Rocks

We had fun learning about rocks this week.  On Tuesday we heard the story Everybody Needs a Rock.  We looked at the rock collection I brought in and passed the rocks around.  We observed how the rocks looked, felt, and smelled.  Then it was time to go outside and go on a rock hunt!  We looked all around the church grounds and each of us had to choose just one, very special rock, that we wanted to take home with us.  We had lots of fun doing this!  When we went back inside it was time to celebrate Brooke's birthday!  She brought in ice cream cups with sprinkles that we could mix in if we wanted to.  (Of course everybody wanted to!!) Yum!! We sang "Happy Birthday" to her in English and Spanish! Happy 5th Birthday, Brooke!!

Mrs. Jenkins had us doing the hokey pokey among other things during music time. After music we had activity time.  We finished our houses today...they turned out so cute and the kids enjoyed writing on the inside using the prompt "Home is....."

Wednesday We read another good book about rocks.  This one was called A Rock Can Be...It helped us use our imaginations and get ready to paint some rocks and turn them into various creatures!

Look closely, we've got frogs, bees, lizards, ladybugs and butterflies!

Mrs. Chyko helped us use tooth brushes and water to clean rocks and see what they look like when they are wet.  Some of them got darker and shinier, some didn't change much.  The  kids enjoyed using the tooth brushes to get the rocks clean!!

On Thursday we heard the story If Rocks Could Sing.  We talked about the letter R and it's shape as well as the sound it makes. We each took a piece of black paper and went outside to put rocks around the letter R.  This  helped us become familiar with it's shape even more.  We were making sunprint art, so we left the papers outside to sit in the sun to see what happens!

We  practiced making R's with side chalk too.  Some of us wanted to write our names and make other things with the chalk as well!

We had snack when we came back inside.  We had enough ice cream left over from Brooke's treat on Tuesday to have it again today....yum!  Thanks so much Brooke for sending in such a delicious treat!

After snack we had Mr. Fleming (a Maple Leaf parent from the previous two years) come in and teach us some Spanish.  He'll be coming in on Thursdays about twice a month to work with us on Spanish.  Today he had us practicing how to say "hello" (hola) "good bye" (adios) and "my name is _____",  as well as counting to 10 in Spanish.  The kids really enjoyed this...thanks Mr. Fleming for volunteering your time to come and work with us!!

Many of the ideas for the rock unit came from kidssoup.com a wonderful resource for early childhood educators and parents!

All About Me

This week we talked about ourselves and our families.  On Tuesday we heard the book Clifford's Family.  Then we sat in a circle and all shared pictures of our families.  Each child told the names of the people in their family.  We had music with Mrs. Jenkins today.  She played the guitar and we sang songs that helped us get to know one another's names a little better.  After music it was time to go outside.  We had a bucket full of water and a bunch of paper towels and we all worked together to clean our outside play equipment....then it was time to play!  We had so much fun running around, climbing on the equipment, playing make believe games, and getting to know each other better.  When we went inside we had activity time.  We were busy playing with sand, trains, play dough, blocks, cars, and finishing our fingerpainting! 

Here are just a few of the fingerpaintings.  First the kids painted on paper and then we put another piece on top of their work to make a print.

We used cheerios and glue last week to write our names.  Matthew was so excited that he took his home and so it didn't make it in the picture!

On Wednesday we were talking about our homes.  We read the book Who's Behind the Door at My House?  Then we went around the circle and took turns sharing pictures of our houses.  We talked about the color of our houses and who lived inside.  During activity time we started making a house out of construction paper that looks like the house we live in.  We can open it up and see who lives inside!  The kids had a lot of fun with this project and wanted to take their time working on it.  I thought we'd finish it in a day but we're going to need another day or two before everyone is done!

Here's a sample of what the houses look like that the kids are creating.  

Today was another beautiful September day so we made sure to have plenty of time outside to run around and play!

We had our first birthday celebration on Thursday!  Caden had an August birthday and he wanted to celebrate it with his friends at school.  He brought in a delicious birthday treat of rice krispie treats dipped in chocolate and sprinkles!  Yum!!  He even helped make the treat with his mom.  

