We did a gumball machine craft in class. Our students had a lot of fun with this craft. It's so bright and colorful and made a cheerful display outside our classroom. We used a template to cut out construction paper to make the gum ball machine. This is a great activity to work on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, following directions, color identification and/or counting. While using the printable, you can set up the craft a few different ways depending what works best for you. Materials Needed: -Print Free Template from my TpT site (download link at bottom of the blog) -Construction Paper (red and white) -Glue -Multiple Color Pom Poms -Marker Craft can be done multiple ways. First download and print the printable (link at bottom). -You can either use the printable (color or black & white) to have students glue pom poms right onto the printed gumball machine. If you use the blank one, students can cut and glue on the 25 cent square, or students can practice writing 25. -Print up the black and white template pages. Then cut out the bottom part of the gumball machine and cut out the top circle part. Use the cut out to trace onto a red piece of construction paper. Cut out this piece or have your student or child cut it out. Either have your student or child trace the top part of the gumball machine. Or you can trace it in pencil and let them trace it in marker. Glue down the pieces for the red gumball machine. If you student needs to know where to glue, place a few x's with pencil to show them a spot to put glue. Squeeze glue onto the globe part of the gumball machine and let your student or child decorate it with pom poms. Make sure they cover the entire circle with pom poms! Have them use their pinchey fingers to really work on the fine motor skills. If they haven't already, have them glue on the 25 cent piece onto the bottom of the machine. Students that are able to write or trace numbers can practice on the blank square that is in the printable. Then they will glue on a pom pom (gumball) onto the gray half circle. Download free template here or click on the photo above to get the freebie on my TpT site. Above is the display of the class gum ball machines! Our class had a lot of fun making these.
Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed! Check out some other freebies at my TpT Store: -Penguin Q-Tip Painting & Template freebie -Rainbow & Shamrock Do-A-Dot and Templates freebie -Winter Do-A-Dot Freebie -Penguin & Arctic Animal D-o-A-Dot Freebie -Spring & Summer Do-A-Dot Freebie -Holiday Do-A-Dot Freebie You may also want to check out my Emergent Reader Books, File Folder Games and Activities at my TpT store! Thanks!
1 Comment
Last week our class did a theme on Zoo Animals. We washed zoo animals, created zoo homes in play dough, completed art crafts and found zoo animals in therapy putty. The students had a lot of fun with our theme! Hope this blog gives you some ideas to use in your classroom or at your home that are fun and hands-on. Zoo Animal Crafts Monkey Plate Craft: Have students paint paper plate all brown. They can use sponges, fun patterned rollers to give a textured look, with a fork or a regular paint brush. Have some brown or tan circles cut out of construction paper. Students will use glue to add two ears and mouth. Students can either make their own nose & mouth, trace or be given help hand over hand. Use googly eyes for the monkeys eyes. Newspaper Koala Bear: Have students rip up up newspaper pieces and glue onto paper plate. Prior to activity, cut out large gray circles and smaller white circles, a black oval, and small white circles & smaller black circles for the eyes. Students will follow directions of the teachers or use a little x to mark where students need to glue and place pieces. Giraffe Art Craft: Cut out giraffe pieces prior to activity out of construction paper. Use a brown marker to make circles onto the giraffe. Have students color in each circle. Great activity to work on hand writing skills, fine motor and hand-eye coordination. Lion Craft: Using a yellow or orange piece of construction paper, draw a circle on it with a pencil. This will help set up a area for your student or child to know where to paint. Cut out two white circles for the eyes and a triangle (with curved edges) out of black construction paper for the nose. Let the students use a fork to 'paint'. Students will be able to color in the black area on the eyes and trace a mouth. Zoo Animal Washing: Place warm water or warm soapy water into a bin with plastic animals. Students will use sponges or tooth brushes to wash their animals. This is a great activity to work on sensory input, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and learning about different zoo animals. Practice labeling the zoo animals and their sounds they make. We did this with Farm animals too and the students love both! Sensory Play with Shaving Cream- Zoo Animal Footprints: Using plastic Zoo Animals or Wild Animal Counters, place them onto shaving cream. Students will be able to move them around to create foot prints and play with the shaving cream. This is a great activity to give your child or student sensory input, to work on fine motor skills and to learn cause and effect (what happens to the shaving cream when you place an animal on it and move it). Searching For 'Missing' Zoo Animals: Hide little Zoo Counters into therapy putty. Students will then need to use their fine motor skills to move the putty around and pull the animals out. Students can have fun after making prints in the therapy putty. Zoo Animal Homes: Use large or small Popsicle sticks. Have students help you flatten out some play dough. Students will place one of the plastic zoo animals onto the middle of the play dough. Then they will place Popsicle sticks into the play dough around the zoo animal. This is a great activity to work on fine motor skills. Z is for Zebra: This activity is great for working on the letter Z. Cut out a large letter Z out of white construction paper and then cut rectangles of black construction paper. Mark with a pencil little circles where students need to add glue (see above photo). Practice making the Z sound. Some other zoo activities you may enjoy:
