The Cutest Farm Bulletin Board

     This adorable 3D bulletin board is in our Science room.  Our science teacher Joanne always does the most wonderful projects with the kids. For this bulletin board, the kids started by creating the background with finger paints.  Each child then chose two animals to make and painted the toilet paper rolls they would need. The animals were inspired by Pinterest and specifically Amanda at Crafts by Amanda.

Amanda has very specific directions on her website.  Joanne modified most of the animals a little.  I think they are absolutely adorable.

Little pigs with button noses and curly pipe cleaner tales.

Sheep with mini marshmallow fleece.

Chicks and Chickens with feathers and pipe cleaners.

Puppy Dogs

Cows

The Horses required lots of wrapping  pipe cleaners  around pencils.

Cats in the Barn.

Vegetable garden made with pipe cleaners and tissue paper.

Ducks made from pasta shells.

The barn.

SO CUTE!

I've blogged about other cute ideas from our farm unit (including other bulletin board ideas) here.  If you are here from Pinterest, please check out the rest of the blog and follow me. Thanks:)

More Mud Fun

One of my favorite spring activities is making and writing about mud.  This year I changed things a little bit because we have just begun a school-wide unit on farms. During our Fairy Tale Unit, we used Fairy Dust Teaching's Guided Drawing directions to draw pigs.  I took those pigs and glued them to our mud poem.  On Monday we read one of my favorite books, The Piggie in the Puddle by Charlotte Pomeranz and James Marshall. It is the very silly rhyming story about a piggie who won't get out of a mud puddle. We then made our own mud.

The kids love playing in the mud.  After they have had their fill, we brainstormed a list of words to describe the mud. We then moved those words around in our "I Like Mud" poem.

After we reread the poems many times using different words to describe the mud, the children came to me in small groups to  write their own versions of the Mud Poem.

Finally, we added real mud to our piggie drawings.

As always, I love this bulletin board which showcases the kids' guided drawings, handwriting and personalities (in both the words they chose for their version of the poem and the way they added mud to their drawings:)

Our Big Red Barn

This week we started our school-wide farm unit.  Last year I made a giant castle with 8 refrigerator boxes for our fairy tale unit. The kids loved it so I decided to make a barn this year.  I once again used plans from  Mr. McGroovy and I was able to reuse his box rivets that I had bought last year.  The barn only needed 3 refrigerator boxes and was really pretty simple to make.  Although it is not nearly as spectacular as the castle, the kids had a wonderful time playing in it today. 

I started by cutting 2 boxes (the lines don't have to be perfect).  I then made corner brackets (from a smaller box) and put the boxes together with the box rivets.  

The kids painted the barn using house paint (fortunately I have a red door at home) and paint pads (also from last year).  I then cut out the door and windows and had the brilliant idea to use white duck tape to add the trim around the door and windows.  Finally I laid the 3rd box across the top as the roof.  

In just a few hours we created a wonderful new play spot for our room.  I did learn a few things.. first, look for an independent appliance store for the boxes.  If they do their own deliveries, they will probably have several boxes every night.  Second, get 3 boxes that are all the same size.  I had one huge box.  The directions said to use the biggest box for the roof.  I had to cut it down and make several adjustments that I think would have been avoided if I had the same size boxes. Finally, as I said above, duck tape is wonderful for adding straight line details.  I didn't have my phone with me when the kids were playing in the barn but I can say they loved it...nothing better than special "kids-only" spaces when you're 5 years old.  

Friday Flashback (on Saturday:)

Wow, that was a busy week.  On Monday, we received Magic Juice from a Leprechaun.  Unfortunately, the teachers didn't heed the warning and our feet turned green!

Read more about the Magic Juice here.

On Tuesday, we finished our story about the leprechauns that learned "elf control."  We reenacted the bubble challenge (with the wild leprechauns to illustrate our book).  We also celebrated the last day of day of winter with an indoor snowball fight.

Trixie and Trixter, the main characters
in our story.

Look at that "elf control" ... simply watching the bubble fall to the floor.

Our class book with photograph illustrations. 

Read more about our indoor snowball fight here. 

On Wednesday we celebrated the first day of Spring with a long walk (well more of a run and roll) and a visit to the fish pond.

 On Thursday we completed our castle easter baskets.

Easter Basket "how-to" here.

On Friday we dyed eggs.

And...This week we also found time for some fairy tale sequencing, guided drawings and retelling.

The 3 Little Pigs Sequencing.

Guided drawings of pigs.

Retelling the 3 Billy Goats Gruff.

WHEW! I am ready for spring break! What did you do this week?  Link up with Amanda from Teaching Maddeness.

Fairy Tale Castles

Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom....

I LOVE the castles we made last week during our fairy tale unit.  Our castles were inspired by the ones done by Patty from Deep Space Sparkle. I began by having the children draw a castle using cray-pas.  The drawings were directed using directions similar to those found Fairy Dust Teaching.    I then encouraged the children to add lots of patterns with the cray-pas.  When they were done with the details, they used liquid watercolors to paint the castles.  They loved the way their patterns showed through the watercolors.

I then cut out the castles and created a giant kingdom.  We used finger prints (dipped into slightly mixed black and white paint) to make our cobblestone path. I always love collections of the children's art and this bright bulletin board really showcases their personalities:)

I LOVE Blocks

My very favorite preschool toy is wooden blocks.  As I described here, I usually rotate the toys in my classroom every month.  There are only 2 things that never leave my classroom...basic art supplies (paper, scissors, markers, crayons and glue) and our wooden blocks.  I love the way wooden blocks bring the kids in my class together.  This week the kids worked together to create this amazing castle.

Look at the cool details:)

The kids were so delighted that their building eventually used every block we have.  I was thrilled by how respectful they were of each other's contributions and how patient they were if parts accidentally were knocked down.

The next day, the blocks were used to make a long road that wound around our room.

The best part about this road is we didn't have cars in the room this month so they were  originally using imaginary cars.

The kids were so excited when I went and got the cars.

What toy is essential in your classroom?

    

Magic Leprechaun Juice

Last year when we walked into our classroom on the Monday after St. Patrick's day we found tiny green footprints that went from our window to the white board (they almost looked like they were made by stamping green paint with a pencil eraser).  

On the whiteboard was a tiny note from a leprechaun named Patrick O'Malley McGinnis.  Patrick told us that he has hidden a special treat for us.  The kids searched the room and found a bottle of Magic Juice (it kind of looked like lemonade with green food coloring). The label on the Magic Juice said "FOR CHILDREN ONLY" and  "Warning: If an adult drinks this, his or her feet will turn green."

Well, my assistant and I were really curious about whether the drink could change our feet color and finally  succumbed to the children's chants of "drink it, drink it" and each took a tiny sip.  The kids were absolutely delighted when we took off our socks and shoes and found that the Magic Juice had worked and our feet had actually turned green!! (or maybe it was the food coloring we had put on our feet with a paper towel earlier in the morning :)

Click here for the bottle label and letter from Patrick.
I have been doing this for several years (you would think I might learn to follow directions:)  I  can't find the website where I first found this.  Please let me know if you came up with this very clever and fun idea.

Happy St. Patrick's Day