Shamrock and rainbow painting

Our preschool classroom had some extra shamrocks and shared them with us. We set out jars of paint and brushes. They enjoyed dipping their brushes and trading jars with each other.





Once the shamrocks were painted, I rolled out paper on the floor since they still wanted to paint. They enjoyed walking in the paint and spreading it around the paper.












Happy spring!!

Love,
Teacher Lesley

Bubble wrap painting

Our little ones love painting and bubble wrap, so when I saw the idea to combine the two on Pinterest, I knew we would have to try it. I started out by rolling paper out on the floor, putting paint on it and then taping bubble wrap on top of the paint.






Ready for stomping, squishing and popping....







R taking the first steps and squishing paint...





F crawling on the bubble wrap...





E and R popping individual bubbles...






L squishing paint and popping bubbles...






They enjoyed watching the paint spread as they walked and crawled across the bubble wrap. Feeling the bubbles pop beneath their feet was fun, too! I enjoyed watching the looks of concentration as they tried to pop individual bubbles and the looks of satisfaction when they succeeded.

Love,
Teacher Lesley

Birdseed, yellow chicks and driftwood

GREEN ROOM FUN!
What a fun morning my friends in Green Room had today! The weather has been so beautiful and I've noticed all the beautiful birds coming out out to play, especially after our recent big storm. Inspired by this, I decided to create a sensory bin filled with bird seed, bright yellow toy chicks, driftwood, yellow curly ribbon, and various containers to open and close.








I created a tubing structure which was placed over the sensory bin so my friends could sift and pour through the holes and observe the seed drop down. Before long, my friends were in the sensory bin pouring seed over their own hands and feet...even in their hair!









A few of my friends even stretched out in the seed for a whole body experience...ha ha, so much fun! In addition to bird seed fun, I created a large board covered with contact paper (sticky side up) for my friends to do some sand painting with salt and pepper shakers filled with colorful sand.




From sticky contact paper, to smooth sand, to shakers that made lots of noise... we loved it!



Have a great week everyone!
Teacher Rosemary


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

GREEN ROOM VALENTINE FUN!

With all the rain and stormy weather over the weekend, I was in the mood for some fun, colorful, textured sensory experiences filled with "love." My friends were introduced to the Valentine sensory bin filled with tinsel, shredded paper, glittery pink and read hearts, rose petals, etc. It's so much fun to see how my friends observe, inspect and explore new objects. Along with the sensory bin, I set out 2 large, clear vacuum bags filled with colorful water beads, glitter, pink and purple jeweled beads, etc. To observe their little hands and feet at work, squishing and chasing all the magic inside the bags is really a joy to observe.
































Wishing everyone a fantastic week!
-Teacher Rosemary
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Valentine fun!

Holiday sensory bins

We have really been enjoying the holiday sensory bins Teacher Rosemary has made for us.










Filling ornaments with colored rice...





Exploring the shiny tinsel...


Scooping is always fun!

Paint!

This week we have been exploring paint. We started out with a group finger painting on Monday. They loved smearing the paint around the poster board and squishing it between their fingers.









Tuesday, we tied bells to sponge brushes and painted to music. We started out with some more mellow tunes, then put on some more upbeat music. It was fascinating to watch how the change in the tempo of the music changed the energy of the painting.









On Wednesday, what started out as painting with our feet became a full body painting experience. We put rolls of paper on the floor and let them walk through globs of paint. Soon, they were sliding around in the paint, sitting in it, and painting themselves. S started rubbing orange paint on his stomach and saying, “Scrub tummy!” H sat and squished paint between her toes. Even our newest walker bravely stepped through the paint!














We used frozen water colors on Thursday. We started out just painting on paper that was taped on the light table. As the colors melted, they dripped on the paper. After a while, we turned on the light table to add another element to the experience. Seeing the light shine through the water colors was really neat.











Thanks for sharing your artists with us!

Love,
Green Room

Family Involvement Volunteer Hours

Dear Creative Minds Families,

Welcome to a new school year! This blog post is to let you know of an important addition to our parent handbook this year—family involvement volunteer hours. (You also got a letter in your parent pocket with the same information.) Starting this year, we are asking each family to contribute eight hours per year. Many of you have already been volunteering from time to time, and we are so grateful for your help! We’ve found it to be a tremendous win-win whenever families have the opportunity to get more involved in our program. The children are proud of their parents’ contributions, the teachers appreciate the fresh perspectives and diverse talents you bring to the classroom, and our families feel more connected to each other and to the school. By adding this opportunity and expectation for everyone, our goal is to help every family find a meaningful way to engage with our school so we can all benefit from each other’s gifts and talents.

So how will this work? What do I need to do?

We are asking each family (regardless of how many children you have enrolled here) to contribute eight hours per year. That’s just a couple hours per quarter, and there will be a wide variety of ways you can contribute to our program, either here on campus or remotely. See our website at www.creativemindscdc.org/family-involvement/ for the most current project list at any given time. If there’s something else you’d like to contribute that isn’t on the list, we’re always open to ideas! Here are just a few samples from the list:

* Read a special book to the class and lead an art or sensory project related to it.

* Help with playground beautification or help build playground equipment.

* Help with housekeeping tasks: change broken blinds, replace light bulbs, etc.

* Make felt/flannel board stories to go with some of our favorite books.

* Serve on planning committees for recruitment/interviews or facility design

But I’m seriously SO busy!

We realize that many of our families are working full-time and don’t have a lot of extra time to commit. This is why we are asking only eight hours per year, and why we have a mix of short and long projects and some that you can do from home on your own time. Also, anyone from your family can contribute. Parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult siblings—anyone who would like to share their talents is welcome.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at (408) 445-0101 or email Richa or Jennifer. We thank you for your understanding, and for partnering with us as we continue to grow and thrive together!

Thanks,

Richa Kapur

Director

Creative Minds CDC