FATHER'S DAY
FATHER'S DAY
From
Stormie:
Although I'm posting
ideas below as often as I can, my very favorite activities for "Father's Day"
have been reserved for my "SUMMER THINGS"
booklet (see the "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers" section
of my website).
Group Time Activity: Send a note home in advance for children to bring a photograph of themselves doing something with their father or other significant male in their lives. Allow each child to show off his/her picture and tell the others about it. (If photos aren't available, magazine pictures are good too.) Why do we celebrate Father's Day?
Mommy and Daddy Sort: In
advance, cut out magazine pictures of male adults doing things with children and
pictures of female adults with children. Try to find interesting pictures
that the children will enjoy looking at. Attach a picture of a male to the
top of a styrofoam tray and a female picture to the top of another tray.
Children then sort the pictures accordingly. To expose the children to words,
you could print the words "Dad" and "Mom" at the top of the two trays.
Variation: Children sort pictures of men and boys.
Find pictures that will make determining "young" versus "older" obvious to the
children.
Daddy Hands Versus Child Hands: Cut out large and small hands for children to sort.
Shaving: For each child, draw a simple outline of a face on fingerpainting paper, exaggerating a beard area. Allow children to rub shaving cream onto the beard area then shave it off with a craft stick.
Bulletin Board Backdrop: Two-day outdoor project: Send a note home in advance for children to dress in old clothing. Outdoors, on a piece of butcher paper (the size of your bulletin board), allow children to drag pieces of rope through a pan of paint and onto the paper. While painting, have them move along the sides of the paper in barefeet if possible so as not to ruin shoes. Use two primary colors so that when they meet on the paper, a secondary color appears. When it's dry, and on the second day, let children gather around the edges and glue wood chips onto it, either randomly or as a border. This makes a great background for photos of fathers and their children (or other significant adult males in the children's lives). If you have a luncheon or evening get together for dads, it would be wonderful to display.
By the way, wood chips, rope, sand are all great for gluing onto child-created picture frames for dads.
Dad's Summer T-shirt: Send a note home for children to bring one of their dad's white T-shirts from home to decorate with fabric flow pens. Or, instead of T-shirts, "go hunting" at a thrift store for something. I have a bunch of men's white handkerchiefs that I'm aching to use for this project. These could probably be framed.
From Carol
Crouch, in Bright, Indiana:
Picture Frames:
Stormie, old jigsaw puzzles are good for making picture frames for photo gifts
on Father's Day. The children simply glue the pieces to a cardboard frame.
We then put a picture inside the frame of the child participating in a class activity.
Enjoy!
From
Beth Bennett, in Fairbanks, Alaska:
Dads
and the Sea: I have come to realize that it is very important to get dads
actively involved in preschool, and most of them really want to be. At our
school, Father's Day came at the end of our unit on "The Ocean," so we combined
the two and had a pizza party. We made the pizzas and also made blue jello
in a fish bowl with Gummi Fish in it. We served fresh veggies, watermelon,
and cookies decorated like the sun. We drank blue Koolaid with club soda
in it. We sang "Baby Beluga" (with sign language). All the children
then answered questions from "teacher" about oceanic animals we had studied --
to show off what we had learned. The dads were very impressed, and we received
great feedback about it from dads and moms for a very long time. It's so
good to get that contact with dads. I was so impressed with how many dads
were willing to get time off from work to come! And they were so happy that
they did. They were so glad to really see first hand what their children
were learning.
From
Dawn Fagerstrom:
Hook a Fish: Cut out a paper fish per child
(or let the children cut them out if developmentally ready). They can then
decorate their fish with wiggly eyes or collage materials. Put a photo of
the child on one side, and on the other side print, "I'm hooked on Dad!"
I then help the children attach their fish to yarn and attach the other
end of the yarn to a stick or wooden dowel. It looks like a fishing pole.
From
Raquel Gosser, Greenwood, Indiana:
Father's Night: We
have a special night during which the children and their fathers come to school
for food and fun, centered around a "Space" theme. Here's some
of the things we do in advance to prepare for this night:
*Create
a "star room": Children paint one side of a bunch of big boxes (refrigerator
size) black. We then connect the boxes together, creating a nighttime sky
"room" and we hang glow in the dark stars, moons, etc. Using "glow
in the dark" paint, the children put their handprints on the wall. Next
comes fluorescent lighting to help everything glow.
