Craft Ideas: Crafting with a Dr Seuss Classic

Dr Seuss books have been a classic for generations. Parents and teachers continue to pass down these whimsical stories to their little ones as they begin to read and rhyme! Now we can enhance these stories with the help of crafts that match the well known Dr Seuss themes.

This is another craft idea from our friend Nickki at Apple Tree Academy. It is quick, easy and super cute! All you need is white paper, red and blue paint, and a marker.

Begin by painting your student’s right palm red. Then have them stamp there hand down firmly onto the paper with their fingers pointing toward the right side.

Next paint the left palm blue. This time have them stamp down with their fingers pointing towards the left side of the paper.

Be sure not to use too much paint or it will prolong the drying process. You can give the paint a moment a to dry while students wash the paint off their hands.

When the paint is dry, it is time to add an eye and mouth for each of the fish along with the words “1 Fish… 2 Fish… Red Fish… Blue Fish…”. If you have little ones, feel free to add the words in for them. Now you have a simple craft to follow story time.

Be sure to come back and visit us at http://purefunsupply.blogspot.com for more Craft Ideas!

Freckle Juice

It is always exciting to find a book you can do interactive activities with. The most popular example is Dr.Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham. It has become somewhat of a tradition among teachers to accompany this book with the cooking of green eggs and ham to share with their students. While Green Eggs and Ham is perfect for younger readers, the reading level of the story is typically not high enough for the more advanced readers. Thankfully, we now have another book for grades second and third that has its own fun, food related activity.

Freckle Juice is written by the well known children’s author Judy Blume. The book is about a boy named Andrew who is on the search for his own freckles. While Andrew is searching, a classmate offers him a secret freckle recipe that leads him to create freckle juice. This book would be an excellent choice for the beginning of the year! It reminds students that they are perfect just the way they are and that everyone is special in their own way. Freckle Juice would also be great in daycares during the summertime as a way to calm students back down after playing outside. The interactive activity for this book allows students to create their very own Freckle Juice Popsicles! Continue reading to find out how!

Materials needed: *Please note this activity does take time and would work best if started early in the day.

• 3.5 oz Plastic Cups or 5 oz Plastic Cups: The size of the cup will depend on how big you want their popsicles to be.
• People Shaped Wood Craft Sticks: Using the People Sticks will give children a special version of their person. It can also be used as a tool to support the idea that everyone is special no matter how they look.
• 100% Juice: We offer many flavors of juice by the bottle such as Apple, Grape, Fruit Punch, Very Berry, Orange Citrus, Blue Raspberry and more!

     

• Magic Marker: The Marker will be used to write each child’s name on their cup.
• Aluminum Foil: The Foil will help prevent spills and speed up the freezing process.

  

Have each child put their name on their cup and choose which flavors they want to mix to create their own freckle juice. In the story, Andrew uses some interesting ingredients but the 100% juice will make a sweet substitute. Cover each cup with aluminum foil in order to prevent spills, speed up the freezing process and hold their stick in place. After placing a person stick in each cup, place the covered cups in the freezer for 2-5 hrs. Once the juice has completely frozen, take off the foil and carefully remove it from the cup. Now let your students enjoy this yummy treat on a nice summer’s day. We suggest eating these during outside time in order to avoid a drippy mess in the classroom. Once everyone has finished, come back together to discuss how everyone’s Popsicle Person looks different but, in the end, are all still sweet.

Around the World in 180 Days

Children always dream of traveling to exotic places around the world. The excitement of the unknown sparks their sense of adventure and leads them to discovering new places and information. The subject of Social Studies allows them to do just that. Social Studies curriculum requires you to study different locations or major times in history. In order to get your students excited about what they are going to be studying, introduce them to the trip of their lifetime with their very own Passports!

Begin by allowing your students to personalize their own passport with stickers. The passport will be brought out at the start of any new topic for them to enter information. Examples of this would be having them draw a picture of the location or writing 5 facts that they learn about it. Information can be gathered from movies or books. If you are presenting information with a movie, try having your students set up their chairs in rows like an airplane. This will help to provide them with the full travel experience. Be sure to have a stamp on hand to approve their passports as they get on board the learning plane.

