Eric Carle Extravaganza

There are some great resources and preschool ideas at the Eric Carle website.  I put my own spin on one and came up with a really fun Thanksgiving activity for the preschoolers.


We had been reading Eric Carle books all month, looking at the pictures, and talking about what is the same and what is different between them.  I read a short biography about Eric Carle and a little bit about how he makes his illustrations.  I told them how Mr. Carle uses lots of layers of color to make his pictures. Then,  I had the kids rotate through stations doing different abstract Carle-inspired art.  The splatter painted on top of designs they drew with poster crayons (my favorite new crayons), stamped then painted on top, drew with markers, painted with paint markers and water painted on coffee filters.  The next day, we practiced cutting out circles from the papers we had painted the day before.  The next week we talked about being Thankful and what things we were thankful for. 

We read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and all decided that we were also thankful for healthy food and yummy food that we get to eat on Thanksgiving Day. 

We then took our circles, glued them in a row and added antennae, legs, eyes and hair to look like The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We called ours The Very THANKFUL Caterpillar and I asked each child what they were thankful for and wrote their answers on the circle body parts of their own thankful caterpillar. 

I left some blank so they could keep writing some at home with their parents.  They turned out so darling!

Catch Up

A little late, but you know what they say:  Better late than never.

I borrowed my grandparent's antique croquet set for a little number sequence practice.  I really anticipated some of the kids having trouble getting the ball to go through the right number in the right order.  I did not anticipate the actual hitting of the ball with the mallet to be problematic.  Boy was I wrong!  They all had fun, though, and a few got the hang of it enough to finish the course and start going back through backwards.  The kids love to be outside!  Even if they didn't get a chance to put a ball through each arch, I think they still got a good number review by watching each other try to figure out where the next one was.  

Top 'o the morning

What did you do for St. Patrick's Day?

Did you:


arrange special shamrocks in numerical order?
play 'leprechaun leprechaun where is your shamrock?'
make a St. Patty's Day activity book?
read a story all about the history of St. Patrick's Day?
learn why there are no snakes on Ireland?
find Ireland on a map and learn about it's flag?
learn about Henri Matisse and his cut-out paintings, then make a shamrock-themed one of your own?
eat a delicious and nutritious all-green snack (thank you Claire, it was AMAZING!)?
read a story about a sneaky leprechaun who hid his gold?
take a walk to the park to look for gold a local leprechaun left for us?

Well, that's what we did!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!