Afternoon Activities!

I spent one day in the South End school this week, and I was SO inspired by these awesome afternoon activities that I just had to share!!  Each day, the teachers prep an activity for the children to do at the table after nap. The teachers  have the activity on the table READY for the children to explore upon wake up time.   It's so great to keep them engaged from the time they wake up from their siesta, until the time they go home.  I hope you feel as inspired as I did!!

SCIENCE/FINE MOTOR ACTIVITY

Preschool teacher, Claudia, had this AWESOME science/fine motor activity prepped for the kids!

In an ice cube tray, put water in just the OUTSIDE COLUMNS OF CUBES.

So in this picture, you see 7 columns of cubes.  She put clear water in columns 1, 2, 6 and 7. 

Add primary colors of food coloring to each cube with water. Red, Yellow and Blue.

Now your little scientists are going to get to work mixing the colors together in the empty cubes!

Have them use eye droppers from your science collection, or sanitized medicine droppers as well!

The children spent a very long time mixing the colors together and creating their own shades of the rainbow!

Then Maria Castro showed us that if you use the eye droppers with the colored water on printed words, it makes the words look MAGNIFIED!

It was like the words on the paper were growing!!  So cool!

SENSORY TABLE ACTIVITY

Substitute teacher, Maria, had this AWESOME science/sensory table activity prepared!

In the morning, the children were using dry spaghetti with Styrofoam blocks in the sensory table.

I know that many of our sensory tables are RED boxes. So in the afternoon, Maria wanted to change that, by lining it with silver aluminum foil!

She then added polar bears, shaving cream and the styrofoam "icebergs".

Oh my did the kids love it!!  She get their hands right into it and felt like they were in the Arctic!

They were also able to draw letters in the shaving cream too!  Just imagine all of the possibilities that you could do with the aluminum foil in YOUR sensory table!  It would certainly change the background if you added water and food coloring, or pasta, or just about anything!!

ART ACTIVITY

Pre-K teacher, Wendi, had this art activity prepped on her table!

Wendi put out tissue paper, mosaic squares and collage paper out on the table, along with paper plates and glue.

Some children wanted to paint their hands with glue! She just wanted to explore the sensation and texture on her hand.  

They made their creations into turtles!!

I just had to share this video clip of one of the children singing the "En mis Botas" song as she did her art!

Another ART ACTIVITY

Toddler teachers, Lali, Karina and Lidiani, had this GREAT art activity out for their toddlers using recycled pizza boxes!!

They put out the pizza boxes with paint and a variety of materials. 

I loved that there were cookie cutters, rollers, scissors and all sorts of things for them to explore.

The toddlers spent at LEAST half an hour on this and had so much fun!!

 IDEAS DE INSPIRACION IN ACTION

It was really cool to see some of the Do It Yourself Ideas that I have been sending out this year IN ACTION in the schools!!!  Here are just a FEW of the samples I saw from this week!

Myrna in the SOUTH END made the magnetic popsicle sticks so that they could create various shapes on the table!  

All she did was hot glue the magnets to the ends of the sticks with OPPOSITE magnetic poles so they would repel or attract to one another.  The kids had a BLAST making different shapes and experimenting with the concepts of repel and attract.  Super math and science activity!

Lidiani in the SOUTH END spent part of her prep time making a large STICKY BOARD for the kids to explore.   She put out pipe cleaners on the board as inspiration for them to create whatever they wanted!

Savi in NEEDHAM used the black sticky paper and straws with her kids to do a math/counting activity!

Savi in NEEDHAM,  created a SHOE STORE DRAMATIC AREA to talk about patterns and pairs!

Savi in NEEDHAM also added a beach section to her dramatic area!

Marissa and Maria in NEEDHAM created a whole rainforest in the DRAMATIC AREA.

Fiorella and Teresa used blue Painters Tape to make their own "Sticky Board" for counting!

They just set up the tape on the table by turning the ends down, and sticky side up.

The kids were able to do all sorts of patterns...

And they even put the tape on a box top!  So  cool!!

The ideas are endless and I hope you are just as inspired as I was!  I look forward to visiting more schools next week!!

Jacie