Screen Free Ideas

I posted recently on my website Resource Center about screen free activities that are easily implemented using stuff you've already got on hand.  Whether in the classroom or (stuck) at home, I'm sure there's something in here for you!

Click the image below to get all the fun screen free activities--art, outside fun, and more:

Glue Sticks!

New post over on the FlannelBoardFun.com blog!  Click below to read all about glue in your art area...

More Simple Art Tools for Fine Motor Fun!

In the continuing saga of fine motor art fun...  Click that cutie to read more!

Simple Art Tools for Fine Motor Development

Need a refresher on why simple is best?  

Here's a quick post on simple tools for your 

preschool art area (at school or at home!)

Making Binoculars!

This activity was a regular each year on my list of small group activities.  It could also be a great activity to do in a library story time!  We kept several sets of 'real' binoculars in the Dramatic Play area of our classroom, but having these homemade sets on hand was a fun change of pace :)  Click below to read all about this simple, fun activity!

Get these sorts of ideas sent right to your inbox every couple of weeks--plus a free Shake Your Booty song and dance cube (plus lyrics to go with it) to use with wiggly kids!

Making Beads

Here's a nice little activity that extends over several days, builds lots of skills (such as fine motor, creativity, and cause and effect!) and is just plain fun :)

We used the awesome book Mudworks by Mary Ann Kohl to create a batch of dough for making beads...

Once our dough was just right, we rolled it into various small shapes.

We poked holes into the dough shapes with the ends of thin paintbrushes:

We had to wait several days for the dough beads to dry, but when they were finally ready, we painted them.  Then, when the paint was dry we strung our beads onto string and made bracelets and necklaces!

  

  

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Two Art-Area-Organizing Ideas

If you're a preschool teacher, you're probably on a bit of a budget.  Even if not, it's always nice to find ways to recycle!  These two simple tips will help keep your art area just that little bit more organized; will provide simple ways for the children to help at clean up time; and can even build a few math skills at the same time!  Here they are, easy as pie:

Organizing your crayons has never been so simple.  Collect and clean out empty food cans--all the same size works best (for those of us with a few OCD tendencies, at least!), and I prefer them short enough so the tips of the crayons can be seen sticking out of the tops.  You'll want the number of cans to be equal to the number of colors in your collection.  Simply cut colored construction paper to wrap around the cans, gluing or taping them neatly on.  Cover that paper with Con-tact paper or clear packing tape, and voila!  Store your cans in a shallow tray or basket, and you've got a nice organized crayon storage method.  Kids can easily transport the whole tray or individual cans to the art table, find the color they're looking for, and can get a little practice in math and color recognition at clean up time :)

Next up:  paper storage!  How many random baskets and tubs of  papers do you have making an eyesore of your art area?!  (I admit that even with this one in use, I still kept other messier baskets on the shelves as well, to provide a larger variety of types and sizes of paper...)  But this is such a perfect paper holder, and fits so nicely on a preschool classroom art shelf, and lets the kids be so self-sufficient and independent, that I consider it a must have.

The box you see pictured below is the storage box from a class pack of markers.  My school always got ours from Discount School Supply (here's a link).  Now if you don't already buy these class packs, you're not going to want to order a set for $90 just to have this paper storage solution!  But if your school already buys them this way, all you have to do is take off the lid, cut your papers to fit, and you're set!  Just as with the crayon cans, this lets the kids be independent, helps them sort and organize naturally, and is a big help at clean up time.  Mine lasted at least five years, and my school went through boxes and boxes of markers each year, so this was a no-brainer :)  You can even cover the bottom of each section with its own color of paper if you really want to help with the whole color sorting idea...

Do you use these or other similar tools to keep your art supplies organized?  Leave your comments below!

Finger painting!

Does finger painting bring back childhood memories for you?  It does for me, and they're all good ones!  I loved the smell of the paint, the cool, slick feel of it, the bright colors mixing together...  Which no doubt influenced me to offer finger painting pretty frequently as a teacher.  I wanted my students to have those same fond memories, and I think they will :)

Finger painting is one of the few art experiences that really does work best with a smock of some kind, because the kids really lean into the tray of paint more than they do in any other painting activity. I generally avoid smocks, as they often discourage a child from participating, and honestly I haven't found any that actually keep paint off the kids!  But our school had t-shirts made for a fund raiser, so I took some of the leftovers, a couple sizes too big for my kids, and turned them into finger painting smocks.  T-shirts aren't foreign to kids, so they aren't as disturbed at putting them on!

My favorite way to present the finger paints is on a big, round, shallow tray.  Ask them what colors they want, and where they want their blobs plopped down.  Then let them go to town!

Of course you can also add paper.  I often don't bother--it really is about the process, not a product--but sometimes they ask for it, and sometimes it's just fun to show them how they can make prints.  Just let them do their own thing, and everything turns out great :)

Not to be dismissed is fingerTIP painting!  This is great for kids who don't want their whole hand covered in paint.  We put a wet rag nearby for anyone needing an extra wipe now and then :)

So many benefits come from finger painting:  Color mixing is science!  Stress floats away!  Finger and hand muscles get stronger!   Awareness of cause and effect grows!  Self-help skills abound at clean up time!  Sensory integration occurs!

Do you have fond memories of finger painting?  Share them in the comments below!

Painting with Rolling Things!

