Hot Coco Activities

Here are some of the other hot coco related activities we did this week that I don’t have photos for.
We made marshmallow sculptures using different sized marshmallows and toothpicks.
The kids made snowmen, sharks, flowers, houses, towers etc. The kids took them all home before I could get pictures.

We did pretend marshmallow counting. Cups were labeled with numbers one through ten. The children had to put the right number of cotton balls into each cup. Since we have kids of different ages, this is simply set out as a center and those who are able to complete this activity do it and those who have no interest or aren’t ready don’t.

We did the sensory coco powder and flour mixture. The children used spoons and measuring cups for pouring.

Some of the kids decorated their own hot chocolate mugs. We had a few different coloring pages for them to choose from.
They colored with markers or crayons and then glued cotton balls for marshmallows.

We did a hot coco taste test with hot chocolate, marshmallows or whipped cream and then made a chart showing how many liked marshmallows and how many liked whipped cream. Only one child liked whipped cream while everyone else liked marshmallows.

To end our week, we had frozen coco popsicles. Some had marshmallows frozen inside and others were plain. The problem was that we forgot to put the popsicle sticks in them so they were ice cubes instead, but the kids said they were good. Next time, we will definitely add the sticks.

Hot Coco Puff Paint

I made coco puff paint, but I didn’t exactly measure my ingredients. Actually, I don’t know if it will turn out like puff paint, but I thought it would be interesting for the kids.
First, I used probably about a cup of glue.
Next, I added two or three squirts of shaving cream.
I mixed well and added three t-spoons of coco powder and mixed again until the whole mixture was brown.
It was the consistency of pudding.




We used the paint in the afternoon. Here are some of the paintings. Some of them were sharks, snowmen, houses etc. The kids were involved in painting their creations for at least fifteen minutes. Some kids did more than one.




Update: When the paint dried, it wasn't very puffy, but it had a smooth texture.

Hot Coco Activity Box

This activity was inspired by the hot coco activity box created by Deborah Teachpreschool.
I used three small brown paper bags which I shredded for hot chocolate, cotton balls for marshmallows and spoons and paper cups for scooping and pouring.
The next day, we added measuring cups and spoons for a slightly different experience.






The kids enjoyed scooping and pouring the pretend coco and marshmallows. We had the activity available to them for most of the week. We also had a bucket of coco and flour mixed together as a sensory activity, but our younger kids decided that the pretend coco and the real coco should be mixed together. Needless to say, we ended up with a big mess, but they had a lot of fun!

Hot Coco Play-dough

This week, our theme is hot chocolate. I have a few posts planned for showing what we have done. The first thing is I made hot coco play-dough. The recipe I used can be found here. It smelled like brownies while it was cooking and it still has a strong coco scent. The only thing I did differently was add a few drops of glycerin and another spoon full of coco powder.


I added a special surprise inside. I found marble sized white beads to use as marshmallows.



The kids have really liked playing with these. The challenge is not losing them. The play-dough was a success! I’m sure we’ll be using it until it dries out.

Mitten Madness

Winter clothing has been our theme for the week. The kids decorated paper hats and painted pairs of mittens. We made these mittens by tracing two mitten shapes onto a piece of construction paper. Then the kids put some paint on each mitten and folded the paper in half. Then spread the paint around with their fingers which made the mittens look almost identical.




Later in the day after they dried, one of the teachers cut them out and hung them up on a piece of string to make it look like a clothes line. We called it, “Mitten Madness.” When the kids woke up, they were surprised to look up and see their mittens above them.



The one thing I’d change about this activity is next time, have the older children try to cut out their own mittens. They could also help with the hole punching and pulling the string through. I think it’s important that the kids are able to do all aspects of their projects either on their own or with some assistance. If the teachers have to do most of the work, then it’s not age appropriate and we have to adapt the original activity or rethink it altogether.

Teriffic Snowballs

On Friday, I was working with one of the toddlers who is moving up to the preschool next week. This past week, he has been spending the mornings in the preschool room and then going back to the toddler room. Unfortunately, their schedules conflict so he hardly had any outside time. It was exciting for the kids on Friday because it had snowed really for the first time this winter. It was the first time they could actually play in the snow so we decided to take him out with the toddlers. We spent an hour out there just playing. At one point, I decided to make a snowball. B got very excited and wanted to carry the snowball around with him the whole time even while he was on the swing. I wanted him to hold on to the swing so I offered to hold the snowball. Then we talked about how the snowball might melt a little bit in my hand. When he was done swinging, we noticed that the snowball had gotten smaller so we added more snow to make it bigger. When it was time to go in, he threw it and watched it fall apart.

Some other things we did in the snow were follow each other’s footprints, brush the snow off all the picnic tables and drive trucks in the snow. I think every toddler and preschooler ate some of the snow too.

Later that afternoon, we went back outside and since there weren’t that many kids, the toddlers and preschoolers were together. B was there and wanted me to make another snowball, but he wanted it bigger this time. I found some clean snow on the roof of one of the houses and made him a snowball which he carried around until his dad got there. While I was making his snowball, the preschoolers became interested in what I was doing and they wanted me to make snowballs for them. After I started making them, I realized they were throwing them at my co teacher. We laughed when she realized I was the one making them. She didn’t mind the snowball fight so we kept making them until it was time to go inside. When B’s dad came, B decided to give his snowball to one of the preschoolers to throw. Once we got inside, S who is one of the new preschoolers I work with said, “You made terrific snowballs!” That’s what she talked about for the rest of the afternoon and even told her dad all about it. I was glad to be apart of something that they really enjoyed and that they finally got some real play time outside.

