Ocean Fun

We had fun learning about the ocean and the octupus this week! We heard a great story called An Octopus of My Own by Bernard Most.  In this story a child imagines what he could do if he had an octupus for a pet.  We had fun going around the room and sharing what we would do with an octupus for a pet.  The kids came up with some really cute ideas.  It might be fun to ask your child what they'd do if they had a pet octupus!!

We had yummy sea treats that Jonas brought in.  Thanks so much Jonas!!

We painted toilet paper tubes purple and then cut 8 legs and curled the lets.  We put stickers on the bottom to represent tentacles.  We called these our counting octupus because we put 1 sticker on one leg, 2 stickers on the next leg and so on all the way up to 8.  Some of the kids wanted to count all the stickers to see how many there were all together.  Great math activity!!  (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8=??? or any combination of legs, 1+3=, 2+7+)  We wrote some math sentences out together on our white board to introduce the kids to the addition and equal signs.

Mrs. Chyko has been working with the kids at the easle painting fish.  

Knox brought the mystery bag back on Tuesday to share his 3 items.  He gave some really good clues and kept all the kids guessing as to what he brought!  Two of the things he shared were a stuffed baby seal and a lego guy.

We played a new game called "Pass the Ball Around".  We all sat in a circle and passed the ball as music played, then when we heard a tambourine we had to pass the ball the other way!!  The music kept getting faster and faster as we passed the ball this way and that.  When the song was over most of the kids yelled, Can we do it again???"  Of course we did!!  

We used our imagination a lot this week and played another game called "Octopus, May I?"  It's sort of like Simon Says.  I bet the kids would have teaching this game to their parents.  The kids can be the octupus!! 

We watched some fun video clips of a coral reef and real octopi on youtube. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RA61f4Tums4

 We heard a great story called Over in the Coral Reef.  It's a song so we sang it as we read it.  Great way to involve the kids in choral reading!!

Hope you're all enjoying this great weather and that it stays so we can get outside this week!!

Things That Go

We started the week with a new room arrangement in circle time room.  We each have our own carpet square to sit on and we moved our alphabet rug to the reading corner to make it even more comfy for us to when we look through books after snack.  

We were learning about things that go this week so we started out by listing things that move.  We all came up with good ideas and we made a class list.  We had cars, busses, taxis, trains, motorcycles, tractors, airplanes, rockets, bicycles and boats on our list.  

We used shapes to put together a rocket.

We talked about trucks on Wednesday and had fun acting out how different vehicles move with the Wee Sing and Pretend movement CD.  We were motorcycles, airplanes, race cars, and we made a class train that moved around the room.  We talked about the engine and the caboose and the name of some of the cars in between.  We also heard a great book called Freight Train. During activity time we added our names to our rockets with glitter glue and put stars in around the rocket.  We also made a steeting wheel out of a paper plate with Mrs. Chyko.  

Our book shelves are now filled with books about things that move.  We've been learning the names of construction equipment.  So far most of us know excavator, front end loaders, dump trucks and cement mixers.  

We talked about planes onThursday.  We listed things we already knew about planes and came up with a class story.  Here it is. 

 "Planes have wings.  They can fly.  A captain flies the plane and takes us to places safely. Pilots fly planes.  There are different kinds of planes.  I like jets!  Planes bring Grandparents to visit.  A jet is a kind of plane. Planes are loud!" 

Then we heard the story Nicky Visits the Airport. During activity time we made an origami airplane (translated into paper airplanes).  The kids loved making and flying them!!  We also had a dot to dot airplane and a car to trace during activity time as well as a lot of trains, trucks, cars, planes, construction vehicles and trains to play with.  We also added a marble run to the classroom, one more example of things that go!!  (and physics at the preschool level!!)

We also watched several short videos on our ipad about planes, trains and trucks.  I went to youtube and searched transportation for children and a variety of really fun and educational videos came up.  There were some really cute songs with trucks and rockets and cars as well as real life examples of planes, trains and construction equipment.  The kids loved watching them but we only had time to watch a few short clips.  It might be fun for your child to watch a few more at home. Ask them what they can tell you about things that move...they knew a lot!!  

Rainbows and Leprechauns

What a busy week!!  On Tuesday we heard a story called Mouse Paint about mice who dip themselves in paint and the colors get mixed.  We wanted to try it out so we painted red and blue and yellow on a piece of paper. Then we added yellow to red and got orange!  We added yellow to blue  and got green! We put red and blue together and created purple!  

We also heard a really good story about rainbows called What is a Rainbow?   I wonder if the kids remember what the colors in the rainbow are??  We used almond milk, food color and dish soap to try out a rainbow science experiment.  We watched as the colors swirled around and then we put water color paper on top of the colors to create a "milk painting"!!

While half of the kids were doing this with Mrs. Gould the other half were creating fruit loop rainbows with Mrs. Chyko.  After they glued the fruit loops down, and snacked on the fruit loops while they were working, each child counted how many fruit loops were glued down and practiced writing the numeral!! Then the next day we switched activities.

It was in the 40's so we got to go outside and play red light, green light until the mist turned into rain, then we needed to go inside!!

Mrs. Jenkins came in and did hand bells with us during music.  She said it was the best rehearsal we've ever had!!  

Wednesday we talked more about rainbows and Jonas brought in a special rainbow snack for us made out of fresh fruit.  It was delicious, thanks Jonas!!

Liam brought back the mystery bag and we guessed what he had put inside after he gave us some really good clues.  He brought in a stuffed orca whale, a pair of shorts and one more thing.  This week the mystery bag is going home with Mika!  

