Mindful Monday
This is where each Monday we are mindful of our pedagogy, slowly adjusting our lessons to match our theories.
If you haven’t liked EMerced Learning on Facebook yet you should stop reading, head over and give us a like, then return. Why? I’ll be giving things away that’s why! The first giveaway was one of my favorite classroom supplies- foam paper.
I LOVE foam paper! This stuff is so durable that it can outlast lamination and versatile enough that you can make games to match any theme. I threw a few examples together tonight in between feeding the baby and packing (more on why I’m packing later).
Here is an example of a quick math game for a summertime theme:
If you can’t tell by my amazing artistic ability (insert sarcastic voice), these are watermelons. The buttons are acting as the seeds. The idea is for the children to add the correct number of “seeds” to the numbered melon. You can differentiate this by having the children pick two and add the sum, using higher numbers, etc.
For the fall I attempted a pumpkin. Now remember I am a new mom who was artistically challenged before mom brain. Keep that in mind as you look at my pumpkin:
I know it looks like a peach. Good thing preschoolers are nice. You can use the peachy pumpkin in the same way you used the watermelon. By switching things out in the centers to match various themes you keep things NOVEL or new for the littles. By keeping the games similar you are keeping things routine. Your littles need both for success!
After fall comes winter! Here is a winter example using language arts:
Just like with the math ideas you can easily differentiate this by including all lower case letters, all upper case letters, matching uppers to lowers (as I did here), etc.
I don’t like to waste ANYTHING so I use the scraps as well! They make great filler for sensory tables and sensory bottles. I usually put my scraps into my sensory table instead of rice. I can then hide objects matching our theme for the kids to find or ask them to pull out specific colors into matching buckets. I include little tweezers (you know the awesome ones you can make out of popsicle sticks!) for the kids to use while digging through the bucket. **Please make sure your littles are developmentally old enough for this. If they can’t use glitter, don’t give them the little foam pieces!**
Have you ever used foam paper in your classroom? What are your favorite things to use it for? I’d love to hear from you!
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.