Another fun activity to help students get excited about Social Studies is to have them pack a suitcase. To do this you can use assorted colors or regular manila drawing paper folded in half to make the suitcase. Don’t forget to cut out your handle! Just like the passports each student can personalize the front of his or her suitcase. As they travel from place to place the inside of the suitcase will be filled with pictures or facts about all the places they’ve been. The suitcase gives you a little more room for creativity and allows students to paste printed pictures that you provide them in their bag.

Help your students to learn about locations all around the world with one of these fun ideas! You can take them to places such as China, Australia, Mexico, Japan, Africa and more! You can even help them to learn about the Native Americans or time period’s such as medieval times. These activities are sure to keep your students well cultured as they soar through 180 days of fun, adventurous social studies material.

“Broaden your horizons, the more you see the more you understand”

-Anonymous

Busy Bee Craft

 

Need a quick and easy craft for the spring and summer seasons? Here is a fun idea sent to us by Nikkie at Apple Tree Academy that your students will buzz over!

This cute, little bee craft is as easy as 1, 2, 3! Here is what you will need:

Yellow, Black and White Construction Paper; Glue or Glue Sticks; Markers; Scissors

Depending on the age of your students, you can either let them prepare their own bee pieces or you can have them ready to go before they start. You will need a yellow oval, 4 or 5 black rectangles and 1 white heart. The yellow oval will be the body, the black rectangles will represent the black stripes and the white heart will be the wing.

Begin by having the students write their name on the back of the oval. Next, they can begin gluing on the pieces. First the stripes and then the wing. We encourage you to allow students to place the stripes however they would like. It allows for a look that will be a little different with each child’s imagination.

Now it’s time to add on the other details. Have students take a marker and give their bee an eye, a happy smile, and six legs. 

Now you have a fun and friendly bee for a quick spring or summertime craft!

Looking for other quick and easy craft ideas? Check out our arts and crafts blog page: http://purefunsupply.blogspot.com/search/label/Arts%20and%20Crafts

It’s not delivery… It’s Cardboard! Pizza Craft for Daycares

Throw a Pretend Pizza Party for your students with this quick and easy craft from Nikkie at Apple Tree Prep! All you need is cardboard, scissors, glue or a glue stick, and different colors of construction paper to represent the toppings.

Depending on the age of your students, you may need to prepare the toppings and crust of the pizza ahead of time. If students are capable of cutting on their own let them prepare the toppings themselves. This will give their pizza a unique look and provide them with some extra cutting practice too!

The cardboard should be cut into a triangle shape to resemble a pizza slice. You can make the pizza slices any size you would like. Give each student a slice and have them write their name on the bottom. Now slices are ready to be flipped over and covered with toppings.

Toppings can include your typical pizza toppings, like cheese and pepperoni, or you can let your students get creative by adding anything they want. They might get a little silly with their topping combinations, but the good news is that you don’t have to eat these pizzas!

If you decide to use glue instead of glue sticks you may want to remind students that a small dab of glue is the perfect amount for each topping. If not, you will need to include some time for the glue to dry before playing with the pizzas. You could say you are putting them in the oven while you wait for them to dry.

Once the glue is dry, students can take turns serving each other slices or open a pretend pizzeria where they create new pizzas and topping combinations! They will love showing off their creations!

You can share your Craft Ideas with us too by following us on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook. Just send us a tweet, a pin or leave us a comment with a picture of your craft. You can also share your ideas by commenting down below. We love to hear from you!

Plastic Easter Eggs Game Ideas

 

Easter is quickly approaching and students are in need of some new learning games and activities as the year draws to an end. We have some quick and easy ideas to share with you that are sure to be “egg-cellent” for your students!

Kids love those colorful, plastic Easter eggs and now teachers will too! They are a fun and inexpensive way to create games and learning activities for the spring season! You will need the eggs that can be opened and split completely in half. Any size, color, and even shape would be great for these activities. You can find the eggs at any local grocery store around Easter time for a low price.

