Ss week

Monday- Ss week had some highs and lows. One of the highs was that I remembered in my oldest son's Montessori kindergarten, he had an activity that would help him practice control with his writing. They would draw a shape using an inset ( it's kind of opposite of a cookie cutter, but you could use a cookie cutter.) Then you try to draw straight lines as close together as possible to fill up the shape. Instead of using an inset or cookie cutter, I printed out the letter of the week from Apples4theteacher.com. The lower case s is a bit strange looking but I used it anyway. I asked the kids to make the capital S a snake and fill up the lower case s with stars and stripes. Snakes, stars and stripes all start with the letter S. Stars were too much to ask but the 2yo thought she was doing a great job. 5yo did a surprisingly great job with the stripes. I made my snake and when I drew on the scutes (the scales on the belly that help him slither) I realized those were stripes as well. The down side to this day was that the 5yo got very upset that my snake looked so much better than his. Apparently, he's a perfectionist like the rest of the family.
We read an article from the Friend Magazine and then the kids helped me make play dough. I found this recipe on the Internet about 6 years ago. I tried to look for it again to know who submitted the recipe but I could not find it. It's called:
Caesar's Gold Coins, creator- unknown
2 cups water
16 drops of food coloring
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1/2 c corn starch
2 TBSP oil
1 TBSP alum (found in the spice aisle)

Mix all the ingredients in a large sauce pan then cook over medium heat. (Don't start heating until you have all the ingredients mixed.) Cook and stir until thick and pulls away from sides of pan. Remove and knead until smooth. I usually wait until it's not so hot, but you need to knead it before it cools off completely. I always add flour to the counter and the top of the dough and knead it in. It always seems to need a bit of extra so that it's not so sticky. The original recipe said to 'roll into a thick snake and slice into coins and imprint a design. Place on cookie sheet or card board to dry. (Helps to turn them over the next day.) But we stopped at 'snake.'

I made about 6 snakes, some coiled up and some as S shapes, while the kids practiced making snakes with their dough. They usually destroy whatever they make, but they did a really good job going through the motions. It's not easy for little hands to get the dough long and skinny enough to roll on the table. But after weeks of preschool they're really starting to improve. I saved their dough for later by wrapping it in plastic wrap and sticking it into the fridge. You could leave it on the counter wrapped up, but I find the smell of old oil repulsive. It should last a little while in the fridge. And doesn't take very long for a grown up to knead it to be warm and soft for the kids to play with. I put my snakes in a shoe box and placed them up high, turning them a few times in the week.

Tuesday- Preschool didn't really happen today. I spent too much time looking up how to make a tricorn hat. My plan was to make a flag with markers and fabric and teach the kids to treat it and fold it properly. Well, the last time I tried to explain that the flag is folded to look like a tricorn hat the kids had no idea what I was talking about. The Internet hat some very professional methods, none were fast and preschool friendly. The newspaper triangle hat was going to be my last resort, but I had lost the kids' cooperation by then. I finally settled that if I every tried again, it would be to use a dollar store pirate hat (idea from a video on youtube) and staple (or sew) it in three places to make it look colonial. (I've learned that I just can't run to the store with the kids and then expect them to do preschool in the same day. Out of the question.) My next attempt later in the day was to teach them to make stars.
Several years ago I designed a star maker. But the preschoolers weren't able to do it. I cut out circle templates and wrote numbers around the edge like a dot-to-dot. Just connect the numbers with straight lines and return to 1 and you will have a star. I thought that perhaps with a ruler they would be able to make straight lines. But for my next idea, I cut out a star template and thought they could make straight lines with that but I couldn't even control my crayon and ended up tracing the outline of the star. Well in that case I could have just used a star cookie cutter. My third idea was to make a star maker using a circle with two strategically cut out lines. Well, you have to trace the circle first to keep the template in the right area and when I tried it I discovered my angles were wrong. By this time, the kids had been left alone too long without structured play and were getting in trouble with each other.
My next idea is to make another circle but cut out a triangle instead of two lines. We'll have to make the flag and tricorn hats another week when I can't think of anything else to do.

Wednesday- One missed day and the kids thought they never had to do preschool again. I waited until big brother came home and tried again. And to my delight, big brother convinced the little kids that it was fun. First we went to the sand box with more Ss print outs and glue. The printouts came from preschool express.com this time. I made their first initial on their page with glue and covered it with sand to show them how it was done. 5yo did a great job drawing the S with glue. 2yo wanted me to do her glue for her. I hope that by covering the S with sand, she will still learn the shape of the S. Shake off the excess sand and let it dry in a safe place and they make pretty cool letters.
Next we went into the family room and strung crepe paper around chair legs and pretended we were spies or secret agents. The crepe paper were security beams and the kids had to go over, under, and through to get to the other side of the room where a cd was playing salsa music. I really tried hard to look for spy music, but to no avail. Some movie clips I wanted to show were 'Wallace and Grommit, The Wrong Trousers', 'Get Smart' (but I couldn't get a hold of a copy and I wanted to preview that part for kid appropriateness), and a mystery clip that I couldn't remember the name of. Just no good. In the end I told the kids to dance to the music to get past the security beams and they caught on just fine with out the movie clips. I've got some great clips for myself now.

Unfortunately, 5yo got very annoyed with us making alarm sounds every time he touched a beam. I found this game in a game and activity book at the library last year.

Thursday- Children refused to play the 'sweep game.' I had done this for FHE about 3 years ago. I taped masking tape squares to the kitchen floor a couple of feet away from each other. Then I used a hole punch to make colorful dots. The goal is to sweep up the dots into the squares. But nobody wanted to play. They knew it was work training.
Next I tried to get them to sit still to make silhouettes of each other and me. No good until big brother got home. He's so great for thinking my ideas are fun and convincing the other kids. Of course, every one made funny faces and that's good enough. I did have trouble with the 2yo. Had to take a video of her silhouette. I used Windows Movie Maker to take a picture of a frame of the video. Now I just have to scale it to the size of the others for posterity.

Friday- Fun day! Painted our snakes. I printed out a page of different snakes, famous and in our area: the Diamond Back Rattler, the King Cobra, the Blow Snake that imitates the previous two, the Eastern Coral Snake and the Scarlet King Snake which look very similar. The kids did a great job. They're much more careful with paint than they were a year ago. The trick is to have everything ready and never leave their side. They wear over sized T-shirts, there's lots of paper towels and wet wipes handy. And I never paint when they do. I've learned to wait my turn. But luckily, they like to get cleaned up and go play, leaving me with the clean up and ample time to paint for my pleasure. It's usually hard not to paint over the kids work if I'm trying to make something for them to learn from. But this time I was able to stop myself. I wanted to paint these snakes to last a long time and be a reference for snakes they should be afraid of and snakes they can enjoy. Sometimes, preschool is all about me and what I want to learn.