A teacher shares.....

Thanks for your ideas. I just want to share an activity that I do in my classroom with matching mittens which is inexpensive. I like using recyclable materials and I seek for free materials. Around this time of the year painting stores, interior designing department at Home Depot/Lowes normally throw away discontinued wall paper and they are great to make mittens/boots for matching games. My children love this game. It also works for matching socks.

I also use holiday wrapping paper as well as holiday cards to make games for the classroom. I bought a wrapping paper with snowmen standing in a row with different hats and scarves with the left over paper I made a patterning game and a matching game. After Christmas I ask parents for their Holidays cards and if I cannot get any from the parents I buy inexpensive holiday cards with winter scenery to make winter puzzles for each child to take home. I ask children to choose one card, to glue the front to the back, draw a line on the from corner to corner then cut on the line. Then children will connect the pieces together to form their own puzzles. This a hit for they can take it home and they can do their puzzle over and over again.

Contributed by Luz Tsiralidis; William Pitt Development Center School Readiness Program