The Yard Sale Mentality

I find a lot at yard sales and thrift stores. Often, when people ask me where I got something my response is, "yard sale!" To which they inevitably respond, "I think I'm going to go to a yard sale."

I always cringe.

Not because I'm worried they'll get all the good stuff, but because their plan is to go to A yard sale... meaning ONE. My fear is they will get easily discouraged. Being a "yard sale teacher" is much more about having an open mind to recyclables and props and old things. It's about keeping a lot of pinterest & blog ideas in your head so that when you see old junk, you know just how to use it. It's also about stopping anytime you see a sale. It's about browsing the same thrift store again next month. It's about analyzing the side of the road as you drive.

Yard sales are almost never about finding what you are looking for, and they're USUALLY not even about finding anything at all. (A lot of yard sales are actually awful). BUT, if you are persistent with the yard sale "frame of mind" you will eventually start answering a lot of questions with, "Oh yeah, I just found that at a yard sale. Cool, huh?" 

These are some neat things I've been lucky enough to stumble on: 

Thrift Store: Things for themed
centers, like this pet carrier

Yard Sale: Household things-
like this lamp. 

                       

Yard Sale: Table top manipulatives-
like these ball and stick builders. 

A neighbor: A baby crib turned
into my science center. 

Yard Sale: classroom things
like this easel  

Yard Sale: Marble Run

Side of the road: furniture like
this low bookshelf for display

Thrift Store: Papisan Chair
for reading

Yard Sale: Dresser I converted
to a dress-up station

                                                           

                                                                              Side of the Road: Two child sized chairs!

***Disclaimer: In honor of fighting the teacher tendency to hoard, I have a policy that I need to have a plan for my junk before I acquire it. "In April when we study bugs, that puzzle will be perfect." Or...  "When my mom comes to volunteer we will use these wood blocks for painting."

Happenings in the Science Center

There is always something new in the science center!

January: ice experiments. This one compares ice on a heating pad to regular ice. Which one melts fasters? 

Right now: Farm animals. A matching game of animals, pictures cut out of magazines, and small plastic animals. 

Give them what they want most!

I blog about my rotating themed center a lot. In school we call it the "Bonus Center." Since it changes all the time, it is the most obvious thing for me to write about. Of course, I try to change all of our centers a little here and there. That's how they stay interesting. I love the challenge of triggering interest in children when you realize they aren't playing in a certain area anymore, when, for some reason or another, the fun has just lost its edge. 

So the sandwich shop has been abandoned for a little while now. I have already have plans for this bonus center in a week or two, but I needed something in the interim. I had one of those "duh" moments when I was pondering how to find more space for more children to be able to participate in art. I realized that the bonus center can be anything it needs to be. It doesn't have to be a doctor's office or a restaurant, the whole nature of it is limitless. 

So, since so many of my little artists have been crestfallen lately to not get enough turns in the art center, I simply created another art space. It is not fancy, but it just has a couple of invitations for cutting and gluing. (a common passion among my students this month). 

Invitation to glue or stick various feathers, scraps, and buttons. 

Our mirror and crate table with some polar animal pictures for cutting and gluing. 

I put a few markers and crayons in the shelf cubbies, and that is all. 

My only fear was that nobody would want to go to the old art center... but they still did! 

Penguin Play

Since it's not very cold where we live, we like to talk about places that really are cold in the winter. The Antarctic is, of course, one of those places. 

With 23 students who are all interested in playing with this, I've been freezing a big block in a plastic container every day this week. I'll keep doing it for probably two more, until everybody has had all the fun they've wanted to have with ice blocks and penguins. 

A little blue food coloring in the ice and a bit of silver glitter makes the perfect penguin playground. 

Over in the science center we did some unphotographed experiments: "Does it slide on ice?" 

Penguin: Yes. 

Cotton Ball: No.

Felt Square: No.

Marble: Yes. 

Water Bead: Yes. 

I use the science standard "classify" for all it's worth. 

Welcome to the Sandwich Shop!

While reading Joy Cowley's A Monster Sandwich, we made some sandwiches of our own. Felt sandwiches. These novelty/themed centers get old for the students after two or three weeks, so I try to change this area pretty frequently. 

All the ingredients lined up. I took a few things from the play kitchen and then just cut shapes out of felt, nothing fancy.

The serving counter. 

Which sandwich would you like to buy? 

Sandwich pictures with names and prices in dollar store frames

A place to sit and dine... or re-read A Monster Sandwich

Living in Khaki World

As I was dealing with the incredible mess that is sure to come with 23 children doing squirt painting on wooden blocks, the thought popped into my head, "Don't get it all over your khakis!" Then as I walked down the hall of my school, I noticed teachers dressed far nicer than I, in their high heels and pressed slacks. I peeked in classrooms and noticed teachers standing by their shiny Smart Boards. 

I love my school, and these are strong committed wonderful teachers, but I wondered what I'm doing here in this khaki place. Why am I not wearing a flannel shirt covered in old art projects? Why are my oldest jeans not my school uniform? Why (and I'm SO ashamed to say this) is this the third time we've used paint this year? Why did I have to fit this project in between guided reading lessons instead of outside amidst hours of play?

 And why in the WORLD am I concerned about my stupid khaki pants? 

The next day, as our creations sat in the hallway drying into an ugly black color, several teachers stopped by to ask me what they were. I guess I didn't understand the nature of their question, because I answered instead what their PURPOSE had been. "We were squirting paint out of ketchup bottles and watching it run down the blocks," I told them cheerfully. 

It was several failed attempts of explaining this that I finally understood the question was literally, "What ARE they?" 

They're art, is all I really know. Ask one of my children, and they'll probably tell you it's a rainbow smoothie butterfly volcano. And it is, if they say it is, but I, as the teacher, didn't intend for them to be anything at all. I am not the artist. 

Drip Painting.

 Holton Rower did an awesome art project that has inspired some preschool teachers to try out "tall painting." I got the idea from Teacher Tom's blog. What happens in Rower's artwork is that different colors of paint are poured repeatedly in layers over a tall wooden piece. His artwork is quite large. After finding a pile of throw away wood at a construction site, I thought we should make a go of it.

 I decided to use ketchup bottles instead of pouring it. 

The finished wet product was pretty awesome looking. 

The finished dry product was, well, just a black block. Using only tempera paint is obviously NOT the key to this project. 

Did we consider it a failure because they dried looking awful? 

Of course not. 

Because we learned about cause and effect, gravity, color mixing, texture, and more. We used our creativity and imagined blueberry castles and rainbow rockets, ice cream volcanoes and strawberry mountains.