Our first egg activity is perfect for little ones who are learning their colors! Begin by taking as many eggs as you would like and splitting them in two. Eggs can be placed on the floor, on a table or on any flat surface. We suggest placing them on the floor if you are going to have a large group working at the same time and a table for smaller groups or individual work. Mix up the halves until there is a good mix of colors. Now have your students rematch up the eggs to their missing half. You could also have students separate the full eggs by color into baskets or trays or on top of a piece of matching colored construction paper after finding their missing pieces.

Another fun idea for the little ones is an alphabet matching game with upper case and lower case letters. Simply add the uppercase letter on one half of the egg and the lower case on the other half. Students will then need to match up the letters to give each egg one upper case half and one lower case half of each letter. Letters can be added in permanent marker or with alphabet stickers.

Not challenging enough for your class? Here are a few ideas to take it to the next level!

Write different words that can be formed into contractions onto each egg half. For example, “can” on one half and “not” on the other. Place the contraction inside on a piece of paper. When they open their egg they find the answer, “can’t”.

The same concept can be used for math problems as well. Put a number on each egg half and have students add, subtract, multiply or divide the numbers. You can match these up ahead of time and provide the answer inside for them or just let students match up the numbers and egg colors to create different problems to solve.

Try out one of these Egg Games and let us know what you think! Your students should be “egg-static” about the new classroom games!

Multicultural paper and art supplies for your students

You may be surprised to find out that children seek out their individual identity as young as pre-school to early elementary school ages. Children understand the concept of being validated or considered to be normal at an early age. Physiologists have shown that activities such as in class art projects are the best ways to instill a sense of self validation in your students.

Today’s daycares, elementary schools, and after school programs are highly diverse and include different ethnicities and cultures. Due to the diverse ethnicites basic black, brown, white and tan colored art supplies, such as construction paper or crayons, are no longer able to encompass each individual child. In classrooms children are taught to work with the supplies made available for them.

A very popular beginning of the school year activity is to have students create look alike body forms to help introduce themselves. A child may find this project difficult if the color they believe represents their skin tone is not available. This can make a student frustrated and confused as to why what they look like is not available or considered normal enough to be available. To prevent these identity issues at an early age we are thrilled to offer our Multicultural Construction Paper in two convenient sizes.

For every day coloring activities we also would like to introduce our Multicultural Crayon packs. We offer larger crayons for artists with little hands as well as normal sized crayons for our advanced doodlers. We have expanded our Multicultural line to include additional art supplies such as colored pencils and paint. These supplies are great to have on hand for classrooms, art programs, and day care facilities.

“A school needs to be a place for all children, not based on the idea that they are all the same, but that they are all different”

-Loris Malaguzzi

Fill up your Classroom Library with these great books for kids!

 

The end of this school year is just around the corner. While taking stock of your classroom supplies you may have noticed your personal classroom library has taken a hit. Kids take books home and leave them or return them to the library leaving you with a dwindling selection for your upcoming year. Don’t let your upcoming students suffer and refresh your library with the popular Newbery Medal Winners.

 

These books span over grade levels from the beautifully illustrated book The Snowy day by Ezra Keats for lower grades to Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan for third to fourth grade and the popular novel Holes by Louis Sachar for fifth grade readers. Each novel has been awarded this honor by being one of the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children. Some books in the selection are better known, such as Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac Magee or the well known movie adaptations of Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia and Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Desperaux. We also provide literature kits for books such as Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary and Kira-Kira by Cynthis Kadohata for grade levels fifth and sixth. Each kit provides you with one paperback version of the book for reading aloud in class as well as three overhead transparencies that correlate with the books theme for in class activities.

 

For the adventure readers in your classroom, we have coming of age and survival stories like Julie of the Wolves by Jean George, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, and Criss Cross by Lynne Perkins. These novels are great for reading along as a class or individually. Newbery Medal Winners offer books that also discuss historical topics like discrimination in Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry or William Armstrong’s Sounder. These books can help enforce and tie in social studies topics to your English lessons.

 

No matter the grade level we have books that will draw in even the most disinterested of readers. Let these outstanding novels inspire your students and spark their imagination throughout the school year.

