The Creative Campus The Place For Learning Activities for all ages!

Clouds!  this is a really fun theme. you can even use this one with different age ranges together.  The pictures included in this post are a few of my favorite activities I have done with this theme. Printing clouds with puffy glue is a fun art activity that engages Eye Hand Coordination.   Read the book "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" and print out the images. you can use them for fun Gross Motor activities. Gather the kids together and do a Cloud themed "move Like A" Game. Play Music and One at a time, pull the pictures from a container. Tell the students, "Move Like A.... Mitten, Bird" Ect. You can also Display the pictures around a room, and walk around the room giving clues about the pictures they might find. Clouds and Loose Parts  Invitations To Play and Learn This is a great sensory subject that can be used in so many ways. I love to use cloud activities in the sensory area. The Science area allows the children to investigate and experiment...

Happy December Everyone! I am offering a special blog series for the month of December! each week I will share 5 activities for you to use and learn with. Each activity will be connected to Winter Or Christmas in some way! I hope you enjoy using these as much as I have Enjoyed Creating Them! ART Circle Christmas Tree Language Development Snow Charades Sensory/Science   Snow construction (frozen Shave Cream) Math   Ice Cream Sundae (cut scoops of ice cream, Cherries, Sprinkles and Flavored topping). Give each player a bowl or cone shape. assign each item a number. using either number cards or dice, each player takes a turn and selects the item of their number. The first person to add all the items to their ice cream wins!  Dramatic Play Build Ginger Bread Houses With Boxes use a variety of your favorite art products and be creative!      If you would like to receive more free activities like these, Visit me @...

Hi Everyone! I wanted to talk to you today about, Loose Parts Play! This is something I recently discovered... and I LOVE IT! Instead of offering Teacher directed activities, I love the idea of offering pieces for play, as an invitation to explore and learn on their own. Letting the child create a game that is based on a theme. the creativity is endless and totally personalized. You can offer this kind of play for Any Topic or Subject. this play lends its self well to Art, Science and Even Make Believe Play. You Could offer small parts for a "Monsters" theme. Offer your little ones Googlie Eyes, pipe Cleaners, Buttons, Paper cut outs . Then give them different colors of play dough and let them make silly monsters! You would even do this with robots as well. I am so excited about using this Learning Method with my friends. The Math ideas are endless as well. Leaves, Trees, Pumpkin,  Snowmen! You can offer so many different materials depending on what your learnin...

Hello Again! I have a wonderful Science oriented color mixing activity for you.  line a container with tin foil, cover with shaving cream, drip food coloring or I Used Liquid water color (worked great) into shaving cream. You can use holiday oriented colors depending on when you use this activity. Provide the child with a stick or brush. ( I use popsicle sticks). Either let the kids make their own designs    OR encourage then to write their names  in the shaving cream which will spread and mix the colors. I encouraged my friends to make shapes as well. gently press white paper on top after your art is done, peel paper back. (if it sits too long the paper gets wet so be quick). Scrape off excess and Enjoy Your Art! I hope you have as much fun with this as we did! I would love to hear your comments! http://thecreativecampus.weebly.com/

Transportation is a fun, Hands on and Creative Theme that I like to use to engage many areas of learning. Give Children Loose parts and encourage them to create their own Cars, Trains, Planes or other forms of getting around . I like to take this theme one step further, Providing children different kid's of blocks that can be stuck together ( bristle or magnetic) let the children use their creativity and build cars and so on. Then encourage them to create play using them.     I also like to give children boxes, Wagons and Scooters. Allow them to use their whole bodies to engage in creating Transportation. Allowing them to build Boats, or Trains and then pulling them into their Pretend Play is a wonderful way to Encourage Children to Build Creativity and Language. I hope you enjoy recreating these creative activities with your friends, and if you want more of these free ideas on a regular basis. Visit my website and join my FREE Email Program where I will send you 5 acti...

Happy Fall Everyone! I love this time of year. There are so many fun learning experiences we gain at this point in the year. Pumpkin's and all their fun textures. Leaves and the different sizes and colors. The learning goes and goes! Because of this I wanted to share with you some fun learning activities I have created around these concepts. I have a fun leave/ Apple Game that I created when I was working with 3&and 4 year old preschoolers. I made these cute bushels with numbers on them and then I printed Leaves and Apples of different colors and Shapes. I labeled the bushels with numbers as well. Depending on the theme of the week, I lay out the bushels and I provide either the apples or the leaves ad I encourage the children to take turns picking a number card. Then we sing the child's name and say "picked an (color apple) from the apple tree"... and then they put that color in a bucket. Or we say "child's name" picked a certain number of ap...