We sang Happy Birthday to Caden in English and then Mrs. Chyko taught us how to sing Happy Birthday in Spanish!  Here are the lyrics.  It might be fun to practice singing this version at home with your kids.  We're planning to sing it (along with the english version) each time we celebrate a birthday at school.

Feliz cumpleaños a ti

feliz cumpleaños a ti
feliz cumpleaños querido/a(name)
feliz cumpleaños a ti.

It's sung to the same melody as Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Caden!  Thanks for the yummy treats!!

We try to incorporate music as much as we can at school.  In addition to  Happy Birthday, we have learned a Clean up Song, Good Morning Song, Time for our Snack Song, Days of the Week Song and Good Bye Song!  I hope the kids have been singing some of them at home for you!!

 It was such a beautiful day we had to take advantage of the weather so we went for a walk to Wildwood Park.  

We had a great week at school!!

Welcome Back

It was great to see everyone this week!  "Meet the Class Day" is always a fun event and a great way to transition into the school year.  Thanks parents for your support with this and for turning in all the needed paperwork.

Wednesday we read the book Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood.  During activity time we filled in a story based on this book.  The  pattern was I'm as ______ as a ________.  The kids had great ideas as we filled in the blanks! 

 We played several games to help us get to know one another.   The unanimous favorite was "hot potato".  We passed around a potato and whenever the music stopped, whoever was holding the potato had to shout out their name. Then the kids had a chance to go around the circle and try to say everyone's names.  Hopefully by the end of September we'll all know one another's name!

Thursday we heard several stories about preschool.  We heard Maisy Goes to Preschool and Spot Goes to School.  It was rainy outside so we did movement inside.  We listened to the song "Animal Action" by Greg and Steve and acted out all the different animals.  Your kids may show you how they pretended to be frogs, elephants, monkeys and snakes among other things!! During activity time the kids finger-painted with Mrs. Chyko and wrote their names using glue and cheerios with Mrs. Gould.

 We met our pet frogs today.  We've come up with some ideas but haven’t voted on them yet.  Next week we'll name our frogs!

Fun Week

It's so hard to believe that the school year is over!!  It went by so quickly!  We had a lot of fun our last week of school.  We sent home our flower paintings as well as our sunflowers and zinnias that we planted.

We celebrated Ava's birthday with popsicles and ice cream!

We had our class celebration at the park...

and we took a final picture by our "adopted" tree.

We made an art project based on Kandinsky's artwork.  Here's the original....

and here's our try at it.....

In 2012, a Kandinsky painting sold at auction for $23 million dollars...you might want to hang onto this artwork....you never know....

We also enjoyed watching our lady bugs all week.  They changed from pupae into lady bugs.  We soaked raisins in water for 5 minutes and then dropped them into "Ladybug Land" for the adult ladybugs to eat.  At the end of the week we released our ladybugs.  Hopefully they'll help keep the area around Maple Leaf free from aphids!

Here is the link to one of the kids favorite songs: The Dinosaur Dance....they may want to sing along with it at home and show you the dance again!!

https://youtu.be/XqE-tkd6DOI

I asked all the kids what they liked best about preschool and we wrote a story.  Here is what we wrote:

Our Favorite Parts of Preschool

Jayme's favorite was painting.

Ava's favorite was playing with sand.

Tori's favorite was all of the books.

Charlie's favorite was the sand.

Mika's favorite was watching the ladybugs.

Brooke's favorite was painting our hands.

Knox's favorite was show and tell and bringing in his ant farm.

Parker's favorite was building with blocks.

Emma's favorite was watching the ants.

Caden's favorite was practicing our songs.

Zoefii's favorite was playing in the sand.

Naomi's favorite was singing our songs.

Carter's favorite was playing with legos.

It has been a wonderful year and a joy to work with all the children and their families...have a wonderful summer...Joan and I will miss all of you!

