First Week - Tuesday - Dance

TUESDAY - DANCE

Today is Dance Day. We have some classic music on the radio, and a tutu to put on, some dance shoes and a mirror - that's the perfect equation for some dancing for any toddler! It doesn't matter what kind of music you listen to, kids love to dance. And it's fun to join in too!


We are exploring ballet today. We looked on the internet for some ballet videos (youtube is a great resource) and watched Swan Lake. My 3 year old then wanted to balance on one leg for the rest of the morning!! :)

Our craft for today is to make a dance mobile - I thought this was a good way to show movement with the ballet dancers.

I used color craft paper, an exacto knife to cut out the ballet figures, a cutting board, some paint, ribbon, stapler, bit of tape and two coat hangers I was going to recycle back to the dry cleaner.
First, I went to the internet and did a google image search for ballet images. I found three images showing different dance poses and printed them out. You may need to then photocopy them larger if you wish, or I used Photoshop to enlarge the images. Once I have them printed out I traced them onto the color paper.



You can go over the outline of the image with pencil on the back - this will help leave a faint outline on the page you are tracing the image onto.



From here you get the kiddos to decorate them however they wish. My 3yr old wanted to paint, so paint was it.

Firstly, I cut out the figures and she painted them (very carefully - real skill test there!).

(Exacto knives for adults only please!!!)

Then I also let her just paint the whole page, after I had outlined the figure.


Either way worked, just depends on what you prefer and how your little one handles the figures. I would think drawing would be easier on the whole page rather than just on the cut-out.


We let all the pages dry, then I cut out the figures with an exacto knife.

Then I constructed the mobile hanger. You can do whatever you can think of here, I saw these two coathangers and used them. I tied ribbon around the "necks" to secure them together, and also used a little bit of tape around the bottom where they crossed. If you use hangers you can also decorate it with ribbon (wrap it around the wire), or hang beads from the top arms, or do a design in the triangle area - many possibilities.





Next, I attached each ballet dancer to a piece of ribbon using a stapler and tied the other end on the mobile hanger.


Then trim off the loose ends and wella! There is a ballet dancing mobile!




Please make sure no little ones can grab at it - hang at a safe distance as it could pose as a choking or strangulation threat with the pieces of paper, string and staples, and coathanger. It is just pretty to look at.

First Week - Monday - Sizes

MONDAY - SIZES

It is Monday of our first week. Here is a picture of our School Bus and our projected weekly lesson plan:



Monday is SIZES:

We are using the 4th July as inspiration for the tone of this week's lessons, since it is June 29th today. We are drawing stars of different sizes onto color paper to decorate for our 4th July picture. We are using red, white and blue craft paper, a pen, glue and glitter sprinkles.
Firstly, I draw two different sized stars onto a piece of paper. We look at the smaller star, and I have my toddler point to it.





Next, which is the bigger star?



We use the same shape to discuss sizes, so as not to confuse the toddler with too many variables.

Once we have discussed the sizes of our stars we are ready to cut them out (which I do, scissors are sharp!). I hold all three color pages together and cut as one (cutting through 3 pieces of paper to get 3 stars). We are pasting them onto another piece of paper, ready to decorate with pen (her favorite medium at the moment) and glitter (of course!!).






Here is our finished picture. I like to give it a title, date it and "sign" it (so I know who did it in 20 years time!!).


We also got inspired and made our garland (which I hang over our big window in the playroom). So the theme is 4th July stars. Again, we just used basic color craft paper, scissors, crayons, glue and glitter, and a piece of string and some tape to attach it up to the window.








I staple the stars onto the ribbon.


Once I have a few stars stapled on I hang up one end and staple up the rest. This makes it easier to figure out how long to make the ribbon and where/ how close to place the stars on the ribbon.

Ta-da! Looks very festive!