Sponge Painted Christmas Trees

In preparation for our Christmas Program coming up, we have been talking this month about the Symbols of Christmas. Today's symbol was the Christmas Tree and we discussed how it's a symbol of everlasting life because it's needles point upwards and it stays green all the time. Then for our art project the kids got to decorate their own Christmas Tree using a sponge painting technique. It was a fun activity and the kids were very creative with their pictures. I always love to see their interpretation of things.

We are Thankful!

We celebrated Thanksgiving a little early at Preschool by having a Pilgrims Thanksgiving Feast Complete with things Pilgrims may have actually eaten like Turkey, Grapes, and Carrots. Apparentally they would not have had potatoes or rolls! We attempted to make clothes like the pilgrims wore however I'm not sure because of the pattern I chose that anyone would be able to tell what we were going for here and the poor kids were dying to take their "Pilgrim Collars" off before eating, but they were good sports and at least let me take a picture of them first! Then at the end of the day we made a thankful tree using our hand cut outs with the things we were thankful for written on them.

Dinosaur Dig!

While studying Dinosaurs in November we talked about Palentologists and Archeologists so we pretended that we were digging for Dinosaur bones today. Each child had their own bowl of rice with some (paper) dinosaur bones in them and they used paint brushes to uncover/dig for the bones because we discussed how the bones are so old that they are fragile sometimes and how the paint brush is soft and how Archeologists use brushes rather then shovels to uncover the bones since it's more gentle. The kids were very excited about finding the bones. And then once they had found all 4 bones they had to reconstruct the dinosaur on paper. We got a few interesting variations and I loved the dinosaur faces the kids were trying to make while I took their picture.

I is for Ice Cream!!!

Today was a fun day at Preschool. We got to celebrate Theo's 3rd Birthday and enjoyed some yummy chocolate cake that he brought to share with the class during snack time. The letter of the week is "I" so today we had a blast making our own icecream. The kids really enjoyed getting to add the ingredients themeselves and shake the bag.

Here is the recipe if you would like to try it at home.

Large Ziplock bag

Small Ziplock bag

3 cups of ice

6 tbsp of ice

1/2 cup of whole milk

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

Add milk sugar and vanilla together in the small zip lock bag. Zip tight and place larger zip lock bag with the ice and salt around it.

Shake.....Shake.....Shake........

We are the Dinosaurs

Our Theme for November is Dinosaurs. We kicked off the month with a visit from "Timmy the Triceratops" (You'll have to ask your kids about this) who was a big hit and we danced like dinosaurs to the song "We are the Dinosaurs" during music time. During free play time the kids got to dig for dinosaurs and we also learned the ASL sign for Dinosaur. You'll have to ask your child if they remember this!

For Art today we studied the art work of Henry Matisse specifically his piece of art using pieces of colored paper grouped together to look like a snail. The kids had fun cutting out their own shapes to make their own creations. It was fun to see how different they all looked.

Halloween Party

Our Halloween Party was lots of fun. It was great to see all the kids in their costumes and they were all so proud. We had lots of princesses, a few Superhereos, one scary Monster and a duck and a Bee! The kids had fun decorating their own treat bag and then filling them with treats that they each brought to share. Then they counted pumpkin seeds that we had pulled out of our pumpkins on Tuesday.

Pumpkin Seeds

We've been talking all month about seeds and things that grow and the kids have been really interested in opening things up to see the seeds inside. Using the pumpkins we picked from the pumpkin patch we tried to collect as many seeds from our pumpkins as we could. The kids weren't so sure about the idea of getting their hands all gooey and messy (which actually surprised me a little bit) but after giving them some spoons to help in the process they eventually all got into it!

Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

At the end of October we had our first Field Trip!!! And we had a blast. Thanks to a nice 15 passenger Van, 8 car seats, parents willing to brave the cloudy weather and get their kids up a little earlier than usual everything came together wonderfully. As we had been studying things that grow all month and had been focusing on pumpkins this particular week a trip to the Pumpkin Patch was a great fit. In addition to taking a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch where the kids go to pick their own pumpkin, we also got to visit a petting zoo, and walk through the Corn Maze. We were all muddy when we returned but I think everyone had a great time.

Happy Birthday Kori

We always have fun getting to celebrate a Birthday in our class! We got to celebrate Kori's 3rd Birthday in the month of October. She brought some fun cupcakes to share with the class during snack time. Fun fun!

Geogia O'Keefe Interpretations

In the Month of October our Theme was "Things that Grow" During the week that we studied Flowers we studied the artist Georgia O'Keefe. We looked at some of her paintings of flowers and the kids got to use watercolor paint to do their own interpretation of a Flower. They got to look at some real flowers we had in the classroom as a model and this is how they turned out.

Unfortunately we had lots of kids sick this day and ended up with only four of us!