Creative Thinking Activities

Creative Thinking
One project that I did with the three year olds was taking cookie cutters (stars, circles, trianlges, etc.) and letting the children trace them with the chalk out on the black top, where the playground is.  Afterwards, the children would say what shapes they made.  The children had fun using the chalk and liked learning what shape they made.  the children were really excited when they finished.
Another project was with lids off of baby food pouches.  I collected two different color lids (green and red) and then made a tic tac toe board with pencils and let the children play tic tac toe with the lids. One child was one color and the other child was the other color.  After explaining to the children that they have to get three of their color in a row (showed them what a row was and how many ways they can play it).  Some of the children got the concept and enjoyed playing, others were not as into it but the children that were had fun trying to get their colors in a row and would get really excited when they won.

Creative Construction Activities

The first creative construction idea that I did with the preschool children was paper pattern snakes.  I let the children pick out whatever color construction paper they wanted for the project.Then, we individually rolled each construction paper and glued each one.  Afterwards, we put string in between the construction papers to make a snake.  the children had fun rolling the construction paper and playing with the snakes. They were rattling and strolling the snake while walking, having a blast!



The second creative idea that I did with the preschool children was making towers out of foam cups or solo cups.  I just got some cups and ask the children if they could build a tower or anything they wanted to build with the cups (just using their imagination).  i had one child build a "castle" another that said he was building  an "airplane."  the children had fun coming up with ideas that they could crate with the cups and felt good about doing the project.

Outdoor Creative Projects

I did two outdoor projects for preschoolers.  One is called, "Tree Rubbing," the children took a piece of paper and a crayon outside and found a tree.  They put the paper on the tree and rubbed the crayon on the paper.  The children had a blast with t his art project.  they loved using the tree as art and using a different texture other that just a crayon and paper.  Another project I did with the children was making bird feeders.  We used cheerios and pipe cleaners. The children put the cheerios on the pipe cleaners and then made a shape and then we hung the bird feeders outside.  The children also enjoyed doing this project.  They had fun putting the cheerios on and eating some after they were finished;)

Creative Physical Movement

Two physical activity that I did with the three year olds was with a cup and a ball and the second activity was with tape.  The first activity I had the three year olds put the soft ball size ball in the small measuring cup and let the walk to balance the ball. Some of the children had a hard time balancing it but there were a few ghat did a great job with it. The children enjoyed the activity and once they got a hang of it, yhey wanted tobdo it over and over. The second activiy, I put five pieces of tape down, vertically with space in between and let the children jump in between the lines. The childrenreally enjoyed this. I also let the walk on yhe lines to see if they could stay on them. Most of the children did pretty well.

Sensory Play

For sensory play I chose to do a project that involves a sandwich bag, jel,  blue dye, with tape. I had three, three year olds, (that my mom baby sits) put jel inside the sandwich bag with a spoon. Then the blue dye and different objects in it. After they were finished, I sealed it up with duct tape, then let the children lay with it. They loved squishing the jel around ans also finding the objects. the second project we did, was with a pan and rubber bands . The bands were around the pan and the children could hit the banda like a guitar or harp.

Dramatic Play Ideas

For this week, in the three year old classroom, the children made a garden for their dramatic play area. I brought in a cardboard box and slit three holes in it. The box represents the ground from where the vegetables grow.  The class colored some vegetables (carrots, green beans, tomatoe, peppers). I made a carrot, tomato and green beans to show the group how the garden looks. After they were finshed, we discussed why vegetables were healthy and good for us to eat, what veggies ghey lke to eat and how vegetables grow. Then, I let them slide their vegetables into the slits and pretend they're growing a garden. The second project we did had to do with making annimals. We made a bear and a sheep. The childen loved playing wigh them after they were finished and were pretending to be the animals.

music instruments

This week, our one year old class used homemade instruments

to make some sounds to go a long with the music that we played. The first one, was a drum instrument. We used wax paper and a coffee can. We wrapped the wax paper over the coffee can and secured it with a rubbr band. The children enjoyed druming on it and were really getting into it when the music started playing. Another instrument we made was a shaker, with an empty water bottle and some beads with rice. Most of the children enjoyed playing wih it, there were a couple that were not sure about the noise it made. Overall it was a great experience for the group of one year olds to have.