Reading Guide Strips for young readers

Have you ever found that your students struggle to stay focused on assigned reading assignments? A child’s developing mind can be so easily distracted by their surrounding environment. When this happens the child may become off task or frustrated at having lost their spot in the assignment. To avoid this frustration and allow the student the best tool for each transition between assignments we highly recommend Reading Guide Strips. Reading Guide Strips come in a variety of colors and sizes.

Strips can cover one line, one paragraph, or an entire page. These tools can be especially helpful for students that are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and have a tough time concentrating on the task at hand. Sometimes reading can be overwhelming and with these Reading Guide Strips you are able to alleviate the stress of an overly wordy page and not lose your place while reading aloud or to yourself. The color of the guide strip reduces eye fatigue, making it easier to enjoy reading. As well as keeping your place the full page Reading Guide Strips is conveniently hole punched to be stored in any 3 ring binder.

Preschool Graduation Tshirts

Spring has sprung and flowers are not the only thing growing up this season. It’s the end of the school year and your hard working students are getting ready to move up into the next grade.

Our Graduation T-Shirts are great for classroom pictures or as an end of the year gift for students. Each shirt can be personalized with the school name or teacher name and comes in Kids sizes small, medium, and large. These brightly colored, short sleeve t-shirts are made of 100% cotton for a comfortable fit.

Our many themes cover Pre-k through upper elementary school grades. We carry different designs for your star students who deserve the Olympic gold medal, as well as traditional graduation themed shirts. We even have the famous Dr.Suess inspired Oh, the Places You’ll Go! themed graduation t-shirt.

A shirt can come with just the current year printed on it or it can include “the class of” before the current school year. Graduation t-shirts make a great keep sake item for a child's younger school years that will help them remember the good ole’ days.

Indoor Kids Fort Idea for Preschools

Need a fun way to turn a bad weather day into a fun filled day of indoor activity? We have a great idea to share with you! Let’s build a classroom fort!

There are several ways to make a fort. Materials such as blankets, tables, cardboard boxes, chairs and other furniture are perfect for fort building. If you need some help with the design plans, just ask your students! They are practically professionals at making forts. Forts can be made large enough to fit the whole class, a small group or each student could create their own.

Larger Forts might be created by hanging sheets from the ceiling or draping them over tall cabinets. The same could be done for a fort to fit a smaller group.  Another quick and easy fort is to simply put a sheet over a table and let students crawl in underneath the table.

If large cardboard boxes are available to you, they are a great addition to any fort! The cardboard allows you to construct any shape you would like. It also gives the ability to cut out windows, doors, and the children can color and decorate it. 

If students have individual desks, you can have everyone bring a towel or a blanket to drape over their desk. Now you have mini forts for each student to read or do class work in!

For even more fort fun, plan a Reading Day! Send out a preparation list for parents a few days ahead. You can ask students to bring their favorite books, snacks, a blanket or towel, and even wear some comfy pajamas. Students will enjoy having a relaxing day of reading and won’t think twice about playground time or the weather!

Share your fort ideas with us by commenting below, on Facebook, or even by sending us a tweet. We would love to hear your ideas!

Daycare Classroom Bowling Alley

Turn your classroom into a Bowling Alley! Here’s what you will need: 10 water bottles, a ball, enough space for a “lane”, and some team spirit!

Start by clearing enough space in your classroom to make the lane in. Next, you will need to set up the water bottles in a triangular pyramid shape to look like bowling pins. The pins will be on one end of your lane. On the other end, you will need some sort of marker to make the starting line. This could be something simple like a strip of masking tape, a yard stick or even just a piece of string. Students will roll the ball from behind this line. This is our “do not cross” line.

The rules are the same as regular bowling. They can easily be modified to best fit your students. This could mean they get three turns every time instead of two or they can continue to bowl until they knock down all the pins. You can keep score and have a class bowling tournament or just play for fun. You could even set up more than one lane so students can bowl at the same time!

If empty water bottles are too easy for your students, try putting a little water or sand in the bottom of each bottle. The added weight will make it a bit more challenging for the kids to knock the bottles over.