Spring Sing

We practiced in the sanctuary for our spring sing on Tuesday and Wednesday and then on Thursday it was time for the big show!  The kids were so excited and couldn't wait to perform for their family and friends!  

Introductions...My name is ______ and I like__________.

If you're wearing _________today lets stand and shout "hurray!!"

"Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun, Please shine down on me!!"

Zippity Do Da Zippity ....where did my kazoo go???

Oh here it is....

The kids did a FANTASTIC job.  Thanks parents for all the support and help with refreshments afterwards!  

Mom's, Dad's, Ladybugs, and Outdoor Games!

This was a great week!  Ava was our "Maple Leaf of the Week."  She brought in a poster board filled with pictures and artwork and told us all about it during circle time. 

I had sent away for some ladybugs from Insect Lore (for us to watch during our insect unit) and they finally came!  During circle time we poured the ladybug larvae into our Ladybug Land container...the kids were so fascinated with this and sooo excited!!

We learned some great vocabulary...larvae, pupa, metamorphosis!!  Then we heard some great stories about Moms and Dads.  It's always fun to make presents for Mother's Day but since we aren't in school in June, we wanted to celebrate Father's Day too...so we did a combined gift and card.  It is so sweet listening to the kids talk about their parents and how much they love them.  We went around the circle and shared things that we love about our Moms and our Dads.  

Last week we traced our hands on contact paper and put them on canvas. This  week we painted over the entire canvas and then pulled the contact paper off when the paint was dry.  We were left with really cool images of our hands to give to our parents as a gift!

It was Charlie's birthday on Wednesday.  He brought in shark cupcakes....homemade by G.G. ...delicious!  We had fun trying to identify what kind of shark everyone got on their cupcake!  Thanks Charlie!!

Of course we had to sing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday boy!

Thursday  we wrapped our Mother's Day/Father's Day gifts and finished our cards.  Then Ava's mom came in with ice cream for our snack..yum!!  We got to pick if we wanted vanilla or chocolate.  We went outside and jumped rope and blew bubbles when we were finished eating!

We even got to take our jumprope and bubbles home with us...thank you, Ava!!

Finally we went inside and heard a story.  

Thanks Ava and Melissa for such a great day!!

Planting

We heard several stories about how plants grow this week.  We started the week by making a word map of what we  know about seeds.

Every child had their own line to tell us what they know about seeds!

Next we read the book Seeds, Soil, Sun.  Then we opened up pea pods and found little peas on the inside.  We learned that the peas are actually seeds so we wanted to try and see if they would grow. We took dried seeds and put them on contact paper, put paper towel on top, sprayed the paper towel and attached the contact paper to the window.  We taped around the edges to make sure the water didn't evaporate.  We've been watching it each day to see what happens!

We had pea pods for snack on Tuesday.  The kids had fun opening the pea pods and counting the peas that were inside.  It was fun to see the difference in the pea sizes as well!

It was a beautiful day so we went outside to play.  We  saw some signs of spring too!

Look closely to see the birds nest in the corner!  We've seen birds flying in and out of the nest so we're guessing that there are eggs inside the nest!

The bulbs that we planted at the beginning of the school year are growing!

It's so great to be able to get outside and play again!!

Wednesday and Thursday were planting days.  We heard the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and 

then it was time to plant our own seeds!  We watched a short video first, before we planted.  Here's the link!  I bet the kids would love to watch it again at home!  

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCsQtwIwAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdrBdvxtauoM&ei=32xGVf7gGYObNvO9gGA&usg=AFQjCNELNPlpsvbXjXQj2prs95wr9tb_UQ&sig2=23p4n2KpgST66lSdZoObbQ&bvm=bv.92291466,d.eXY

We went outside and scooped dirt into cups.  We each planted 2 zinnia seeds and 2 sunflower seeds. They're sitting on the windowsill in our classroom.  

It will be fun to watch them grow!

What a beautiful display of butterflies!!

We worked on the letter "P" this week.  We made p's on purple paper!  (And planted seeds in pots!)

Friday was May Day and we each made a May Day basket.  We had a lot of fun playing outside too!