Dr. Seuss

We had fun talking about Dr. Seuss this week!  During show and tell we shared our favorite Dr. Seuss book or another favorite book.  The kids had fun going around in a circle and telling us the title of their favorite book and a little bit about the book.  Then we read the book Are You My Mother? by Dr. Seuss.  On Wednesday we heard Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss.  We had a lot of fun counting the apples as we read!

Sharing our books at show and tell.

Bree was our Maple Leaf of the Week as well as our birthday girl this week!!  Her mom came in for a class visit and read us one of Bree's favorite books....Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes by Kimberly and James Dean.  She also brought in a special birthday treat to share with us!

Counting along with Bree's mom as we tried to figure out who took Pete's cupcakes?  

Listening and moving to a cd.  We're doing the Beanie Bag Dance!

Our completed dinosaur footprints!!  

A super delicious cookie cake...yum!!  Thanks Bree for helping make our week so special!

Dinosaurs

We spent the week reading stories about dinosaurs, hearing songs about dinosaurs, making dinosaur puzzles, making dinosaur fossils, and playing with dinosaurs!  One song the kids enjoyed moving to was The Dinosaur Dance.  Some of the books we heard include Curious George and the Dinosaur Discovery, Bones, Bones,Bones, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Daniel's Dinosaurs, and The Dinosaur Egg Mystery.  We had fun naming the dinosaurs and discussing "meat eaters" and "plant eaters".  We traced our feet and turned them into dinosaur footprints and we named our dinosaur!! We also used play dough to make dinosaur fossils!

The kids are building some complicated designs!

Creating word puzzles.

Housekeeping Center is always a favorite activity!

Our dinosaur sand play.

Christy Piepkorn had the idea to create these beautiful Valentine projects.  Thanks to Christy for organizing and creating the whole thing!!  The kids painted the canvas during our Valentine Party last week.  What a wonderful keepsake!

After snack, we had lots of dinosaur books for the kids to look through!

 Before reading any books, the kids told me what they already knew about dinosaurs on Tuesday.  I listed their ideas on the white board!

William was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  He sent in these delicious, beautiful, homemade dinosaur cookies for a special snack.  Thanks William, they were sooooo good!!

Creating dinosaur fossils with play dough!

A special highlight of the week was meeting William's dog Chief.  He did tricks for us and we all got to pet him! We also watched him chase a ball!

William and his Dad told us Chief is a Golden Retriever puppy who is 14 weeks old.  We let him run around our classroom but he kept wanting to go into the kitchen!!  We thought that was so funny!!  We loved having him visit!

Thank you William for helping make our week so very special!!

Valentine's Day

We had fun hearing stories about Valentine's Day this week as well as playing the game "Doggy, Doggy, Where's Your Heart?"  One of the kids favorite books was My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall.  On Wednesday, after we read the story, the kids were able to choose an animal that they'd like to create out of hearts.  We had heart frogs, unicorns, and dogs!  If you want to make heart animals at home here's the link to the story! My Heart is Like a Zoo

The highlight of the week was our Valentine's Day Party!  In addition to this Allison was born on Valentine's Day so we celebrated her birthday as well!

Thank you parents for sending in such wonderful items for our party!  

Special thanks to all the moms who came in and set everything out so beautifully! 

Singing Happy Birthday to Allison.  We had an ice cream sundae bar for a special treat!

Making heart suncatchers!

Painting a background on canvas!

Playing Valentine Darts using sticky heart darts!

Putting balls in and out of baskets with spoons!

We needed to wipe our hands when we were done painting!

Playing a pin the tail valentine game!

Stacking candy hearts!

Our Valentine bags and cups filled with goodies.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Maple Leaf of the Week

We started Maple Leaf of the Week last week but with school being closed due to the cold we fit in two Maple Leaves as well as a birthday this week!  It made our week extra fun! In addition we learned about The Chinese New Year celebration.  We also heard some books about Valentine's Day, made our Valentine's Day Bags, had music with Mrs. Jenkins, and made rubbings of animal footprints!   Mrs. Chyko has been teaching the kids how to play hopscotch on a Melissa and Doug rug. 

Violet was Maple Leaf this week and she celebrated her birthday on February 6th!

Violet's Dad came in to help celebrate her birthday/Maple Leaf Week.  He read us 2 stories about Mermaids!  We made an under the sea project with stickers and smelly markers as well as using beads to make super cool necklaces.  We also had fun listening to the music from Little Mermaid while we were making our projects!

Working on our sea project!

Parker was our Maple Leaf last week.  His mom was planning to come to school to celebrate last Thursday but we were closed due to the cold.  She came in this Thursday instead.  We learned that Parker's favorite story is Pigeon Takes a Bath.  We all loved hearing the story!

Then we got to make our very own Pigeon Projects to take home!! 

Our finished Polar Bears from our arctic animal unit!!

 Thank you Violet and Parker for helping to make our week extra special!!

Fun with Snow

It finally feels like wintertime in Wisconsin!!  We've had lots of fun learning about snow, snowmen, and polar animals!

These are the ingredients we used to make snow slime!!  We also added a little purple glitter glue to see what happened!

Preschool Science....Mixing up the slime!

The texture kept getting thicker.  All the kids had a turn to help mix the slime!

At last, slime!!

Our wall is now filled with the kids art!  

Another day we mixed glue and shaving cream together to create a puffy snow paint!

Our finished snowmen!! We have the best artists in our class!!

Some fresh activities for the kids include duplos, Weebles, and the sand tub has now filled with arctic animals, igloos, and snow!! (mashed potato flakes) 

Pajama day was a hit with a super yummy snack...cucumbers, carrots, apple slices and cinnamon graham crackers!!

After snack we put on our winter clothes and had a blast playing in the snow!!

One of the snow mountains to climb!

Listening to several winter stories in our pj's with our stuffed animals!

 13 preschoolers dressed in their winter clothes and standing in a line.. what an accomplishment!!

What a great day!

Happy 2019

It was so good to see everyone after the winter break!!  The kids seemed so happy to see all of their preschool friends again!

We read Clifford's First Winter by Norman Bridwell and The Hat by Jan Brett this week.  An important reading comprehension skill is the ability to predict.  We practiced making predictions about what will happen next as we read these books.  In addition remembering what we read is critical to reading success.  After we read The Hat we recalled all the characters in the story while I listed them on the white board.  We also talked about how stories have problems and solutions.  The kids each took a turn telling me about a problem in the story and how it was solved. (In preschool language, how did the problem get fixed?).  In case you haven't read The Hat here is a link to the story.  It's one of my favorite winter stories!  The Hat video

The kids haven't seen this video, they may enjoy watching it at home as well!

After reading The Hat we made a multi media art project to go along with the story.  We used crayons, glue, and paint to create a hedgehog with a sock caught on his head in a winter snow storm!

Freddie Sparkleberry left us a new game called Tricky Trunks before he went back to the North Pole. During activity time all of the kids had a chance to play the game with Mrs. Chyko. It's a great game that develops patterning, counting and fine motor skills!

Playing Simon Says

So happy to be back at school!

Working with the marble run is a favorite activity!