Games:  are a great way to use eye hand coordination. Playing games like Baseball, Hot Potato, Play dough is a great tool for creating games that use eye hand coordination as well. You can play a game that I use a lot called alphabet soup that creates letters while learning sounds a much much more. (if you want more information leave me a comment below).  Busy Boxes  : are a fun activity that I created. These are small activities that children can engage in to practice a skill. one of my favorites is a "Robot" box. They have to choose parts and stick them together to create a robot. ( I have many others on my website). http://thecreativecampus.weebly.com/programs-products-and-free-content.html Projects : I enjoy providing activities in my classroom that use eye hand coordination. I also love art and I have found a great activity that engages all of it. I like to provide art materials in a bin along with parts of a house. (the roof, side walls, doors ect.) Encourag...

Welcome Back!  I have something for you that I think your really going to enjoy! I know I am very excited to use it in class with my friends!  I call it "Scrap Art". As you see it IS exactly what it sounds like! What I love about this is that the possibilities are ENDLESS. you can create anything with it that your mind can think up. The best thing is, it can be stretched or simplified for ANY age! you can make larger more abstract objects with older children using smaller objects. for younger children (as we did above) you can provide pre cut "Parts" to the art and allow then to decorate with the provided art supplies. I love to use confetti, Tissue Paper, Dry Pasta, Straws. I could go on and on! In this version, we allowed the older children to create whatever they wanted. We provided them with contact paper, Wiggle Eyes and Recycled Art Work. Then the children cut them into whatever shapes they wanted. This is a fantastic art activity that works on all s...

Topic: Art and Creative Teaching Methods   Advice One ( Using art to teach skills )   I believe that there is a place in the Early Child world for both Process and Product art I believe that when children are able to express themselves and use different skills they learn better I use art to teach everything from Letters, Numbers, Colors, shapes even science. A great example of this, is “Splat Painting”. This is a fun activity that allows the children to use their Small Motor skills while creating fun art. You can combing process and product using this method OR you can simply let the children enjoy the Process simply provide the children with a piece of paper and make piles of paint. Cover with wax paper (I even put the paint in between two pieces of Contact Paper) and let the children Pound or roll on top of the paint. Smearing and mixing till they are happy. —   Creating products i...

Hello Everyone! Our summer is winding down, hard to believe. I wanted to share a really fun activity with you that can be done outside in the summer and brought indoors through the rest of the year. SAND! We did a unit on construction recently and used sand as a part of it. We started out with dry sand which my friends tried to scoop and pile up. They quickly realized that it didn't work very well. Then I asked them what they thought we could do about making it pile up easier? as im sure you guessed, they all shouted ADD WATER!!! and so we did. this is what they did with the wet sand.  Sand Castles Of Course! this is a great activity for children of all ages because the younger ones will enjoy the scooping and the pouring, while older ones will get more creative and stack and build with the sand adding more or less water to get the texture they want. To finish off our messy fun day, my friends wanted to construct some creations of their own. So we got out the art supplies...

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful summer. I wanted to share something with you and get your thoughts in return. I know a lot of parents are interested in the concept of Homeschooling and creating an active interest in learning while at home. I wanted to share with you some thoughts on the topic. I believe that Play not only is how children learn best and most naturally, Play also promotes and creates creativity. When children are allowed and encouraged to be creative you build a passion for learning. A passion for learning is the key to getting children engaged in learning which leads to them being able to take in all the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed as they grow through life into adult hood. Childhood is a time for learning and experiencing the environment around them. Play allows children to build confidence in their skills and knowledge at their own pace. That is why when I introduce a new topic or activity, I always test the idea first. By this ...

This week we made Robots!!  this is by far one of my favorite themes to teach. You can do so much with these and stretch the fun to include sooo many ages. you can count parts you can sort parts by shape . The fun with this is endless. With my friends however, I kept the fun to art and Sensory/ Science. Here is a little peek at what we did. One of my friends decided to use different items to start building a Robot. Combining Paint, Paper Shapes and Straws. This Friend decided to make a puppet. This one has lots of eyes and some cool antenna and Arms. This Robot is very complicated and has lots of buttons! We also decided to build some robots away from the art table. This is what we came up with!  We had a lot of fun with this subject, and I hope you have just as much fun making your own creations!

Hi Everyone! I have some very exciting things I want to share with you. I have been having a lot of fun with my friends recently and our most recent Art Experience took on a life of its own. I started out introducing a string art activity, and my friends decided that they liked their own methods better (that happens sometimes). Take a look at what my friends came up with. I hope it Inspires you to engage your own creativity.       Originally the strings were taped to the trays and the paint was ON the strings so that no brushes were used.  My friends were supposed to flick the strings to make their pictures. They didn't like the ideas of using the strings so they started painting around the strings and as they came off the trays, they started to mix the strings in the paint. This is an activity that can be used for many different themes. the children had a lot of fun with this as well.