Today we heard Jack and the Leprechaun and Happy St. Patrick's Day.  As soon as we were finished reading Mrs. Chyko came into circle time and said that she saw a leprechaun run past and she tried to to catch him but he was too quick.  She asked if we wanted to help her catch him.  We went upstairs to look for him and Pastor Franz said he ran right past him into  the santuarty so we looked in there, but no leprechaun. Then we came out into the narthex and found gold that he left for us!!  We each found 4 pieces of gold, meant to bring us each good luck from the leprechaun.  We had 3 extra gold coins so we brought them to Mrs. Diane, Mrs. Candy and Pastor Franz to wish them a Happy St. Patrick's Day!!  

Back downstairs we had a special St. Patrick's Day cupcake sent in by Jonas and his mom.  We loved it, thanks so much!!

We are so lucky to have such great parents supporting what we do at school!!

We played a game called "Leprechaun, Leprechaun, where's your shamrock?"  The kids took turns sneaking up to the leprechaun and quietly taking away the shamrock which was hidden under a blue block!  Next, the leprechaun had to guess who had the shamrock.  All the kids had a chance to be the leprechaun and take the shamrock! We said a special rhyme while we played this game, I wonder if the kids are saying it at home?  (Leprechaun, leprechaun where's your shamrock, somebody took it from under the blue block!!"  

We pulled out the parachute (all the colors in the rainbow) and played some games while we lifted it up and down.  One of our favorites was to put construction paper shamrocks in the center of the parachute and then shake the chute up and down while the shamrocks flew off into the room, then we had to go on a shamrock hunt to find where the shamrocks went!  Of course we pretended that we were leprechauns while we were doing this.  

During activity time the kids worked with Mrs. Chyko to complete a dot-to-dot leprechaun and with Mrs. Gould to decorate a shamrock with stickers.  The stickers were all the colors of the rainbow and some sparkley shamrocks and light green shamrocks.  

Of course we also had lots of time to play (work) with our favorite activities like train sets, mosaics, our interactive world map, babies, kitchen center, coloring, cars, and blocks!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! 

More Artists

We had fun using different techniques as we learned about artists this week.  We put tape on paper in the shape of a bridge and then covered the paper with do-a-dots.  When we pulled the tape away we had Monet's Japaneese Bridge overlooking his water lilies at Giverny!  We read an enchanting book about Monet's Magical Garden before we worked on our project.  

Laurence Anholt has a series of children's books about artists that I highly recommend!  We found France on the map before we read and practiced counting to 10 in French too, just like Monet would have counted!!

We also had a lot of fun playing in a tub of colored beans during activity time.

We acted out A Walk Through the Forest which is a musical adventure about a chipmunk going on a walk through the woods.  During his walk he walks over a waterfall, climbs into a cave, dances with his animal friends and a whole lot more.  All of this is done while different classical pieces are playing in the background!  

We talked about the letter B and the sound it makes.  We all tried writing it on the dry erase board in circle room, great job everyone!!

On Thursday we heard the book called Ish by Peter Reynolds.  It's another great story about children and their art.  Sometimes when we draw it doesn't look exactly like it's supposed to but it looks close to it.  A house might look housish, or a snowman may look snowmanish.  We giggled a bunch when Mrs. Gould drew  things on the white board and we decided what kind of ish they were!!  

We learned about a woman named Helen Frankenthaler who was an artist who lived in New York.  She created a kind of art called colorstaining.  She poured the thinned paint onto canvas and moved it around into various shapes and designs using things other than a paintbrush.  We had to try this out so we poured thinned out red, yellow, blue, and purple paint onto watercolor paper and used spoons, bubble wrap, tissue, cotton balls, sponges, and a roller to move the paint around and create a work of art.  The kids seemed to love this activity becasue they got to see the colors blend and create new colors, add texture to the paint, and create something that looks really cool too!  

We acted out another musical story called The Toy Shop at Midnight.  We were robots, rag dolls, tin soldiers and teddy bears as we moved to this story.  

We finally finished our White Houses.  What a project that was!  First we painted craft sticks white.  Next day we glued a large white rectangle down and added the columns (our craft sticks).  Another day Mrs. Chyko worked with the kids to add the windows and doors to the house.  Finally we added the first family and their dog and we traced on top of the words The White House. Wow, great work everybody!!  

Maple Leaf's approach to current events in preschool!! (in addition we we worked on fine motor skills during the painting, tracing, and glueing, math skills as we counted the windows and craft sticks, reading and writing as we traced the letters and read the words The White House, and vocabulary development as we talked about things like laws, presidents, and the first family).

Can your child find their project?

Artists Week

We read a story today called The Dot by Peter Reynolds.  It's a great story about how anybody can be an artist at any age.  In this story a child didn't think he could draw until his art teacher asked him to put a dot on a piece of paper and sign his name.  He did and the next day she had it framed and hung up in the room.  From then on he drew big dots, small dots, different colored dots, etc.  Here's the link to a video version of the book.  It's only about 3 minutes long, it's one of my favorite books.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mGeR4AQdM

The art project today was making circles on paper using different objects and different colors of paint.  We used legos, cups, lids, and various other containers to dip in paint and stamp all over our paper.  

We brought in snow from outside and put it in the sand table for the kids to play with.  Mrs. Chyko worked with the kids as we are finishing our White House project.  Today the kids learned who lives in the White House right now.  See if they remember the name of the first family including their dog!!

Mrs. Jenkins had the kids up and moving during music class.  I heard them singing a song about Maple Leaf Academy.  Maybe they can sing it to you at home!

Duncan brought back the Mystery Bag today to share with us.  He had a cat toy, a picture of his family and some ninja legos hiding inside the bag.  He gave us some very good clues while we tried to guess what was inside the Mystery Bag??  Thanks Duncan.  On Thursday we'll pick another name from our basket to see who gets it next!!