*Goodie
bags for dads: The children put blue shredded paper in a Ziploc baggie along
with Milky Way candy bars, foam spaceships (from a craft store), and airplane
gliders (from Oriental Trading). (To introduce the children to modern technology,
I like to supervise them in using our school's paper shredder to shredd the blue
paper. They love it!)
*Contest:
Have a "Moon Pie" eating contest for
the dads.
*Robots
and Moon Rocks:
Have the children make robots out of boxes (Kleenex or shoe box sizes) and paint
rocks (moon rocks).
*And
we serve a "moon rocks" snack: This is really "Rice Krispie
Treats" which kinda' resemble moon rocks or the moon. Here's the
very simple familiar recipe:
You need: 6 cups
of Rice Krispies (an off-brand will also work though), 2 cups of miniature marshmallows,
1 & 1/2 tablespoons of butter or margarine, plus butter or margarine for greasing
the pan.
Procedure: First, grease a 10 x 13" pan. Melt the
marshmallows and butter together in a microwave oven for 2 minutes. Remove it
from the oven, stir well, and then return it to the microwave for another 30-40
seconds. (In the meantime, get the Rice Krispies close at hand.) Remove
the marshmallow mixture from the microwave and stir again, and then immediately
add the Rice Krispies, stirring until the cereal is thoroughly coated. Pour
the mixture into the pan and smooth it out (pat the top down flat with the back
of a buttered spoon). Keep the "treats" in a cool place for
at least 1 hour, and then cut them into squares with a buttered knife.
From
D. L. Cummings, Hale Academy, Primary Learning Center, Ocala, Florida:
Calendars for Dad: Our Primary Learning Center is
part of our private school so we follow their school year calendar and are not
in session for Father's Day. In order for the K3's to better understand
the concept of time, they make calendars for their fathers. Each month they
create a work of art (monthly theme related) on the top half of a 12 x 18"
piece of construction paper, using the fine motor skills we have been working
on (tearing, snipping, gluing, glittering, etc.). I print out monthly calendars
starting with June of the current year through the next year's May. Holes
are punched at the top of the calendars, reinforced, and then rings are inserted
(key type, or cable ties can be used). The students decorate wrapping paper
and I help them wrap their calendars. It is a gift that shows not only how
their small motor skills and creative abilities have developed over the months,
but also one that can be enjoyed all year long! (Since there are 12 months
in a year but we are in session for only 10 months, the children do 3 calendars
in May.) Here's a list of activities we've done for our calendar tops:
*August: Torn paper
collage using primary colors
*September: Fall theme: Children crush pieces
of fall-colored tissue paper and glue them onto a tree for fall leaves
*October:
Craft sticks are glued down to look like a split-rail fence and children then
glue "Five Little Pumpkins" on it. The poem is glued underneath
*November: Handprint turkeys with gold colored yarn pieces glued under them to
represent straw/hay.
*December: We celebrate a multicultural month, so depending
on the ethnicity of the class from year to year, children decorate their December
calendar page tops according to their personal family celebrations.
*January:
The children draw a thick line of glue across the top of the page then hold it
up and let it run hald-way down the paper in streaks. They sprinkle white
or clear glitter on them to look like icicles!
*February: Hibernation is our
theme for this month: The children tear their own free-form bear shapes from brown
paper, then glue him next to his "gray paper" cave. They can add
more to the scenes as desired (trees, grass, etc.).
*March: A shamrock is
taped to the center and then the entire top is spatter painted, leaving a shamrock
impression when the shape is removed.
*April: The children decorate and glue
down an umbrella shape and two yellow rain boots. Dots of glue are then
placed all over and glitter is sprinkled on them to look like raindrops.
*May:
Since "April showers bring May flowers," we provide 3" x 12"
strips of green paper for the children to "snip" and then glue down
as grass. They then glue fun foam bug shapes in the grass and add pre-cut
or torn paper flowers.
*June: Children paint watercolor ocean waves, sprinkle
sand on swaths of glue, and glue on a few small sea shells for a "beach scene."
*July: Glitter paint, thinned, is placed in three areas on the paper. The
children then blow on the blots, creating electrifying fireworks!
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Reminder from Stormie: If you would
like to begin collecting ALL my current classroom ideas (each on a 4 x 6"
index card), as well as new ones that I create, you can do so by ordering my "Activity
Cards." Click here to check them out.