Feel free to take your bowling lane to the next level by adding bumpers and other fun features! You could do this by placing two 2x4s, or a pool noodle cut in half, on each side of the lane to help little ones direct the ball.

For an even bigger surprise make your bowling alley into a cosmic one! Grab a few glow in the dark sticks and drop them in your bottles. Now all you have to do is turn off the lights and watch the fun!

Keep a lookout for more Rainy Day and Indoor Activities in March! You can also follow us on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter for all PureFUN! news and updates.

Share your rainy day activity ideas with us by commenting below! We love to hear from you!

Indoor Scavenger hunt for preschoolers!

Need a fun project for your little ones on those rainy days when you’re stuck inside? We have some great ideas to share with you!

An easy option is to create an Indoor Scavenger Hunt. You can choose any items you would like to hide around the room. Students could work as a class, individually, or in teams. You will need to set up the hunt while students are out of the room. Before school or even during lunch or music would be a great time to do this! You can place items anywhere in the room or restrict it to a smaller area. Remember that your students are shorter than you. You will want to keep their height’s perspective in mind when placing your items. Under tables, on top of cabinets, or just in plain sight, there are lots of fun places in the classroom to hide things!

Now you will need a list of the items that the students will be searching for. You could provide them with a check list or write the items on the board. Items can either be collected or simply located. If students are locating the item, have them write down where they found it. This will allow you to check their page to see if they’re right. If you have enough items for everyone to collect, then we suggest taking that route. Students will love collecting the items as they go!

Items can be just about anything you want. You could use more generic items that could easily be found around the room, like a paper clip or a pencil, or something a bit more advanced and specific, like a crayon in the color sky blue or a yellow sports ball. It will all depend on how challenging you want the hunt to be.

You can even take your Indoor Scavenger Hunt to the next level by adding in some curriculum. For example, you could focus on letter or number recognition and have them find different letters or numbers. If you wanted to take it even further you could have them spell out words with the letters they find or calculate a math problem with their numbers.

Easter is on its way! Change this up to make an Easter Egg Hunt by hiding eggs instead of just random items. You can fill the eggs with fun little things to give your students a surprise with each find.

Got a fun idea for your scavenger hunt? We want to hear from you! Be sure to share with us by leaving a comment down below.

We have more Rainy Day Activities coming your way! Keep an eye out for more great ideas throughout the month of March.

Indoor activities for Preschoolers

Little ones can get antsy quickly when they are kept inside all day. They need a good activity to help them get their wiggles out and to keep you, teacher or parent, from going a little crazy too. Here’s a fun one that students are guaranteed to enjoy!

Create an indoor obstacle course!

You can even let your students help you create it. All you need is a room with enough space to play, a few obstacles for students to pass through, and a lot of team spirit to cheer on your class as they make their way through the course.

Start by making sure that the area you are placing your obstacle course in is clear and safe for the students. This might mean moving a table or two or making sure items are picked up off the floor. Next you can begin to construct your course.

Obstacles can be created from anything you want. You can easily use items around your classroom or in the toy chest. You could even incorporate some class material. For example, they could write their name in cursive or complete a math problem on a sketch pad as one of the obstacles. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the obstacles you choose! This also allows you to create a new course every time. Students will be excited to see what you’ve come up with on rainy days. Plus, it’s a great way to make sure they are getting their daily exercise.

Here’s an example course:

 Hula hoop 5 times, crawl underneath the table, circle a chair 3 times, correctly answer the math problem, do 10 jumping jacks, go down the slide, make a basket in the basketball goal and sit down. The first team to have everyone through the obstacle course and seated quietly wins!

Foamnasium products are great for indoor play and obstacle courses!

Be sure to check those out HERE!

If you need to keep the noise level to a minimum, have your students cheer silently. The faces and expressions are sure to make you giggle as they cheer on their team without making any sounds! This will allow them to show their team spirit, maintain good sportsmanship and not disturb nearby classes at the same time.

Planning on trying out an indoor obstacle course? We want to see what you come up with! Send us pictures of your course and you may see yours featured in a future post! Stay tuned for more indoor activities and ideas for those yucky weather days.