Sarah with baby Isaac.  I thought Sarah turned out especially nice with her radiant white hair.  And Abraham looks happy, yet appropriately aged with his wrinkles.

Here are the first set of plagues.  I love how the person who did this one made the cow - very nicely done.  I had trouble knowing what to do for the gnat, so they're made of beads.  One smooth bead for the main body, and two faceted, shiny beads for the wings.  

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More Finished

Here are the mosaic boards that are recently finished:

 My friend Carolyn wanted to write "What Happens Under the Golden Calf Stays Under the Golden Calf" on the altar of this one.  But she did not.

After awhile, I took a break from gluing to do some highlighting.  Here is how the list looks now:

I'm still not counting how many we still have to finish, but we're definitely getting closer...

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Getting the Boards Ready

Yesterday I showed you how our Girls' Night Out went last week.

Before I took the boards there, I did a little bit of prep work to get a few of them ready.  Mainly I put some face details on, because the faces can be a little daunting to newbie mosaicers.  (Yes, I know that's not a word - at least to Mr. Spellcheck.)

First of all, I took a picture of all the boards waiting for transport to the church building...sort of as a farewell to those that were completed and would not be returned.  (Sniff, sniff...)

Here are some of the ones that I left up at the building to be displayed in our new children's wing:

Here is Pharaoh just after the application of his angry eyes.  I thought this was kind of a nice, serene picture.

Here is another board waiting in the sunlight...

 
Here is a closeup look of some eye application.  Some of the eyes were done with beads, and some were done with little pieces of black.  "Small black slivers", as the pencil writing instructs.

 Here are Samson's "intense" eyes.  Here you can also see what happens if you trace the pictures onto the board with something other than a permanent marker.  Remember:  waterbased marker + glue = big smeary mess.

I was kind of enjoying this guy as I was gluing his eyes on.  He's really a captive being carried off to Babylon, but due to his kind-of point ears, I am fondly thinking of him as Legolas the elf/captive.

I had a little trouble deciding what to do on this Esther picture.  As in several of the board, a slight tilt of the mouth or eyes can change the whole personality.  And I wasn't sure about Esther.  Was she stressed out and  dismayed at suddenly being the queen (as shown below...)

...or perhaps was she pleased with it all?  I decided to go with pleased, because I'm just a glass-half-full kind of person.  Plus I like thinking that she kind of enjoyed all the good things about queenship (queendom) before all of her people became in jeopardy of extinction, etc, etc.

Tomorrow I'll show all the boards that are now finished after the Girls' Night Out (plus a busy weekend of mosaic-ing on my part).

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