Preschool: Christmas Crafts

Here is a round up of the Christmas crafts that I posted last year. Enjoy!

Antlers

 All The Pretty Lights!

Glitter Holly Berries

Glittery or Swirly Paint Ornaments

Preschool: Peppermint Candy Craft

Tis the season for all things Christmas! I LOVE it! I cannot tell you how tired I am of apple, leaf, fall and turkey crafts! I needed something new and exciting! This is my favorite month for crafts at preschool! I hope you enjoy this simple craft that uses fine motor and gross motor skills to complete!

Grab:
-A salad spinner that looks like this:
(It needs to have the handle that allows you to spin it, not the pump version.)

-Small paper plates that will fit inside. I used dessert sized.

-red and green paint

-cellophane or plastic wrap

-tape

-yarn

Go:

-Place the paint in the spinner. 

-Help children drop small blobs of red and green paint all over the paint. Make sure you get some        near the middle. 

-Place the lid on and have the children use the handle to spin the plate inside. 

-After the plates are dry, wrap each in plastic wrap and secure with tape on the back. I also tide the excess wrap on each side with a little red yarn to keep it in place. (My assistant and I did the the wrapping and tying part, but you could have older kids do that part on their own. 

Preschool: Pumpkins!

Here are a few pumpkin activities! 

What is inside a pumpkin?

I did this 2 different ways... first I stapled 2 paper plates together front to front. Staple a stem cut from brown paper to the top of one of the plates. Paint the paper plate with orange paint, mixed with a tad of glue and some pumpkin pie spice. When they are dry, open the "pumpkin" up and glue white yarn (pumpkin pulp) and dried pumpkin seeds inside. 

We also did this by cutting pumpkin shapes out of orange paper and gluing the insides on to it.

We also explored the inside of a real pumpkin! Dig, scrape and smoosh!  So much fun! 

We also did a pumpkin patch group project. I set out paper plates with orange paint and different size cups to dip in the paint. They stamped the 'pumpkins' onto the freezer paper. After they dried, we connected them with finger paint 'vines'.

Preschool: Colorful Indian Corn Craft

You will need:
-popcorn, popped
-ziploc bags
-powdered tempra paint (we used brown, purple, red, orange and yellow)
-yellow and green construction paper
-tacky glue

Divide your popcorn into portions per each color paint you are using.
Place each portion into a large ziploc bag, place about 1 TBSP powdered tempra per cup of popcorn into the bag and shake until coated.

Cut out ear of corn shapes from yellow construction paper and husks from green construction paper.
Glue the husk to the corn, then the popcorn to the ear of corn.

We twisted bulletin board and  construction paper up to make a large cornstalk and taped them to the wall.

Fall activities

I know, I know... I have sorta been MIA. School is back in session and I have hand my hands full to say the least. I wanted to share some fall activities that I did last year to hold you over until I put the new stuff up! Click the link under each picture of instructions and recipes! Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Craft

Mini Apple Pies

Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Scarecrow Cookies

Monster Cookies

Only my FAVORITE COOKIE EVER!!

Mini Pumpkin Pies ( we made these in preschool!)

Can you tell I love MINI things! :) :) :) 

Fall Waffles

Pumpkin Tea Sandwiches

Well there you have it!  

Double Chocolate Mocha Cake with Mocha Icing

This really doesn't get much easier than this. We are starting off with a boxed cake mix. I used a Fudgey Chocolate cake mix. I mixed it up as called for with the exception of the water.  My cake mix called for 1 and 1/3 cup of water. I replaced it with 1 and 1/3 cup of coffee. This does not give the cake an overly coffee like flavor. In fact, it does something so subtle to it, you know something is different, but you can't place what it is. Definitely a good combo. I also added about 1/3 or so of chocolate chips. 

Bake your cake as directed. Let it cool completely before frosting it. 

Mocha Frosting

- 1/2 cup of butter, room temperature

-5 TBSP cocoa powder

-4 TBSP brewed coffee

-3-4 Cups 10x sugar

Mix butter, cocoa and 2 cups of 10x sugar together. It should form a lumpy ball. Alternate adding coffee and the remaining sugar. Stir until smooth. You can add more coffee or a little milk if you need to thin out the icing. Add more 10 sugar to make it thicker.  

Sit down with a nice chunk of cake and a cup of coffee and enjoy! :) 

Colorful Placemats

Needed:
Long construction paper
A variety of craft materials such as markers, glue, paper, scissors, stickers, etc
Contact paper

Decorate you placemat and laminate contact paper. Easy peasy summer fun!