Friday Home Fun!

Each Friday I will post some fun projects and activities that you can participate in as a family at home. Of course there are always more options for our Primrose Thornton, Stapleton and Reunion families on our Primrose Parents Place on our school websites using your log in and password. Look for log in information in our school monthly newsletters!

The Giving Tree Project

 “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein is a wonderful book to read about Generosity. Read it here online!

After reading the story with your children talk about their feelings and how the man and the tree might have felt. Then, create your own giving trees. Collect sticks and leaves from outside to decorate your tree. When you are done with the trees, draw a few leaves and write on each leaf the things you are thankful for. Hang your giving tree in your home to remind everyone to be generous to others and thankful for the things you have.

Rainbow Fish Project

Read the “Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister for another lesson on Generosity. After you are done eading the book, have your child create what they would look like as a rainbow fish after sharing all of their beautiful scales with other fish. Have children use lots of different materials to create the colorful scales. Here is a reading of the story online.

Picture of Generosity

Give your child several art materials to choose from to create a picture of what they believe generosity looks like. When they have completed their picture, have them explain their picture of generosity to you. Next have them draw or write one thing they would like to do that is generous and help them to complete this activity this holiday season.

As we enter into the holiday season, here are a few fun holiday crafts we like to make as decorations for the house as well as gifts for friends and family and even a fun science experiment to do during winter break!

Salt  Dough Ornaments
Salt Dough Recipe
2 cups of table salt
1 cup of water
1 teaspoon of oil
1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of corn flour
Approximately half to one cup of cold water (during the kneading process)

Instructions: Combine the salt and one cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, let the salty mixture bubble for a few minutes while stirring. After a few minutes take the saucepan off heat and add flours and oil. Stir vigorously. Our out onto wax paper and let it cool. When dough is cool, kneed and add cold water as needed to get the right consistency. Once you have turned your dough into shape, use a straw to make a hole in the top of each shape. Bake in the oven at low heat (150ºC or 300ºF) for 3 to 4 hours. When ornaments are cooled, paint and tie a piece of yarn or fishing wire through the hole and into a loop at the top to hang.

Chocolate Marshmallow Dreidels

12 Chocolate Kisses

12 Marshmellows

8 oz. semisweet chocolate – melted

12 pretzel sticks

Directions: Dip bottom of chocolate kisses in melted chocolate and press it onto the large marshmallow. Repeated step for all 12 dreidels and place in refrigerator for 10 minutes to cool. Once cooled, cut a small slit in the bottom of each marshmallow to insert pretzel stick. Dip the dreidels in the melted chocolate and place on parchment paper. Repeat for all 12 dredels and place in refrigerator to set.  You can decorate the dreidels with sprinkles before refrigerating or pipe them with melted white or colored chocolate. Serve and enjoy this special Hanukkah treat!

Life Cycle of a Snowman Science Experiment

During those snow days, go outside to collect snow to create 2 miniature snowmen or if you don’t have snow, you can always use frozen water balloons! You will need 1 large, 1 medium and 1 small water balloon. Once frozen, peel the water balloon off of the frozen ball. Use some salt to adhere the 3 ice balls together to create your snowman. You can make eyes, nose, mouth and buttons with felt to get the hole affect.  Place one snowman outside and one indoors inside of a container. Have children create hypothesis of what they believe will happen to each. Have them record observations of both and then conclude with actual results and compare.

Primrose curriculum theme this week was Fairy Tales and Legends and next week will be Signs of Winter. Don’t forget to check out our Home Fun projects on Parents Place on our school websites for fun projects to reinforce what we are learning at Primrose!

See you back here next week for information on “Traveling with the Small Child”.