Wintery Vanilla Play-dough

I finally had the chance to make homemade play-dough. It came out pretty well I think, but we’ll see how the kids like it. I got inspiration and the recipe from the Imagination Tree. She has so many great ideas and the recipe works well. The only things I added for this batch of play-dough were some glitter for sparkle and vanilla extract for scent. This will be apart of our snow and snowmen theme. I wanted the play-dough to stay mostly white plus the sparkles, but the vanilla discolored the play-dough a bit. It’s okay though because I wanted the scent there. It will be something different for the kids since all they’ve had for a while are the tiny tubs of play-dough from Walmart. I have so many more play-dough ideas that I want to share throughout the upcoming months.

Transferring Snowballs Tray Activity

I saw a similar activity on this post by Tot Play and I wanted to set up a similar activity of my own. I’ve seen similar ideas on other blogs too, but I first saw it on Tot Play so that’s the post I’m referencing.

I decided to set it up as a tray activity. I put the tongs and shovel at the top, the snowman tin on the left and on the right; I arranged the three bowls from largest at the top to smallest on the bottom. I took a course on tray activities once and it said to set up the tray as you would when you are reading. What they mean is have the very first thing the child will pick up at the top and then have the rest of the activity move from left to right as they work their way from top to bottom. They explained it better than I can, but I hope that makes sense. Since this was the largest tray I had and it still wasn’t big enough, I set it up as close as I could to that format. The snowman tin was a little too big for the tray, but I thought it was cute for the theme.

This is a great activity for fine motor skills. I started with the snowman tin closed.



Next the tin was opened and there were the assortment of snowballs. I used cotton balls, pompoms, marshmallows, beads and paper balls. The three bowls were supposed to correspond to the size of the snowball. The cotton and paper balls were for the large bowl, the marshmallows and medium sized pompoms were for the medium bowl and the beads and tiny pompoms were for the small measuring cup. The kids might decide though that some of the pompoms would work better in the larger bowl and that’s okay. They might also decide to sort them in a different way and do what makes sense to them. I included the tongs and shovel in case one or the other would be too challenging for some reason or just so they can have a choice of which object to use.





Finally, some extensions of this activity would be to make patterns with the snowballs. How many different patterns can you make? They can be sorted in a line from largest to smallest or smallest to largest. Each type of snowball can be counted and sorted. How many beads, cotton balls etc? For children who are a little bit older, you can use the snowballs to work on simple addition or subtraction problems. They can also transfer the snowballs back and forth between the bowls or pour a full bowl of snowballs into an empty bowl. How many snowballs does it take to fill up the large bowl? How many snowballs does it take to fill up the small measuring cup? How many more snowballs do you have to use to fill up the bowl if they are smaller? What other objects around the house can we use for snowballs? If you have snow outside, you can spend some time outside making different sized snowballs and doing some sorting, patterning and counting and making different sized snowmen or snow structures. Either way, playing with snow and snowballs is always fun!

Hot Coco Craft

For this hot coco craft you will need:

1 Styrofoam or paper cup,
1 Brown paper lunch bag,
Coco powder or hot chocolate packet,
Cotton balls,
Glue
And scissors.

I started off with a plain white Styrofoam cup. Then I cut up pieces of the paper bag and glued a small piece into the bottom of the cup.


Next, I took larger strips of the paper bag and glued it around the inside of the cup so that all the white was covered.


I thought painting with a coco powder and water mix was a good idea, but all it did was make everything wet and the glue wasn’t sticking.


Luckily, I didn’t do this for very long and was still able to do the next part of the project. I decided to just spread some glue around the inside of the cup on the sides and the bottom. Then I sprinkled some coco powder in the cup and swirled it around. It made the cup smell like chocolate and made it look more realistic.

The coco powder and water painting might work well for scented water colors. I only used maybe half a t-spoon of coco powder and mixed it in a small bowl of water. I might have used half a cup.



Finally, I added some cotton balls as marshmallows by gluing them to the bottom and edge of the cup. I only put one on the bottom and two on the top, but would’ve put more if I had a larger cup. You could also use real marshmallows as well.





This came out pretty well and only took about fifteen minutes including the time it took to gather the materials. I’ve seen a few different hot chocolate activities on the blogs lately, but wanted to do my own version of one. Plus I wanted to try a hot chocolate craft with the kids and after trying this myself, I think it would work well. I’ve learned after one planning disaster that it always is better to test the activity yourself first especially if it’s an arts and crafts activity.

Exploring Ice Sensory Tub

First, I filled the ice cube tray with water and put in random small objects so they would freeze in the ice cubes. I used a piece of a straw, round bead, sparkly heart, a penny, dice, round stones, a button, a shiny star, a pompom and two marshmallows. The marshmallows didn’t freeze, but the pompom was frozen even in the middle because it absorbed the water. For the four empty spaces in the tray, I added drops of food coloring. I overfilled some of the spaces and the colors started to spill over into the other spaces and mix before the cubes froze.
I took two silicone cupcake holders and made cupcake shaped ice cubes. It was one of my favorite parts of the tub and now I’m looking for other things around the house that would be neat to put water in and freeze. I also included ice cubes shaped liked hearts.






After everything was frozen, I put all the ice cubes into the tub with some sponges, cups, funnels, a spatula with points, straws, eye droppers, a turkey baster, a shovel, a paint brush and q-tips to explore the ice with. They can find treasures within the ice cubes, look at mixing colors, experience the ice melting and play with the water.

Snowflake patterning

I’ve found these different colored snowflake pictures on Google Images to use for sorting and patterning. You can print out two or three copies of each picture cut them out and laminate them for sorting and patterning cards.
There are three patterns below as examples, but they can be arranged however the kids want. Patterning cards are good for beginners to learn the simple A B pattern, but they can be used for more complicated patterns as well. These can also be used as matching cards or to simply learn about colors. You could also find additional pictures of snowflakes that have different characteristics to pattern and sort with.