What Can You Make With A Circle: Preschool Journal

I blogged about our preschool journal last week and thought I would share one of our recent entries.  For this particular day, I drew several circles on two pages of Anna's journal and invited her over to "make" these circles into anything she wanted.  

She wasn't quite sure what I wanted her to do at first, so we talked about what things we saw in the room that were round or circular and then we started brainstorming about other things that are round.  

After the first circle, she was pretty good to go and got to work "making" the circles into different things.  She pretty particular about "mixing colors" so she had me draw an additional yellow circle because she really wanted to add a sunshine.

After she completed each circle, she had me spell out the word so she could write down what they are....I told you the girl likes to write!!

She made:

person

sun

ball

balloon

bowl

It's an easy activity that really gets your child to "think outside of the box".  Give it a try!!

Our Preschool Journal

Something new Anna is doing this year is keeping a preschool journal.  She loves to draw, write, paint, etc...and I wanted to give her a place where she could keep her stories and pictures, as well as practice writing.  

I picked up a mixed media spiral bound book at the craft store and adhered a piece of paper to the front with her name on it.  I let her decorate her name however she wanted.  She chose to do a new type of "splatter painting" we've been doing recently.

Inside, she adds her drawings, writings, letters, stories, etc.  The page above has her self-portrait.  For this page, I did encourage her to draw a picture of herself.  I added the date stamp above it so we would be able to remember when she did this drawing.

For most of the pages so far, she has a "story" in mind and usually draws part of the story and asks me how to spell certain words to write part of her story.  

The story above says "Snow White Leap" with a picture of Snow White dancing and leaping through the air.

On other pages, she will tell me what she drew/made and I will record either her story or what her drawing represents.  For the page above, she colored red and blue together to make purple.  

Some days I will either set something out with her preschool journal (stamps, stickers) or will have a little activity set up for her to do in her journal.  I'm planning to share more of our journal pages as we complete them!!

I keep our preschool journal and a big jar of crayons out in our kitchen.  It's not in her reach because that would mean that it would also be in her little brother's reach, but it is accessible at any time.  I love that she asks to "write" in her journal several times each week.  Hopefully as we get the playroom all set up I will be able to include some type of writing/creating center for the kids.