The art activity for Friday was sugar cube buildings. We gave the children some sugar cubes, glue, and then asked them to see what they could build. The sugar cubes weren't the most stable building material, so the buildings didn't get very big. However, the children were able to build some small structures with the materials. Sugar Cubes and Glue: bad for the teeth, but great for fine motor development.
Last week, for art, we made stepping stones. The children helped mix up the concrete mix. After the concrete mix was ready we poured it into aluminum pie pans. The children then laid mosaic tiles in the concrete mix to make beautiful designs.
For our art activity we gave the children craft sticks and asked them to decorate them. After the children used markers to decorate the craft sticks we glued them to a frame to make a bridge. The bridges turned out to be surprisingly strong, and we were able to play with them in the block area.
We set up a wrecking ball in the block area, and let the children experiment with it. The wrecking ball was basically a ball and rope suspended from a dow rod. First, the children built structures from blocks and containers. Next, they used the wrecking ball to knock down their container. The children had to figure out where to hit the structures in order to know how to best knock them down.
We gave the children Matchbox steam rollers to paint with. The children simulated building a new road while they were painting. This activity helped develop fine motor skills, creativity, and knowledge of colors.
After showing the children real blueprints, we asked them to draw their own blueprints. We gave them chalk and rulers to use for this activity. The children used the rulers to draw straight lines on their blueprints. They also drew doors, windows, and stairs on their blueprints.
For our art activity today, we put on our construction boots and got messy. We put some large pieces of paper on the floor, splashed a few colors of paint on the paper, and then let the kids walk through the paint while wearing a pair of construction boots. The boots were pretty heavy, so this activity helped build up some of those gross motor muscles. Some other concepts included in this activity included color recognition and color mixing.
Our art activity for today was Marshmallow Construction. We gave the children lots of tooth picks and marshmallows. We encouraged the children to build anything that they could imagine. We got some great looking structures with this activity. This activity helped build the children's fine motor skills and encouraged their creativity.
Our language activity for today was naming different types of construction machines. We had the children match pictures of various construction machines and tell the names of the machines. We also talked about what jobs each machine performs. Some of the vocabulary words that were learned during this activity included: bulldozer, tractor, cement mixer, fork lift, and steam roller.
Our art activity for today was Texture Rubbings. We had the children find different surfaces in the classroom. The children laid their paper on the surfaces and then used a crayon to rub over the paper. The different surfaces the children found included concrete, wood, ceramic tile, and metal. Each surface provided a unique texture for the children's artwork.
