j

r is for rice bottles

| || kristin ||

my kids were glad to help drink 26 bottles of gatorade and vitamin water so i could have wider-mouth bottles.

alphabet rice bottles 0809 - 13

the preschoolers help me fill bottles with rice and then i hide something inside correlated to a letter.  i tape the lid on with colored duct tape and write the letter on the lid.

so far there is one little apple hidden in the A bottle

a plastic baby, a bird and a button hidden in the B bottle

plastic cows hidden in the C bottle

dice hidden in the D bottle

an egg and an elephant hidden in the E bottle

i’m thinking feathers in the F bottle, blades of grass in the G bottle, horses in the H bottle, ivy in the I bottle, jacks in the J bottle…on and on.

a rice bottle 0809 - 12

a little guy told me today that the A bottle was his favorite thing at preschool. wow.

i is for ice

| || kristin ||

i did this for micah’s birthday once with a dinosaur theme.  at preschool we use this for any letter of the alphabet since we can hide anything in the ice (except maybe u or x things…ideas, anyone?)!  appleseeds, counter bears, coins, dinosaurs, elephants, fake flower petals, green things, horses, jewels, keys, lace, money, nuts, o ring shapes, paper clips, quills, red things, snakes, turtles, valentines (plastic hearts), white things, yellow things, zoo animals.

treasures

but i like to use it during i week since that’s kind of a tricky letter to find things for.

frozen treasures

ahead of time the teacher fills containers of any kind with water, then drops in some objects that won’t break when hit, then freezes.

preschoolers are offered tools for excavating the treasures…wooden blocks work the best in my experience.

take this as an opportunity to discuss the wonder that our eyes will blink or squint to protect themselves.  encourage this against the flying ice. : )

and if it is warm outside, take it all out!  when i week falls in a cooler month, we wear our mittens and break the ice chunks on art trays.

t is for “tie-dye”

| || kristin ||

this is a great example of when the process is more important than the product…though the product was spectacular.  instead of trying to “make a flower” or “make a cloud” we focused on using as much paint as we wanted…most preschoolers had the clear goal of no white showing.

we could also make these different shades of yellow, egg shape, shamrock shape, leaf shape, heart shape, apple shape, dinosaur shape, beach ball shape, umbrella shape, the landscape for a paper zebra to be glued on to, pumpkin shape, a bunch of grapes shape, igloo shape, jewel shape, kite shape, nut shape, octagon shape, violet shape, whale shape, x shape, money shape, quilt block shape, tree top shape, rain drop shape, etc. : )

we used industrial-size coffee filters (and i mean industrial:  these things are at least 18″ in diameter) cut in cloud/flower shape, folded 4 times in pie fashion, then used plastic pipettes and food coloring containers to drop liquid watercolor paint.

oh, the excitement would brew as a preschoolers suspected they put enough paint on to have no white showing when they unfolded it…and if not, we could easily refold and add more paint.

these were sopping wet, but dried easily when we draped them over chairs, gates, etc.

e is for egg shell (and 25 others)

| || kristin ||

i buy these large cardboard alphabet shapes each year. then as we work our way through, we coopratively glue things on to represent that letter. here we have egg shells glued on the e.

other favorites i can remember:

apple seeds on a

buttons on b

crayon chunks on c

dirt on d

fake fur on f

grass on g

hair on h

ice cube painting on i

jewels on j

ketchup packets on k

lint (from the dryer) on l

(fake) money on m

nut shells on n

oatmeal on o

purple paint on p

q-tips on q

ribbon on r

sand on s

tape on t

(paper drink) umbrellas on u

velvet on v

wipes on w

x-rays on x

yellow yarn on y

zippers on z