It's Okay to Do Art Upside Down

This week we've been talking about emotions/feelings - so we started off by reading It's Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr.  

Although the kids decided that it's not okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub, they did agree that it's okay to draw upside down!

Some kids took this artistic challenge very seriously...

Everyone enjoyed wiggling around on their backs...

And I realized that it's okay to clean the underside of the tables sometimes....especially when they need it.

More Body Art

Okay, I just thought these were hilarious. 

Inside My Body Self-Portrait: (include hearts, lungs, stomach)

One of my personal favorites.... 

Eeee! Look at how good we're getting at self-portraits!

Our Bodies

We traced our bodies, traced our hands, painted with various parts of our bodies, and are now getting into the squishy stuff - our insides!

After using our X-Ray book and body chart, we used the pieces to create art:

They were all excited thinking we were going to do something with Gingerbread Men.  That's just my awesome cutting skills though.

After finding the heart, lungs, and stomach on our body and using our senses to touch/feel/listen to our different parts, we were able to glue them into semi-accurate positions on our little people.

Body Day...Which Became the More Catchy X-Ray Day

We love X-Rays!

We started the day out by reading What Does the X-Ray Say? - an adorable book I stumbled upon at my school's library.  The kids were so into the book that the whole day just followed suit! 

I was lucky enough to receive this "What's Inside Me Apron" from a colleague a few years back.

After reading the book, I introduced the apron as the "X-Ray machine" - showing what's in your body in black and white.  We identified each of the parts with a quick intro on function, before focusing on the hearts, lungs and stomach.  The kids loved it and couldn't wait to go to centers to all get to try it on!

Good thing - poor apron has been sitting unloved for months!

We also played some doctor in the dramatic play area! 

Oh no! We found a plate in his heart!  And she swallowed our book!  Time for surgery!

I love theme days that keep my preschoolers amused all day! Not only did they all get an X-Ray done, but they (almost) all sat on the dramatic play area carpet and waited for the "doctor" (which they took turns being) to call their name (as they pretended to use the X-Ray book to look for names and call their friends).  After a couple rounds of me modeling the game, they picked it right up and did a great job of being polite in the doctor's office! Hey - even the kids who were pretending to be cats and dogs (since there were some in the book) who showed up for X-Rays laid quietly on the ground and waited!

More body unit to come! 

Penguin Week Party

I don't believe I didn't take pictures! *bang head repetitively against wall*


Anyways, here's what I could salvage as proof of my Penguin Week/Save the Animals Success (<---I think that shows just how disorganized I am, that I can't even pick one name for the event! Note to self: fix that).


First we read a special penguin story together.  Next year I would love to do a song or poem, too.


Penguin Cookies (I didn't take pictures, but the idea is from here):
Oreo Cookies
Raisins (for eyes)
Cut-up Peach Rings (cut in half for feet across the bottom/small triangles for a beak)

This was a little hard and, honestly, a lot of the kids ate their oreos before the other parts came around.  Still, parents were great about helping and this is were having the older K and Grade Schoolers at the party came in really useful assisting the little ones! And since Oreos come in a pack of 45 - there was enough for everyone at the party!




Pin the Beak on the Penguin:
This was the brainchild of one of my 4 year olds who walked in that morning and said, "I'm so excited, I hope we get to play 'pin the feet on the penguin'!"  Beaks are easier than feet, so I whipped this up at naptime!

Penguin Books:
The kids illustrated their own books about penguins (see little black books) and I wrote down the facts on the pages for them (i.e. My penguin likes to eat squid.  My daddy penguin holds the egg on his feet.  My penguin made a snow camera to take pictures of all the eggs :)).  How much fun to let parents read the books with their child!

Block Center:
I added half a dozen penguin blocks to block center and let imagination go wild! My kids are crazy about blocks - boys and girls - and it's always educational and entertaining for parents to see their children in action at their favorite center.

Make Your Own Penguin:
I always get a kick out of artwork where my kids go through the process of ordering and applying pieces to create a whole. This was a great cooperative project since the kids had to share the pieces and the glue with each other.

Creative Play:
This is where I really wish I had taken pictures! I cut out penguin headpieces (construction paper with a loop strip of paper taped around the back), "explorer" headpieces (that looked like eskimos) and a few fish headpieces for the kids to wear.  The kids loved waddling around and parents loved taking photos! This is one of the few pieces that survived the night (sadly, we were out of stock on contact paper to reinforce my works of art against four year old hands) and I could stage a photo with.  At the party, the dramatic play area was covered with an old blue tablecloth and the play stove and table were covered with silver tablecloths to create "icebergs".  The kids really wanted to climb on the icebergs, but were happy swimming away from sea leopards in the water instead!

Now that I've pulled off my first party, I'll hopefully be better organized and more coherent for the next! Or at least enough so that I manage to take a few pictures!