Hi Everyone!   I hope you are all having a wonderful week! I had a wonderful Spring Break and I hope you did as well! Today I wanted to share a fun game with you, that can be turned into an art project as well. I call this "The Ice Cream Game". I usually use this with a whole group, but it would be fun One On One as well. I cut scoops of ice cream from different colored paper. I cut cherries, sprinkles , Whipped Cream, Chocolate topping, Butter Scotch Topping and so on. I put these all in the middle of the circle. I cut and give out bowls as well. Each player gets a turn ( you can use a dice for older children). I make cards with pictures of either "Toppings" or "ice cream" and each player picks one card when its their turn. The group sings the persons name and says which one will you choose? if the card has ice cream they get to pick one scoop. if it has a topping they have to pass their turn until they get ice cream first. Then they can build their Sun...

Hello Everyone! Today I want to share some fun dinosaur activities with you. I recently did this theme with a group of boys and they loved it! One of the activities that we did was Dino Skeletons! this was very simple and they were really into it. I gave them Popsicle sticks and bendy straws, and I let them glue them on a piece of paper. they then added eyes and to finish it all off they painted over it to give the Dino's skin! they came out really neat looking! this was totally their own creation from start to finish which made it fun to watch! Then I gave me Dino's in goop! I couldn't believe what a big hit this nasty concoction was!  shaving cream and liquid glue. Let it sit before playing and it becomes slime that wont stick to your fingers!! (I had more fun with it after the kids left hehe). they loved stomping in it and making tracks. Lastly we made volcano's. I think this one looks really cool even though it was very simply done.  I let the children fre...

Spring is a great time to get out and explore the great out doors. New flowers and popping up, animals are coming out and things are growing and changing all around us. This makes great opportunities for learning about  nature. A great way to pull nature into your art is by making Textured Caterpillar's, Flowers and Butterflies. This is a lot easier then it sounds, I like to give my friends shapes that look like Caterpillar's (circles) this might mean giving them a bowl with some paint and dipping the bowl into the paint to stamp circles. Then the fun begins. I like to give my friends cut up straws of different colors, tissue paper, confetti if I have it. any kind of art pieces that will be bumpy or textured. Encourage them to fill in the circles they stamped with the pieces and before they know it, they will have a colorful textured Caterpillar's, Flower or butterfly. Now if your going to do a flower, I like to use glue and let my friends either dip the pieces in the glue ...

Hi Everyone, I hope you have gotten a chance to experience the little bit of spring that seems to be surrounding us. This has been a LONG time coming! I wanted to write a little post for you about  "Green". Most times when we think of green, we think of Monsters, Slime and Of course St Patricks day! I would also like to encourage you to think of Spring when you use green this month! Green can be used to make wonderful Flowers/Plants and Even Animals and Bugs. These are some of my favorite things to make this time of year. If you are looking for something fun, I have a really cute activity over there that uses green along with Lots of other fun spring colors.  We made Rainbows In Pots, using Tissue Paper Squares and pot cut outs on paper. You can also use colored paper punches which would be really fun too. I am going to also be posting about a really fun "green" sensory activity. https://www.facebook.com/thecreativecampuspreschool  Stay Tun...

Happy March Everyone!! I am excited to March is finally apon us, although spring is nowhere to be found. I am still excited to celebrate the coming of spring with my friends. I have a really cute activity that I want to share with you. This is the first of many for this month. I made Leprechaun Hat sun catchers. this was very simple and cute to do! I cut a hat from green paper and punched 3 holes spaced apart. Laced string through each hole and tied contact paper strips to each one. I let the children stick shapes and metallic objects on the strips. we used shapes found in lucky charms  cereal. If you would like to see a picture of the finished product, please head over to and like my facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/thecreativecampuspreschool  I post a lot of the things we do there, you will also find other tips and goodies there. if you like my page and send me a comment that you found me through this blog, I will send you all sorts of great free g...

Hello Everyone! It has been a crazy day around here! Snow, then sleet, Then Ice and now Thunder Storms as a Sit here Writing this! I am not going to be with my little friends today, but I wanted to share a fun idea with you anyway. This one is a "clean" art idea that is totally process. I want you to give your children contact paper if you have it. If not regular paper will work but it will just be normal art. give them squares of colored tissue paper and tell them they are going to make a flower, that if its on tissue paper will double as a sun catcher! they will probably need a little help with the first few pieces, I suggest you show them how to play the pieces flat so they stick. Then just let the kids have a good time sticking pieces on their contact paper till their done. now you can either give them a piece of green construction paper for a stem or you can let them make their own with the tissue as well! up to you. I really like this one and I am going to do this wit...

Hello Friends, I hope you had a fun Valentines Day! I wanted to share two things with you today. The first thing is a technique that I used this past week. We made scented paint! this was both a science experiment AND an art project that not only turned out amazingly, but the children all had fun doing as well. I took Tempra Paint and I added half a package of cool aid to the matching color. you have to stir it really well to make sure the powder all gets dissolved ( I didn't stir well enough and it turned into play dough at the bottom). The Science part is... that as you dissolve the powder into the paint, it starts to bubble and foam (looks really cool). The children in my class were all amazed!  THEN the fun art part started! I gave the children heart cookie cutters, and I had them dip into the paint mix, and stamp on paper! WOW were the results pretty! check this out.                I love how the Ko...