We love arts and crafts at MCP. When the children create crafts it is totally their own experience and creation. We just provide materials, supervise and clean up :-)
I often have friends call and say, "Would you like???" and I usually say "YES!" to free stuff for our program. We had about thirty wooden hearts donated a few weeks ago. The heart shaped jewels were given to us several years ago and we have thousands of them. I am not kidding---thousands. Our MWF classes painted the hearts pink. After they dried, the children glued on the jeweled hearts (you can still see the glue on some hearts). What I love about these hearts is that they are all different. The children talked about creating patterns on their heart, who they were going to give it to, the colors and sizes of the jewels and lots more.
It was quick, easy, cheap and fun which is perfect for preschool!