Creating homes with blocks and stuffed animals Free Gross Motor Farm Animal Movement Free Animals Home & Clip It Cards Free Monkey Template Pets & Wild Animal Sorting Zoo Counting Cards Freebie Thanks for reading my blog! I hope you enjoyed! Check out my new Spring Emergent Reader book- I See Spring Emergent Reader You may also like some of my spring & farm activities found on my TpT site: Farm Animal Tail Matching Rain Cloud Number Match Spring & Summer Do-A-Dot Freebie Shape Barn Freebie
Our students created this rainbow using their hands. The bottom is hard to see but there are two purple hands on the blue part. -We did some felt activities using this Five Little Shamrock poem freebie found here. In the printable is five shamrocks if you aren't able to make these felt shamrocks. - Rainbow craft- great fine motor activity to work on color sorting with Fruit Loops. Use cotton balls for the clouds. - St. Patrick's Day Hats- use construction paper to create the circle for the hat. Adjust according to the child's head size. Let them decorate with foam shamrocks & stickers. -Finding Gold Game- I used little cauldrons that I found at Rite Aid around Halloween & gold coins from the Dollar Tree. I had the class close their eyes while I sprinkled gold coins all around the room. The students had to find the coins, come back to Circle and then we counted each students pot of gold. They loved it! -Four Leaf Clover Doilies: Students used foam rollers to paint over heart doilies. I cut out their prints and taped them together to create these large four leaf clovers. It didn't come out exactly how I was expecting but it still looked cute. Next time I'm going to try to use smaller heart doilies or larger paper. - Pot O'Gold- Made with construction paper, foam glitter shamrock from Dollar Tree & glitter onto the gold. -One Printable of Number Shamrocks Numbers 0-100= Six Activities: -Linking Shamrocks- Have students identify number, then add that number of links to it. Create by printing, laminating & hole punching a hole into the corner. - Matching Numbers- Students will find matching number and place them next to each other or if hole punched, they can connect them with a link. -Practice Writing Numbers-When laminated, it becomes a dry erase board. Have students use one shamrock number as a visual, then they use a blank laminated shamrock to write or trace the number onto. -Clothes Pin Number Matching-Write numbers onto clothes pins. Students will need to find matching numbers and attach clothes pin to the shamrock. Great activity to work on fine motor skills! -Order Numbers- Students will place shamrocks into order according to number. If students are good at numbers 1-10, start them doing numbers 10-20. Also, could work on counting by 10's. -Find Missing Number- Place shamrocks out in a order but leave one or two numbers out. Students will need to find the missing shamrock and put it into the line of numbers. -Number Puzzles: Print & laminate. Students will match the numbers or dots. -One Printable of Letter Shamrocks=Multiple Activities: You can have them link the shamrock letters together according to capital:capital, lower case:lower case or lower case: capital. Students can place them next to them instead of linking together. Practice writing letters Match letters using clothes pins. Find the missing Letters or have them put the letters in order. -Letter Puzzles- Similar to the number shamrock puzzles but not photographed - Shamrock Shape Puzzles - similar to the number shamrock puzzles but not photographed. Emergent Reader Book: I See St. Patrick's Day made in back and white and in color Emergent reader books for counting clovers, four leaf clovers or identifying colors of clovers. Also these books are made in color on my TPT site. -Outside/Bulletin Board Decorations: We took all our crafts and taped them outside our classrooms. We loved our display & the class took photos in front of it! - St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bins: -Bin 1: I used cauldrons from Rite Aide that I found around Halloween time. I used green stones in the vase aisle and coins from The Dollar Tree. Students played with them by filling and dumping their 'pots of gold'. -Bin 2: Filled with dried split peas, green&yellow pom poms, a few gold coins, some foam shamrocks from the Dollar Tree & two cauldrons for filling. -Pot of Gold Puzzle: This work of art was created by one of the paraprofessionals in the class. She cut this cauldron out and created it into puzzle pieces. She had the students help her put it together. Then she used some double sided tape to tape some gold coins for our display. -Parade: Some of the other teachers decorated our little buggies and I thought it was too cute not to take a photo of! All the preschool classes paraded around the school with scarves, musical instruments in wagons, buggies, & walking while wearing green. All the other grades sat in front of their rooms and cheered us on as we walked around! It was a lot of fun for everyone :) Thank you so much for reading my blog. Hope you enjoy and get some ideas to use at home or school!
You may also like these Spring Activities- Emergent Reader Book "I See Spring" and to do the same shamrock letter & number activities with the links & clothes pins but with flowers, go here for flower letters, numbers, letter puzzles. |
AuthorMy name is Ms. Pre- K. I am new to blogging but not new to the education world. I will be going into my sixth year of teaching special education this September. Archives
March 2017
Categories |