Today's Spooktober Guest ~ 2 Teaching Mommies

Hello, hello.  We’re Amber and Madonna from 2 Teaching Mommies. In our before kids life we were both teachers.  Now we are stay at home moms trying to make life a little easier on moms and teachers by offering free preschool printables! 

As teachers (and mommies) we are always looking for ways to take fun things and make them learning opportunities. As Halloween draws ever nearer we racked our brains on ways to have some fun without being too spooky! The result of our brainstorming sessions was a unit all about spiders!

Here were a couple of our favorite spider activities!

W is for Web- Teaches your child how letters are linked to sounds to form letter-sound correspondence. (We have two ways you can do this activity- lacing or coloring. You can color with a white crayon or chalk. If you use chalk spray the paper with hair spray before gluing. The hair spray sets the chalk and it won't continue to flake off.)

 

Smack the Spider- Have your child smack the letter you call out to reinforce letter recognition.

Tactile Spider Craft- Before setting down with your kiddo, create a spider web using a glue gun on finger painting paper. Set aside to cool and dry. When its cool and dry, place it in front of your kiddo and let him color on the web with finger paint! You can see a more detailed posting on our site!

This year we are expanding our spider unit with some more creepy crawly learning, so be sure and check us out over at 2 Teaching Mommies to see what we are up too!

Amber and Madonna
2 Teaching Mommies


How spider-iffic those activities are, girls!  Thanks so much for being our guest today!  

Today's Spooktober Guest ~ Getting Messy with Ms. Jessi

Hi there! My name is Jessi and I blog over at Getting Messy With Ms. Jessi.  I am a preschool teacher, a mommy and a lover of doing lots of upcycling!  I blog about all the fun adventures I take my preschoolers thru and show teachers and parents alike how to make great games, art projects and activities on a (really tiny) budget.  I was super excited when Frogs, Bees and Under the Seas asked me (and others) to be a guest blogger!  It's my first!  Yay!

With Halloween coming around soon we have begun to "decorate" our classroom with Halloween and fall items.  Today I'm showing you how to make super cute spiders from film canisters!  I know, I know nobody uses those "old fashioned" cameras anymore but you never know when you'll come across a gaggle of these!

I started with canisters and then drew out lines (with a white pencil) on black construction paper, about 1/2" thick for the kids to cut.

Great cutting practice!

Counting eight legs and then splitting them was a great lesson!

We glued each set of four legs together and then glued the two inside the lid.

Meanwhile...or if you're thinking ahead of time (unlike me!) poke a small hole in the bottom of the canister to thread fishing line thru. 

Next, push the lid on the canister.  It will be a VERY tight fit.  Bend the legs down and add googley eyes!

I hung them up in front of some marble painted "webs" we made earlier.  SPOOKY! Even a little Kooky! 

I love art projects with film canisters!  Wondering where to get these little babies...try Walmart or Walgreen photo departments!  I've had luck there. 

Thanks so much, Jessi!  This is a spider-rific idea!  Crawl on over to Getting Messy with Ms. Jessi & see the other awesome tips she can give you! :)