Audrey's Last Day

Audrey will be moving to North Carolina next week so today was her last day of preschool. We will miss her and I promised her Mom that I would post these pictures of myself and Mrs. Charlotte! We will miss you Audrey. :)

More Butterfly Stuff

Today our REAL Caterpillers were ready to be moved to their new Butterfly Habitat because they had changed into chrysalids so in like fashion we needed to move the Caterpillars we had made into their own Chyrsalids (aka lunch bags). We'll find out in a week or so if our homemade Caterpillers emerge as butterflies just like the real ones!

St. Patrick's Day

We had a blast with our St. Patrick's Day Party this past Tuesday. We started the day by painting St. Patrick's Day Hats. Then we had a lesson on the history of St. Patrick's day and we learned all about Leprechauns. At snack Time we graphed Lucky Charms Cereal and then ate some apples and fruit dip that had been dyed green by some sneaky little Leprechauns. When our hats had dried we had a St. Patrick's Day parade. For Art we learned about using Green Peppers to make a Shamrock Stamp with paint and during our Outdoor Time we went on a hunt for "Gold" chocolates that our Leprechaun friends had left for us.

Eric Carle Paintings

We have been reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and today we discussed his art work and how he uses watercolor painted paper cut up to create collages that form pictures in his books. During free play time the kids filled paper with water color and we let them dry. At the end of the day they took their paper and cut them up into shapes and then created pictures with the colored paper. It was fun to see the ideas they came up with for the pictures they wanted to create. Some of them I remember were: balls, a rocket ship, leaves, and a whale.

Butterfly Life Cycle

Our second week of March we studied the Life Cyles of Butterflies. The kids were quite excited when our LIVE butterfly larvae arrived at our door during preschool one day. We had to open the package right away so they could see the caterpillars. For our art project we made our own caterpillars out of egg cartons.

Hibernation Celebration

I can't believe this is our last month of Preschool! This month we have been studying animals and insects. Our first week we talked about animals that Hibernate. We focused on bears and on Tuesday we made caves for our bears to hibernate in. On Thursday we had a hibernation celebration. We came to preschool in our jammies and each of the kids got to bring a small stuffed animal to place in their cave. For snack time we made bear biscuits which you can see here. Lots of fun!

Color Day!

At the end of February we decided to throw in a random day focused on Colors. It was a lot of fun to play "I Spy" and learn about Rainbows. We used a flashlight to help the kids understand the concept that you can SEE a rainbow but that you can't hold it because it's just light. I saw a few light bulbs go on as we shined the light into their hands and asked them to try and pick it up. I think the kids most enjoyed our science experiment of Color Mixing. We used playdough to create different colors. The kids started off by recording which colors we were starting with (Red and Yellow) and then they were encouraged to make a "Predicition" about what color it would make when Red and Yellow were mixed together, then they each received two small pieces of each color of playdough and had to mix them together until they saw a new color appear. They were so excited to see the results! We made Orange, Green, and Purple. Very Fun. Just as a note for anyone who may try this at home. We actually didn't have any "RED" playdough but Pink was a great substitute.

Valentines Party

Due to illness we had to cancel preschool the day we were supposed to have our Valentines Party and had to postpone until the week after. The kids were troopers though and still seemed just as excited to celebrate when the time came. They had prepared their own decorated "mailboxes" the week before Valentines Day and were quite creative in their choice of decorations. I think the "Glitter Glue was probably the biggest hit.

It was so fun to see the different Valentines they brought and we ended the day by making Valentines Gifts for our Parents (you will recieve these shortly) and decorating cookies! Fun Fun.

Our Country

I can't believe we are already in February! This month we are studying our Country. This week we learned about some of the Symbols of our Country. We talked a lot about our Flag and what the colors in the flag stand for. On Tuesday we made our own flags. The kids got to practice many different skills. They did a wonderful job using their cutting skills to follow a line and cut red strips of paper to make the stripes on their flags. They used their gluing skills to glue the strips and blue square into place. Then we used q-tips and white paing to make dots to represent the stars on the flag.

Some Vocabulary words we learned this week were:

Bravery

Justice

Freedom

Our letters for the week were Q and R. We practiced drawing Q's. You'll have to ask your child to show you how to do this!

On Thursday we talked about the Penny with Abraham Lincoln's picture on it, and The Quarter with George Washington's picture.

We sang a song to the tune of "London Bridges" to help us remember which president is on the Penny and Quarter.

Who's fine face is on the penny on the penny on the penny

Who's fine face is on the penny, Abraham Lincoln

Who's fine face is on the Quarter on the Quarter on the Quarter

Who's fine face is on the Quarter, George Washington

"Snowy Day" Creations

This Last week at preschool we talked about snow and we read the book "Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. Then we talked about how the author/illustrator created his pictures by making a collage of different colored papers. On Tuesday we watercolored on paper and then on Thursday (after our paintings had dried) I had the kids rip up their papers into small pieces and put them in a community bowl and then they created pictures using the papers they had all painted. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the final products before they all took them home!

And Happy Birthday Ben! We had fun Celebrating Ben's Birthday this last week. :)

Puzzle Making and Letter Writing

The Kids worked really hard this week practicing their letter writing. On Thursday we practiced writing the letter N. We used our white boards and took turns tracing letters in the rice. During this time we also made our own puzzles! I've found that a lot of kids about this age are able to handle a small jigsaw puzzle (although at least in the case of my daughter they still need a lot of guidance). I've found that it's a great opportunity to practice sorting and reasoning skills, as you talk with them about the "edge pieces" the "corner pieces" and the "middle pieces" and then look for clues about where each piece goes.

Ice Waltzing

On Thursday this last week we had a blast doing some "Indoor Ice-Waltzing". This would be a GREAT activity to try at home. We cut out wax paper close to the size of the children's feet and had them take their socks off so that their feet would stick a little better to the wax paper and then we introduced them to the Waltz (compliments of Baby Einstein Playtime Music Box) and encouraged them to move their bodies to the music as they "skated" around the carpet. I don't know how much "Waltzing" we actually got, but this was a wonderful Gross Motor activity and the kids ate it up since we don't get to go outside these days. And it actually works! Mrs. Charlotte and I were surprised how well the paper worked to help you glide around the room and didn't hesitate to particpate ourselves. :)

Back to school.....ICE

We had our first week of Preschool for the Spring Semester. This month we are studying Winter, and our theme for the week: ICE was very appropriate since this last week was the coldest of the year!!!

On Tuesday we had lots of fun with a Science Experiment studying ice, how we get ice, and what happens when the ice gets warm. We had some of our animal friends who had been frozen inside a block of ice and the kids had to find a way to get them out. They made some great observations and hypotheses. Our first idea was to just bang the ice to get them out. We tried this but it wasn't working too well so then we talked about the snow and the ice and outside and what happens to it when it gets warm outside. Their next idea was to stick our ice block outside, but we soon decided that 3 degree weather outside probably wasn't going to do much so finally we talked about warm things we have inside the house, like the oven, the microwave and finally WARM WATER!!! As the kids started pouring water over the ice block they could see a difference immediately and got SO excited. They took turns pouring the warm water and were just thrilled when they freed their friends.