I'm always touting the fine motor benefits of a good old fashioned art activity.  Those tiny muscles get worked, challenged, and built by holding onto thin or thick paint brushes, by spreading or drizzling glue, by placing small scraps of paper carefully onto the paper...

But it's not all about fine motor!  Art activities can build gross motor skills, too.  Vehicle painting and using rolling sponges and other rolling tools are two easy ways to build the larger muscles of the arms, as well as core stabilization.  

To get the most out of those benefits, provide large work spaces and larger pieces of paper when you do these activities.  Group paintings are great for this--simply tape a huge piece of paper onto a large table, provide several plates of paint with a vehicle or paint roller nestled on top, and watch them go!

Giving the kids their own individual trays works well, too.  I like to cut large pieces of paper and present them on a long tray, which really encourages that back and forth motion from one end of the paper to the other.

There are all sorts of painting tools available for this sort of activity.  You can use rollers intended for painting, and I liked to mix it up with stamp rollers as well.

Do you love rolling tools for art?  How have you tweaked this activity for your classroom?  Share in the comments!

Cutting Rainbows

Do you have kids who struggle to cut with scissors?  It's so tricky!  It can be really frustrating for some children, and the more they are shown the "correct" way to hold them, the more frustrated they become.  Sometimes their little fingers just aren't ready for this difficult task.

I think it's really important to ease children into activities like cutting with scissors.  One of the easiest ways to do this is to provide opportunities to use safe scissors in a variety of ways, with little or no pressure on showing them the right way to hold and use them.  Let children become familiar with the feel of scissors in their hands, encouraging them to hold them however they want to so that when they are ready to be shown the traditional grip, they already love scissors and won't feel intimidated.

One of the ways I've done this in my classroom is to cut "rainbows".  This is a fun and appealing way to get children familiar with scissors.  They don't have to coordinate two hands at once since they don't have to hold the paper, and they can try various methods to get that snipping just right!

Eventually, with practice like the rainbow cutting above, as well as other low-pressure opportunities, children will be ready for gentle guidance on holding and using scissors with one hand.  Your Open Art table (or writing center, or cutting table, or whatever you may call it) will be full of children independently cutting to their heart's content.  Save your scraps--you'll need them for all those capable cutters!

What methods have you used to help kids who struggle with scissors?  How do you introduce kids to challenging tools?  I'd love to read your comments and ideas--leave them below!

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Building Independence in the Art Area

Building independence and a sense of responsibility in young children is an important job for a teacher or for anyone with young children in their life.  When children are given little jobs or tasks to complete, it builds their confidence, competence, and self-esteem.  (A side bonus is that it generally makes life easier for the adults around them, too!)

My classroom was always busy with art activities.  Children needed to be closely supervised with certain tools, and large easel paintings had to be hung by an adult.  That busyness necessitates children helping out in lots of ways, so that the classroom can run smoothly, and so everyone can feel like an important part of their little classroom community.

I used two drying racks in my classroom.  One was for easel paintings to hang from (this was a teacher job), and one was for smaller works involving paint or glue.  It's at this drying rack that the children really helped out--they placed their own work on the shelf, carefully placing it so it wasn't on top of another item.

This is such a simple task for an adult, and at first having the children do it themselves probably makes things a bit more difficult for everyone.  They need to balance their bodies as they bend or reach to fit their paper in an empty spot; they need to keep the paper face up and relatively flat so collage materials don't fall off and paint or glue doesn't drip; sometimes they need to use one hand to pull a shelf out to get their work put away.  All of those aspects and the challenge they present for the kids are what make the job so valuable.  The children feel so accomplished when they master this skill!  They feel helpful, confident, and an important part of the classroom.  And the teachers are able to monitor all the other activity going on in the classroom with one less thing to worry about.  Win-win!

Do you encourage independence in this or similar ways?  Are you tempted to just do things for the children to make things faster?  I'd love to hear your ideas--leave a comment!

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Starting off Small

At the beginning of the school year, it's so important to start off by building strong relationships with each child. During those first couple of weeks we make an even more concerted effort than usual to spend as much quality time as we can with each child. That might be reading a story with them, joining them as they build with blocks or do a puzzle, helping them say hi to a new friend, or any of the other million and one things that are new and sometimes intimidating to a first time preschooler.

Although I'm often tempted to jump right in with providing super fun and messy art activities, those tend to require quite a bit of teacher involvement and supervision, especially since many of the children have rarely even held a paint brush! Staying stationed in one spot for most of the morning means that those important relationship building and one-on-one teacher-child interactions aren't happening with many of the children at this important stage in the game. The kids are just learning how to navigate this big new space and all the new people and things it contains, so they really need us to be with them every step of the way.

But I still want to provide something in the art area! I want them to know there will be fun activities awaiting them every day in that wonderful area. So I start off small:

A contac paper collage, with large scraps of construction paper needs little to no supervision.  It's a nice little sensory experience, and can be switched up easily simply by providing different kinds of scraps.

A tray full of large stickers (I got mine at Discount School Supply) and small pieces of paper is simple and fun, with that bonus of fine motor development thrown in there.

Tape a huge piece of paper to a table with cans of crayons and pre-cut pieces of colored tape.  So simple. So fun!

Various types of crayons spice things up a little :)

I always start off the year with my youngest kids with only one color of paint at the easel.  Looks a little boring to us, but it's new and exciting for most of the kids.  They'll quickly work their way up to being able to handle more!

How about you?  How do you start off your school year in the art area?  Have any simple activities the kids can do all by themselves?  Share down below!