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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Old Mrs. Karen Had a Farm!

"Old Mrs. Karen had a farm!"  EE-I-EE-I-O!  With some fun here and some fun there, everywhere some fun, fun!  Old Mrs. Karen had a farm, EE-I-EE-I-O!"  Okay, that is enough singing for a Saturday!  Can you tell we talked about the farm this week?  It was great!  We have mooed, oinked, neighed, quacked and clucked all week (not easy with a sore throat I might add).  We also had a great time, let me show you.  Our Monday we talked about one of our favorite barnyard friends, the pig!  We started off with an activity that I have done for several years now, our muddy pigs!
 We painted our pigs with our regular paint and let them dry.  It doesn't should like a whole lot of fun but if you "oink" while you paint, you start to giggle!  After they dried, we added "Mrs. Karen's Special Mud"!  It is a fun mixture of . . . .


Everyone mixed up their own "mud" and slapped it on their pigs!  Each child had their own method for applying the mud.  There was the "I don't want to get my hands dirty" method -


The "let's just use one finger" method - 
And then there is MY favorite, "LET'S DO THIS!" method - 
The "how" part didn't really matter, it was the "fun" that counted!  All-in-all our pigs were "perfect"! 




We also spent our circle time talking about pigs and how they use mud to cool off.


Tuesday turned into an "R" day.  We talked about letter of the week and rabbits!  If you are a follower of my blog you know that I really enjoy "reusing" items in my classroom (and at home too!).  I don't believe in spending a lot of money to have fun.  Our "R"ed "R"abbit is a perfect example of this.  We started with a good 'ole toilet tissue roll and painted it red.  


After it dried, we added a face, some ears and a tail - instant "Red Rabbit"!

Our circle time was spent talking about rabbits and everyone tried to "hop" everywhere we went!


Wednesday's are always a fun day for us because we get to spend 30 minutes in the "big" gym with my good friend, Mrs. Nancy.  We call it "Wednesday Wiggles".  It really is a preschool version of a Physical Education class.  There are about 40 children in each class and we work on group activities and following instructions.   I love when everyone runs in the door screaming "is it wiggles day?".  And since wiggles is so much fun, I have to make sure my classroom time is fun too.  SSSOOOOO, this Wednesday we talked about roosters.  We cock-a-doodle-dooed ALL day and spent our circle time talking about roosters.  We also made a wonderful rooster to take home.

He was quick and fun.  (Quick note:  Next time we will make him red!).


Thursdays are always busy for us, but not too busy to talk about horses!  We galloped along  as we neighed and made our hand print horses.


I love hand print art!


Finally, it was Friday and time for REAL fun!  I don't think anyone was disappointed with this week's "Fabulous Fun Friday"!  We started with a recycled sheep project.  This was GREAT for our fine motor skills and everyone had a fun time.  First we wound the yard (your choice of colors of COURSE!) around a piece of old recycled cereal box.

Next, we added a head and some clothes pins for legs.  Instant recycled sheep!  
Our Auburn and Alabama Sheep!
Our blue sheep!


Since we were talking about sheep, we headed to the kitchen to make our snack.  We made sheep cookies, of course!



Okay, I know, you have to use your imagination on these, but we loved them!


Our science experiment of the week was all about the letter "R"!  We made raisins and rice dance!  
I'm not sure where I found the original experiment but, Dancing Raisins is a great link.  I changed it up a little by adding a little red food coloring and using rice too.  We did the experiment at around 10:00 a.m. and by 1:00 p.m., the raisins and rice were still moving!  Everyone loved them!


We had a busy week!  Next week is all about the letter "Z" and the zoo.  It is our last week before our Spring Break so I will be pulling out a bunch of new ideas.  Thanks for visiting with us and I hope you will come back soon.


This blog post was shared on 
Kids Co-op 

28 comments:

  1. so many cute and fun activities here... I may have to do some of these with my kiddo :) Would love to invite you to share this with us at Sharing Saturday here..http://www.mamamiasheart2heart.com/2012/03/sharing-saturday-10.html

    Thanks so much and have a great weekend,
    MiaB

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  2. You have such cute ideas! I love your blog and am happy to have found it. I am your newest follower and would love for you to come visit me if you get the chance. =)


    Heather
    Heather's Heart

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  3. Thanks so much for posting all this great ideas and the pictures! I just came across your blog and I love it. I`m sure the kids love coming to class and having fun and doing all this great activities! I`m a teacher of 2-4 year-olds at a Montessori preschool in Germany and a mom of 3 kids. Thanks again and keep up the wonderful work!

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  4. Oh my goodness I made the handprint horses, but also added sheep and cows with 24 kindergarten students! They came out so so cute!

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  5. The "mud" mix is brilliant; I'll have to give that a try. My daughter is OBSESSED with finger painting and I'm always looking for new textures for her to experiment with.

    Also, this is such a wonderful montage of ideas. I really admire your creativity!

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  6. This whole post made me smile. Such wonderful ideas. Thank you for sharing at the Weekly Kid's Co-op. I'm Pauline and I blog over at http://lessonslearntjournal.com. May I please feature this (with a picture from your post) as part of my roundup of this week's linky party? I would also love to pin a picture from your post onto our very popular Weekly Kids' Co-op interest board :). Hope to hear from you soon.

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  7. I am a pre-kindergarten teacher. Do You have all the art projects like the pig, rooster parts, etc.,, precut? That would take a lot of time if you did. How do you manage that?

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  8. @Debbie - Yes, I pre-cut all my pieces the night or day before. If you look closely, they are not precise and most of them are a little rough around the edges, but no one seems to mind. We are also blessed at our school by having an Ellison machine to cut some of our shapes, but mostly I do it by hand. Thanks for asking!

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  9. I really like this page it is educational and entertaining. The hands on activities I believe that my group of children will love them since we are looking at the theme Farm Animals. Wonderful
    Keisha

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  10. This is so educative and fun


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  11. love your ideas, thank you so much.

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  12. Oh my goodness thank you for having such wonderful crafts I was despairing of ever finding process driven farm art.

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