Graduation

We had lots of fun the last two weeks of preschool.  We worked on reading books about our Dads and making presents for them for Father's Day.  We heard the stories Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer, and My Dad the Magnificent by Kristy Parker..  We learned a song that helped us spell Daddy, it goes to the tune of Bingo but uses the letters D-A-D-D-Y instead.

After we sang the Daddy song in class (I had the letters up on the board as we sang it) some of the kids wanted to draw pictures of themselves with their Dads.  On their own, they spelled their name and Daddy!!

One of the highlights of working with young children is watching them discover the joy of writing letters...so impressive to see them do it on their own with sidewalk chalk....wow! 

When we arrived at school on Tuesday all of our sunflower seeds were growing and our butterflies had emerged from their chrysalis.  Such excitement!!  We took the butterflies outside and let them go after snack.  Then we had a chance to run around for a while as well!

We had our final extended day this past week and went on a lovely spring walk.  We noticed all the flowers on the trees were coming out and enjoyed looking for flowers we knew as well.  We found daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths.

Our preschool sing/graduation was another highlight of the week.  All of the kids did such a nice job in the program...I will miss them...it's been a terrific year!

Observing our sunflower seeds!

Practicing for the sing with Heidi. 

Our butterflies as we found them when we came to school on Tuesday.  Notice the empty chrysalis's at the bottom of the garden. 

Letting the butterflies go!

One butterfly landed near us on the ground. 

One of our painted ladies!!

Going on a spring walk during extended day. 

We had fun playing with cherry scented play dough!

The 2019 Graduating Class of Maple Leaf Preschool!!  What a good looking group!!

Moms

This week we heard lots of good stories about Moms.  We read Five Minutes Peace, All In One Piece both by Jill Murphy as well as Blueberries for Sal, a Caldecott winner from 1949, and My Mom is Fantastic.  During circle time, the kids shared with each other things they love about their moms.  Some of the things they said were, "I love playing with my mom", "My mom makes the best macaroni and cheese," "I like it when my mom takes me to the park," and "sometimes my mom buys me ice cream...my favorite is cotton candy!!"

We had fun making a special gift and card for our fantastic moms!

Graham was our Maple Leaf this week.  He shared his poster with us on Tuesday and on Wednesday his mom, two big sisters and his dog, Humphrey, came for a visit.  His sisters and his mom each read us a story.  We had a chance to pet Humphrey and he showed us how he can shake!  Thanks Graham for helping to make our week extra special!

Listening to one of Graham's favorite stories with his sisters, mom and Humphrey!!

Happy Mother's Day!!  The kids all picked the color background they wanted and painted it, then they picked the color flowers they thought their Mom would like the best, finally they added stems and leaves to their masterpieces!!  

Joan helped the kids make Mother's Day cards.

A special treat that Graham brought in for his Maple Leaf week.  Yum....and so pretty too...thanks Graham!!

Preschool STEM activity...creating patterns and designs with pegs.

Morning activity time...it's so cool to see the kids taking turns and playing games all by themselves, they are playing Zitternix (colored sticks) and a color matching game. 

We definitely have some future engineers in our class!!

It rained this week so we did indoor movement instead.  Here we are playing the Beanie Bag Dance.  

flowers

We talked about seeds and flowers this week.  We learned that seeds need dirt, water and sun to grow.  We read several books about seeds including The Little Seed by Eric Carle and Clifford Plants a Garden by Norman Bridwell.  We had fun planting our own sunflower seeds on Tuesday and are excited to watch them grow and see how big they get!  

 The Garden Song is one of Mrs. Gould's favorite songs.... this video helped us learn it. (click on the link)

We're still watching our caterpillars daily.  They've nearly doubled in size since we first observed them last week!

Our butterfly squish art projects.

So beautiful!! 

The kids loved opening up their paper to see what their butterfly looked like!!

Of course we can't have butterflies without caterpillars!!

Lauren was our birthday girl and our Maple Leaf of The Week.  On Tuesday Lauren brought in birthday cupcakes in a cone to share with her friends.  Yum, what a delicious and pretty treat!!

We had fun adding the m and m's to the top of our cupcakes!!

Happy Birthday, Lauren!! 

It was a rainy week so we did movement inside.  We pretended to be caterpillars and turned into butterflies among other things!! 

Lauren's mom came to visit our class on Thursday.  She read us a delightful book about a dancing giraffe!  

Then, we created our own dancing giraffes.

Thanks Lauren for helping make our week so special!!  

Lauren brought in giraffe treats too!  They were delicious and so cute!!