Kindergarten Nation

Creative Crafts And Educational Activities

A Lion Puppet Craft – Inspired by the book Dandelion by Don Freeman

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This craft is inspired by the book Dandelion by Don Freeman, a book about a lion who nobody recognizes! For this craft, you will use brown and yellow construction paper to make a lion puppet that is perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners. 

Lion Puppet Craft Image

Materials:

Directions:

  1. Download the Lion Face And Mane Template PDF
  2. Print the Lion Face Template on yellow construction paper. This page has two lion faces on it so you will only need half as many copies of the Lion Face Template.
  3. Cut the paper down the middle so there is one lion face on each half and one for each student.
  4. Download and print the Lion Mane Template onto light brown construction paper.
  5. Cut out the mane piece and snip carefully around the edge towards the middle, to create the look of fur.
  6. Cut out the lion’s face and glue the face onto the mane.
  7. Finally, tape a straw onto the back side to complete your lion puppet!

Dandelion by Don Freeman Book

Educational Music Videos for Early Learning ~ Alphabet, Counting & More!

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Let’s Get Fit Count to 100 by 1’s Keep Your Mind and Body in Shape!  This song is perfect when you have to get some energy out and want a good exercise video for kids.  Play this if you ever have to stay inside during recess because of the weather.

That’s The Way We Learn to Count to 100 by 5  Our class loves to dance to this song!  It gets stuck in your head and you’ll be singing it all day, but at least you will know how to count to 100 by 5’s!

Dance Party Count by 5’s  

Kids just love to dance to this one and it’s fun to try to keep up when the song speeds up!

Shapes Song A nice, relaxing song about shapes. 

Sit and relax, and see which shapes you can identify.  Eventually, you’ll learn all of the shapes by name as you sing along!

Climbing Up the Mountain, Counting by 10’s!

We’re climbing up this mountain from beginning to end, climbing up this mountain while we’re counting to ten! Catchy, isn’t it?  Every time I am about to count by 10s, I chant the beginning of this song as a prelude.

Alphabet Rock

Greg and Steve – Count to 20 by 1’s.  This is a good song to use when you are getting started with teaching counting.  You can let your students take turns with a pointer and follow along on a number chart as the song plays.

The Leapfrog Letter Factory Alphabet Song  

This music video is perfect for teaching letters and letter sounds.

Big Numbers Song 

Relaxing music and counting to 1 to 100 and all the way to a trillion!  They pick up on the end of this song before the beginning half the time, the part that goes all the way up to billion ~ they love saying those big numbers!  Some of my students hum this when they are counting to 100. Music makes memorizing so easy!

ABC Rock by Greg and Steve

For this one, I give kids turns with a pointer so they can point to the letters as they sing along.

Down By The Bay 

With Rhyming Words for Music and Movement + Rhyming Practice.  Create movements for each part of the song and teach the kids.  You can also make picture magnets for each rhyming word and stick it on the board as you sing the rhyming words.

The Ladybug Song by Frank Ledo

A great song for teaching body parts!  Link you’re thumbs and wiggle your fingers to create an imaginary ladybug who lands on you, crawls around and then flies away. Perfect for All About Me Units!

Going on a Bear Hunt

This is another popular favorite in our classroom.  It’s very fun, even though it can get pretty silly and loud at the end. Just make sure your door is closed or, even better yet, do this one outside!

Firetruck Song by Ivan Ulz 

Kids love this song about firefighters, especially when you choreograph some movements to go along with the music ~ Perfect for community helper units.

Belly Breathe feat. Colbie Caillat and Elmo

This is a very good song that teaches kids to take belly breaths when they are feeling upset sad or anxious.  You can remind students to take belly breaths if they feel upset and reinforce the idea with this video.

Tidy Up The Rhumba!

When it is time to clean up,  ring a bell. Then play this. The room will be sparkling clean in no time!

I Can Count to 100

Count to 100 along with this fun dance song!

Count Backwards from 10 to 1

A cute song with a nice rhythm for counting backward from 10 to 1.

Hello Alphabet Train

This song has a great Dance Hall style rhythm and kids can sing about letters and words as they dance!

Tips for Watching Music Videos In The Early Childhood Classroom You can enter full-screen mode by clicking the button on the bottom right of each video.  Click the button again when you are ready to exit full-screen mode. Open up the music videos in multiple tabs or windows so you can quickly go from one song to the next.

Invest in high-quality speakers, they really make a difference.  Children become more engaged when the sound quality increases! Make sure to test out each music video before you play it in your classroom. It’s good to know if the song is fast or slow so you can play the right kind of music at the right time. Rotate fast songs with slow songs.  You can play more than one fast song in a row if your kids need to get out some extra energy, but I think it is always good to end with a calm & quiet song!

Rocket Ship In Outer Space Craft

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Make a fun outer space scene with a rocket ship, planets, and stars!

space shuttle

Materials

  • Black and yellow construction paper
  • Additional construction paper and scraps of various colors
  • Glue Sticks

Directions

  1. Assemble the space ship, using various shapes of construction paper.
  2. Decorate the background by cutting out planets and stars and gluing them onto the black construction paper (space stickers would also work well for this part.)
  3. Glue the space ship onto the background. 

Note: You can prepare different shapes ahead of time that kids can use to “build” their space shuttle. 

Check out my Outer Space Crafts and Activities Board on Pinterest for more Space-Themed activities!

Outer Space Goodies on Amazon:











Magazine Collage Ideas – Upcycle Magazines to Create Works of Art

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Do you have magazines just laying around? It’s time to put them to use! Today we will create works of art out of old magazines!

If you don’t have any already, you can find inexpensive magazines to upcycle at thrift stores and yard sales. You can also check your local recycling center to see if they have any used magazines for your projects that they would be willing to donate!

For this craft, you will also need construction paper, gluesticks, and scissors.

Select magazines with high-quality and relevant images.

While gathering magazines for your collage, think about the big picture of the work you plan to create.  Do you want to create a serene nature scene or make a powerful statement?

National Geographic is a great magazine for many types of collages, with gorgeous high-quality photographs of interesting people and animals!  The colorful pictures in National Geographic can be used for magazine collages, dream boards, and so many other art projects!

Once you have collected the magazines, you are ready to begin!

Magazine Collage Craft

Directions

1.  Cut shapes and pictures that interest you out of old magazines and arrange them on a piece of construction paper. Add the largest images first.

2.  Add smaller pieces to cover up rough edges and fill in any empty spots.

3. Try to cover up the entire piece of construction paper with magazine images.  The more images you use, the more intricate and interesting your collage will be!  

More Ideas

Dream Board Magazine Collage

Use magazine cut-outs to create a dream-board.  Instead of using a piece of construction paper as your background, use a canvas and glue the cut-out magazine pictures down with rubber cement.  Paint the rubber cement over the finished collage to keep everything in place. Here is a tutorial for creating the dream board magazine collage shown in the picture above (also called a vision board):  http://nicolewolf.com/create-your-vision-for-this-year/    

100 ways to creatively reuse old magazines!

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