Weather Themed Sensory Tub

Now that school is out for the summer, I'm finally getting back to some of our preschool crafts and activities. We hadn't been doing a whole lot in that department over the last few months, and I'm running out of time!  It's hard to believe that my son will be starting kindergarten at the end of next month!  This summer is going to go so fast!

We've made a few trips to the library in the past couple weeks and aside from signing up for the summer reading program and picking up all kind of story books, we picked up several books about weather.  I grabbed books about storms, tornadoes, wind, and sun.  We are going to spend some time learning about the weather!  And so far, the weather has been perfect too, because one morning we woke up and it was raining.  I pulled out the book about rain, and we made a raindrop craft.  Yesterday was cloudy, so we learned about different types of clouds.  Today is bright and sunny, so we are reading a book about the sun and making a happy sun craft!

To go with our weather studies, I decided to put together a quick weather themed sensory tub.

It's been a while since I've made a new sensory tub for the kids to play with so when they realized what I was doing, they were pretty excited!

The main ingredient in this sensory tub is of course cotton ball clouds!  Yesterday's cloud activity used cotton balls to depict different types of clouds.  We based it on this post from Carrots are Orange.  And now I'm completely out of cotton balls!

I used the same big yellow gear for a sun that I used in our Space themed sensory tub.  I added a few hard golf balls and some little white pom poms to represent hail and snowflakes.  Thanks to last month's hailstorm, the kids are very familiar with how hard (and damaging) hail can be!

The tiny blue beads represent raindrops, and turned out to be a perfect choice.  The kids were picking them up and letting them drop out of the clouds like rain!  

I cut cloud shapes out of a dark patterned piece of felt to represent storm clouds, and I cut lightning bolts out of yellow foam sheets.  As I was going through our craft cabinet I came across some weather words from an old calendar we had and put them in the bin as well.  We can practice spelling out the words, and they can guess what the words are by the pictures on them.  

I found some little American flags that I put in as well.  My son was confused as to what they had to do with weather, until I asked him what made the flags move.  He held it up and blew on it, and then he yelled "wind!"  

The best part of watching them play with their new sensory tub is when they started using all the pieces to act out the Itsy Bitsy spider.  I ran and grabbed a spider from our old Halloween tub, and they put on a little play of the song!  Priceless!!

The flags I've always wanted to take a picture of!

We live near a small town cemetery, but it has got to be one of the busiest cemeteries I've ever seen.  I'm not saying that like there are a lot of funerals there, but that there are always lots of people visiting!  Nearly every single grave is decorated year round, and people gather there frequently to reminisce or just be near their loved ones.   One time I drove by to see an old man sitting on a bench in front a headstone.  Hours later when I was returning home, he was still sitting there.

Each year around major holidays honoring our country's servicemen and women, about a hundred (or more) small American flags surround a monument dedicated to the members of the armed services who are buried in this cemetery.  It's a beautiful sight, but before now one that I've only admired as I drove right by.

On Memorial Day, I walked over to take some pictures.  Well I got about halfway there and realized that some kind of ceremony was going on.  There was music playing and police cars, a firetruck, and motorcycles everywhere.  We watched from a distance for a while and then turned around and made our way to the park instead.  I'd wait to take pictures when I wouldn't be in the way.

Today I got my chance.  On our way to the library, I noticed the flags were still up.  The sun was shining, and this part of the cemetery was deserted.  So I pulled the van over and pulled out the camera.  I absolutely love that I can do that!  I only snapped a few shots because the kids were eager to get to the library, but the next time they flags go up, I'll probably stop and snap some more!

Teacher Appreciation Flower Pot

This is going to be a quick post, about a simple but adorable teacher appreciation gift we made for my son's pre-k teachers.  I saw these tulips floating around Pinterest the other morning and knew immediately they were something I wanted to make.  And when I remembered that our son's last day of pre-k and graduation program were quickly approaching I knew exactly what I needed to make them for!

This link over to Mama Miss is where you can find the FREE printable for the tulips and instructions on how to put them together:  http://www.mamamiss.com/2013/05/22/create-kiddo-diy-tulips-upcycled-vase-and-printable/.  They also include a link and tutorial for making your own rope vase using an old baby food jar.  

I didn't have any baby food jars, but decided to hit up the dollar store for some cheap glass vases.  When I got there however, I saw these adorable gray flower pots in a package of 4 for $1!  That deal was just too good to pass up.  I needed to make three pots, one for each of his teachers, and the extra pot lets me make one for myself too!

Once we had the tulips put together, I added in some fake moss.  It helps hold the pipe cleaner stems down in the pot and adds to the "planted" look of the flower pot.  

To finish off the gift, I went to my good friend Google to help me find a great gift tag.  I knew I wanted the message to be something about "growing", and I found exactly what I wanted at Living Locurto, this FREE printable gift tag:  http://www.livinglocurto.com/2012/04/teacher-gift/.  They use the tag on real plants as teacher appreciation gifts.  I love that idea too!  I love getting plants!  Instead of gluing the tag to a Popsicle stick, I hole-punched them and tied a ribbon through the tag around the tulips in the vase.

And there you have it, a great long lasting, maintenance free teacher appreciation flower pot!