it is like someone threw up rainbow on my kitchen table

i don't even know where that title came from

but its the thought that crossed my mind 

when I took this picture

and this isn't even all of the pictures that were created!

We did a little rainbow free art

I provided the kids with different materials

paper, pom poms, buttons, sequence, jewels, crayons, 

scissors, and glue

and then I set the materials on the table and just let the kids GO WILD!

i love putting the materials on a separate table

its fun for the kids to get up and move around 

and it frees space up on the working tables so kids have more room to work!

this is the face of a kid that just took a giant bite of a gluestick and said "mmmmmmmmmmmmm"

(if you look close you can see it all over the bottom of his teeth)

don't worry I pinned him down and scrapped it out!

FUN TIMES!

the thing I hear the most of when we do projects

"Jill do you like my picture!"

to which the kids will hear

IT'S FABULOUS!!!

I love the way you glued all those different color stripes on your paper!

can you tell me about your picture?

(i use that one when I have no idea whats going on and don't want to hurt their feelings, works like a charm my friends!)

you are the such a creative little genius!

I use a lot more comments depending on the project and what the kids have created

The reason I am sharing this with you is because I want to encourage all of you

not to just to say

"good job" or "way to go" 

"beautiful picture" or "Its fabulous" 

("its fabulous" is my favorite)

I challenge all of you to talk about your child's photos 

let them tell you the story that is behind their creation

sometimes you might hear

"i don't know!" and they walk away

and thats ok, but if you keep asking you will be amazed 

at the language your kids are using!

so...

no more good jobs, and nice pictures

talk about those projects!

The End!

Linking up with Mingle with Us

I STINK!

"I Stink" is the book that we have been reading all week and often since its a very favorite of ours! 

I love the book because it is funny, uses new and different words, and has an alphabet "rap" in it! and its just cute!

While reading a blog post with a super cute idea I kinda made my own version of it!

In that blog post the blogger made a monster, but for our project to go along with our book we made a garbage truck!

The garbage truck is hungry all the time and LOVES to eat names and the alphabet!

Here are a few pics of our garbage truck in the making and the after look:

I used a klennex box, wrapped it in black paper

It doesn't look that great since I am using tape as my reinforcments but it will do the job!

add some eyes and some things on the top to give it a truck/ears look :)

We also decided it needed wheels so on the side i cut out cirlces and added the wheels!  The kids were disappointed they didn't spin so i might have to uprade him and get some reinforcements to make his wheels spin!  :)  The things we do for kids!

Very simple and easy to make and the kids just love our garbage truck!

We then played a few games with it,  I wrote all the names down of the kids and then the kids would have to find the names of the kids I called out and feed it to the garbage truck!

FEED ME!  STRAIGHT INTO MY HOOPER!

(when you say that as the kids are putting in the names it makes the game all that much more exciting!)

CRUSH THEM, MASH THEM, SMASH THEM!!

this was a GREAT way for the kids to recognize their names and the names of their freinds!

They LOVED the game and got super excited when the kids would "feed" the garbage truck their names! 

We also played another game feeding the garbage truck all the letters of the alphabet!  I put a sticker on a milk lidS and then the kids would have to find the letters and feed them to the garbage truck!  A very simple but a fun game! 

Also to go along with the book we have been painting with "trash" Check out this post and this post.

I linked up with A Story + Art = A Great Start

I also linked up with Show and Tell #76

This is just a fun way for the kids to learn their alphabet and start some reading! 

What are some fun things you do to help children learn their alphabet or start reading familiar words!

recycled materials

If you read this blog post you will learn that we are reading the book "I Stink" and are having fun painting with "trash" its actually recycled materials but it is stuff that the garbage truck would take away.

If you have not read "I stink" you must get to it!!  Such a fun cute book!!

Anyways today we did a different but yet very fun project that again invovled mixing colors like my last post!  Its like a 2 for 1 deal over here :). 

What you need is anytype of clear plastic bottle WITH a lid, and some paint!

Then you need some kids with LOTS of energy to shake these bottles up!

What we did was paint the INSIDE of a bottle!  It really is SUPER easy, takes very little time, but yet its a new and different experience and the kids loved it!

Here are some photos:

this little guy checking his paint out after he shook it!

Yes I trusted the kids to squirt the paint in themselves

(i will admit I had a VERY difficult time doing this)

-this was MORE than enough paint!

watching al lthe colors mix together!

was somewhat annoyed that the colors he choose made pink (red and white) lesson learned! :)

"cool!"

showing me how he is going to shake his paint up!"

all of our different bottles and their paints!

I highly recommend this activity for younger children, children that need to use up a little energy, and chidlren that have a short attention span because if they want to be done after 5 shakes thats totally fine and if they want to hang onto it until I rip it out of their hands so they can eat their lunch...totally cool!!! 

What recycled materials do you use??

Painting with items that belong in the trash!

This week we have been reading "I STINK" great book!  The kids LOVE it!  They giggle, they laugh, they learn lots of new words! 

I decided to make it a little theme for the week since it is such a favorite!  Now you don't need to read the book to do this project but I jsut tied in because I thought it would be fun!

When I told the kids what we were going to paint with I think they were like "Jill, we paint with a lot of crazy things but this??" But they had a BLAST! and I am sure they will request to do it again!! 

So I finally give you...painting with a paper towel!  Yes, thats right a paper towel!  Its gave a really neat look, and I must say I have actually never done this before and was impressed with the look!

All you need is paint, something to paint on (we used white paper) and some papers towels srucnched up! 

Here are some pics of the kids hard at work!

A lot of color mixing was going on with this activity which is always fun to see the kids excitment when they see the change happen!

What things do you recycle and use again with your children and their projects?