C is for Castles

Today we made patterns using jewels to go along with our castle unit.  The kids love having new things to manipulate and "play" with. 

Queen of Heart Tarts

These are surprisingly quite tasty and I think the kids are pretty surprised as well.  Basically you make little "Tarts" using vanilla wafers.  You just spread a little cream cheese (I prefer greek for health purposes) and then add some strawberry or raspberry jam.  I would say they taste similar to cheese cake only a little crunchier. The kids that dare to try something with cream cheese on it usually beg me for more!  I give plain wafers to the not so adventurous eaters. 

C is for Castles

I am so proud of the kids for how these castles turned out!! I showed them how to draw a castle step by step and they were able to add their own details and creative ideas to make it their own special creation and I couldn't be more happy with how they turned out!  We have a talented group of artists! We also did do a dot castles using Q-Tips for one-to-one correspondence and fun!  These turned out equally as impressive! 

 This was a counting and number recognition game called "The Princess and the Pea.  Basically you roll the dice and then continue stacking the number they rolled "mattresses" on the bed until you run out of mattresses.

 I had to take a picture of these two playing make believe at toy time with our castle props!  SO cute!

 This is not the greatest picture, but hopefully gives you an idea of our Queen of Hearts marching song we played.

Counting Jewels

We used these jewels to make counting a little more fancy for our Castle unit. 

Queen of Hearts Tarts (Castles)

I was pleasantly surprised by these little treats.  It's basically a vanilla wafer with cream cheese and strawberry jam.  I'm not sure why I was a little leery about them since just about everything is yummy with cream cheese slathered on IMO.  I think the combo just threw me off. Anyways, most the kids loved them.  A few just had them with jam, but those who tried them wanted  second helpings...and some even thirds. I tried them out of curiosity and just to warn you they are good!

C is for Castle (Sand Castles)

For this tub I made some home made moon sand.  The recipe I used had and 8 to 1 ratio of flour to baby oil.  Then you just mix till combined.  This has an AMAZINGLY wonderful texture!!!  It is so soft and pliable all at the same time.  Similar to the name brand moon sand, but much softer.  Also, according to my preschoolers "It smells like a baby!"  The kids LOVED it!!!  For those interested in trying this, it is such a great sensory experience for the kids and I promise they will love it (at least mine did)!  With that being said, it is a little on the messy side.  I have a TERRIFIC group of kids who are very careful to keep sensory tub contents inside the box, but there was still a decent amount of spillage and if you have laminate floor with grooves like I do, it will be all sorts of lodged inside.  I would do it over a million times though because of what a great sensory, learning, and fun experience it was for the kids which is what this is really all about!  

Castle Painting

The first one we did by having the kids use a Q-Tip to paint in the dots on the pictures that I found HERE.  The second one I taught the kids how to draw a castle using THIS tutorial.  The drawing activity I got the idea from was done by kindergartners so I was very proud of my little preschoolers for doing such a great job!!!  Sorry the picture is blurry, but I figured you'd get the idea at least.  More great activities for fine motor control!