Still Playing School: January 2014

Frozen Inspired Winter Writing Salt Tray

By Devany | Labels: 6 Comments

We are a bit Frozen obsessed! Hearing E sing the soundtrack would melt anyone's heart! After the movie inspired us to build snowflakes on our light table, we next decided to make a Frozen inspired winter writing salt tray for fine motor practice.

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Valentine's Day Sensory Bin

By Devany | Labels: Be the first to comment!

We love hearts, kisses, and the colors pink, red, purple, and white!  We make a Valentine's Day sensory bin each year but this year we used a filler that we've never played with before!
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15 Valentine's Day Activities for Kids

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We joined up with
and 
to bring you our Show Me The Love Series packed full of Valentine's Day crafts and activities for little ones! For your convenience, here is a full list of the activities we presented all in one place! 

Sensory Play:


Cinnamon Heart Cloud Dough from And Next Comes L

Exploring Hearts Sensory Bin from House of Burke

Love Potions: Toddler Colored Water Play from Still Playing School


Arts & Crafts:

Tissue Paper Mosaics for Valentine's Day from Still Playing School

Painted Snow Hearts from And Next Comes L

What I Love Collage from House of Burke


Valentine Invitations to Explore:

Counting and Sorting Hearts from House of Burke




Light Table Play:




Creating with Hearts on the Light Table: Inspired by My Heart Is Like A Zoo from Still Playing School


What were your favorite Show Me The Love posts?

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Love Potions: Toddler Water Play

Our toddler already has me head over heels for him! He created his own love potions for Valentine's Day sensory toddler water play.

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Creating with Hearts on the Light Table: Inspired by My Heart Is Like A Zoo

By Devany | Labels: 2 Comments

We're back at the light table today with an Valentine themed open ended invitation to play!  We created creatures with hearts!

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Tissue Paper Mosaics for Valentine's Day

By Devany | Labels: 5 Comments

Today's invitation to create is a tried and true craft method that always yields pretty results!  We made Valentine's Day tissue paper mosaics!

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To The Core

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Love Potions: Color Mixing on the Light Table

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Next up for our Show Me The Love series with And Next Comes L and House of Burke, we made love potions!  This was an invitation for E to practice color mixing on the light table.
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Stamping Hearts with Recycled Coffee Cup Sleeves

By Devany | Labels: 2 Comments

Still Playing School runs on love and coffee.  We combined the two for this art activity!  We stamped hearts with recycled coffee cup sleeves!  
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Building Snowflakes on the Light Table

After taking E to see Frozen as a reward for getting shots, we were inspired to make snowflakes on the light table! I love this pretty math and nature lesson that includes symmetry and geometry.


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Why Are Polar Bears White? A Preschool Investigation

By Devany | Labels: 2 Comments

One of our preschooler's questions on our KWL chart for polar regions was "Why are polar bears white?"  We did an investigation this week to see if we could discover the reason.

I put two animals on a white piece of cardboard: a green alligator and a white polar bear.  I asked E which was easier to see. I think she was confused by my question because she said the polar bear.
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Edible No-Cook Nutella Play Dough Recipe

We created a recipe for our very own edible no cook Nutella play dough.  For as much as we love Nutella in our family we needed to find a way to play and learn with it, too!


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Why Light Table Play?

By Devany | Labels: 1 Comment

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon from this page and purchase anything, Still Playing School will get a small profit for referring you!

What is a light table?
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Five Tips for Preparing Your Preschooler for Shots

By Devany | Labels: 2 Comments
Is your child a worrier?  These tips for preparing your preschooler for shots will be helpful if your kid is anxious!


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Fractions with Pattern Blocks on the Light Table

By Devany | Labels: 2 Comments

Introducing fractions with pattern blocks on the light table was the perfect way to discover equal parts of a whole!

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon from this page and purchase anything, we will get a small profit for referring you!
When E received transparent pattern blocks as a birthday gift (Thanks, C & R!) I was looking forward to using them to learn about shapes, build images, and make patterns but we've already done so much more!

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Foam Dough with Literacy

By Devany | Labels: 6 Comments

We've joined up with fellow KBN bloggers to co-host 12 Months of Sensory Dough.  Here at Still Playing School, we'll be loading the sensory dough experiences with literacy!  Each month you can read about our spin on the dough as we incorporate letters, words, reading, and writing into our messy, fine motor packed fun.

January is foam dough!  We've made sparkle dough in the past using similar ingredients, but I wanted to experiment with adding color this time.
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Static Experiments

By Devany | Labels: 5 Comments

It's the perfect time of year here to experiment with static and balloons!  I got the idea as I watched baby D toss and turn in his crib the other night: spark, spark, spark!  E's hair has also been a static flyaway mess and we've been shocking each other accidentally when we touch!  Time to do some purposeful activities with the static.
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Word Pop! - Bubble Wrap Sight Words

What started with bubble wrap sight word practice turned into a whole collection of ways to learn words with a bang!  We've included both fine motor and gross motor ways to practice any skills your child is working on: letters, numbers, colors, shapes, math facts, etc.



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Polar Bear Doily Craft

By Devany | Labels: Be the first to comment!

Our simple polar bear doily craft makes a great addition to a polar unit of study!  While E had total creative freedom as she created her polar region diorama, I also believe that there is also value and merit in crafting because children learn to follow steps in sequential order.  


E began by gluing a paper doily to a piece of construction paper.  


This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon from this page and purchase anything, we will get a small profit for referring you!

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Polar Habitat Diorama

By Devany | Labels: 4 Comments

E made a polar region diorama as an extension of our polar region unit and to launch Project: Recycle & Create.  This month's material was a cardboard box.


When I saw this box in the pile of trash to be discarded after Christmas, I grabbed it.  I knew it would make a perfect diorama.  
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Investigating Polar Regions Using a KWL Chart

By Devany | Labels: 2 Comments

We'll be investigating polar regions this month.  We started by creating a KWL chart together.  We filled in what E Knows about polar animals as well as what we Wanted to learn.  We took the opportunity to practice shared writing as E wrote the words she could sound out herself like "fish."

Not everything she stated for the know column was accurate, but that will be discovered as we complete the unit of study.  We will add what we Learn as we work.

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Host a Hot Chocolate Party for Fine Motor Practice

A hot chocolate party is a twist on the traditional tea party for cold winter days. Ours was packed full of fine motor work to practice those skills in a sweet, rewarding way!

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