Spring sing

This week we read stories about bugs, made a ladybug as our art activity, had our final extended day for the year and spent a lot of time practicing our singing!

After lunch on Tuesday we took a walk to the park.  It was a perfect spring day!

Waling back to church...we were tired out!!

Wednesday we had our dress rehearsal for our show.  We're quacking like ducks in this picture!!

It took us awhile to get used to singing with our duck hats on!!

All the practice was worth it...we rocked our show!!  Thanks everyone for coming to see us perform!!

Flowers

Pulling apart our chrysanthemum plant!

This week we started talking about flowers. We heard a book called The Tiny Family, by Norman Bridwell, about a family who lived in a flower garden.  We heard several other books about flowers too.  We brought in our chrysanthemums from last fall and pulled them apart. We found the roots, leaves, stems, flowers, and noticed that the flowers had now become seeds!  

Listening to The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak

The kids loved the story The Book With No Pictures that G.G. read to us in the fall. click here for the link They had been asking for her to come in and read it again so on Wednesday we had a repeat performance.  This is such a funny book....the kids loved it!! Thanks G.G. Henry was our "Maple Leaf of the Week".  He brought in yummy chocolate chip/m&m cookies for our snack on Thursday.  We also had a chance to meet and feed three of his baby goats!  They were so soft, friendly and curious and the kids all had a chance to give them a bottle of milk! Thanks Henry and family for helping make our week so special!! 

Sitting in a circle to meet the baby goats.  

Feeding goats with Henry's grandma.

The goats latched right onto the bottles.  It was the first time most of the kids had given a goat a bottle of milk!!

Henry's mom taught us how to give the baby goats a bottle. 

A block creation made during activity time!

Ducks

Tuesday was so nice we spent about 45 minutes outside!  We had fun playing and then we went on a spring walk.  We saw tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, bugs, and lots of new leaves growing on trees!

We noticed that most of the fuzzy buds on our pussy willow tree are gone and have turned intos leaves!

Mrs. Chyko taught the kids how to play hopscotch.  A fun way to incorporate counting and number recognition!

Our theme this week was ducks.  We read The Chick and Duckling, Make Way for Ducklings, Hamilton Duck's Springtime Story and several other duck books.  We also watched a  real live video of Make Way for Ducklings!super cute video!

Making our ducklings!

While some of the kids were creating duckling art, others were working on floor puzzles with Mrs. Chyko and Mrs. Swietlik.  Mrs. Jenkins came in on Wednesday and we put our songs together with the piano for the first time!

Matthew was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  He shared his poster and photos with us on Tuesday and brought in delicious frosted brownie cookies for snack on Wednesday.  Thursday his mom came in and read us his favorite story, There's a Wocket in My Pocket by Dr. Seuss and then we had a dance party.  We turned off the lights, turned on Matthews dance party ball, and danced to Kids Bop!  It was so much fun!!  Thanks Matthew and family for helping make our week so special!!

Frosted brownie cookies with homemade cream cheese frosting....yum!!!

We loved all the lights that moved while we danced!  We used scarves for some of our songs!

The Maple Leafers have some great dance moves!!

Listening to a Dr. Seuss book.

Chicks

We started our week with an extended day.  This was the first time everyone stayed for lunch!  We went outside for an extra long time and played with balls, sidewalk chalk, and our climbing equipment.  Mrs. Chyko showed us a pussy willow tree and we had fun feeling how soft the buds were!

The Maple Leaf Lunch Bunch!

Standing by our pussy willow tree...another sign of spring!

Max was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  He shared his poster with us on Tuesday and brought in homemade poppy seed break on Wednesday.  We liked the bread so much we had some with our snack on Thursday too!  Max's mom and sister came to visit with us on Thursday.  They read us stories about rain and then set up a science experiment for us to try.  We used water, shaving cream and food coloring to make it rain in a cup!!  So much fun!  Thanks Max and family for helping make our week so special!

Listening to stories about rain.

A  making rain" experiment!  We're wearing the chick headbands that we made during art time!

Our theme for the week was chicks.  We watched some youtube videos on chicks hatching life cycle of a chicken and read lots of books about chicks.  On Thursday, Henry and his mom brought some chickens and eggs in for us to see.  We met Jessica and Georgia Peach, two chickens from Henry's farm. We also got to see that different types of chickens lay different types of eggs but they are all equally good for us! 

Meeting Jessica and Georgia Peach!

Eggs from Henry's farm!

Bunnies

Pretending to be bunnies!

Bunnies and eggs was our theme for the week.  We read the children's classic  The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown.   We also read The Great Easter Egg Hunt, Max's Chocolate Chicken, Max's Easter Surprise and Winnie the Pooh's Easter Egg Hunt. Of course we had to make Bunny masks and hop like bunnies!  We had fun looking for eggs and going on our own Easter Egg Hunt upstairs in the sanctuary! During activity time Mrs. Swietlik and Mrs. Chyko helped us use different color crayons to trace and decorate an easter egg. We also had colored beans in our sensory tub to play with and Mrs. Gould had brightly colored pink and green play dough with bunny and egg cookie cutters that we used. On Wednesday, we practiced singing lots of songs with Mrs. Jenkins!

The cutest bunnies I've ever seen!!

We brought home our Monet paintings this week.  They all turned out so beautifully!  We have fantastic artists at Maple Leaf!

Finn was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  On Tuesday he brought in his poster and shared it with the class during Circle Time.  On Wednesday he brought in some delicious homemade banana muffins for snack, and on Thursday his Mom came to school to visit with us and make a project.  We made tambourines out of paper plates and bells and then we listened to one of Finn's favorite songs about a tambourine.  We danced to it with our tambourines! Boy did we have fun! Thanks Finn and Molly for helping make our week so special!!

Getting ready to dance!

Dancing with our tambourines!

Spring!

We started the week by talking about spring.  The theme for show and tell was spring. The kids had fun sharing their things during circle time.  We had such great ideas... balls and other things to play with outside, a baseball bat, catcher's mitt and glove for spring baseball season,a homemade rain stick, and books that were filled with pictures of things we see in the spring.  We decided to go outside to look for signs of spring...we saw buds on trees and flowers beginning to grow.  We also saw and heard a lot of birds.  We especially liked watching 2 cardinals and several robins!  We ended up at the park! 

Of course the best sign of spring is that we can go to the park and play outside!!  

One of the cardinals we saw on our walk!

Eli was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  On Wednesday his mom and Grandma Sharon came to visit with us.  Grandma Sharon read us the story If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  It is such a fun story and the kids loved hearing it!  When the story was over we went to the snack table and had a "cookie and milk party" with Grandma Sharon's homemade cookies...yum!!  Some of us even tried to make milk mustaches just like the mouse did in the book!  Thanks Eli and family for helping make our week so special!! 

Listening to Grandma Sharon read us a story!

We talked about birds this week.  We had birds nest cookie for a snack one day and made pine cone bird feeders too!  We put sunflower seed butter all over the pine cones and then rolled them in bird seed.  

We broke into small groups to make pine cone bird feeders!

Mrs. Swietlik's group.

Mrs. Chyko's group.

Artists

We had fun learning about  artists this week.  We read two really cool stories by Peter Reynolds called The Dot and Ish.  Both of them are about kids learning to be artists.  If you want to learn more about this award winning children's writer and illustrator here is his website: Peter Reynolds

We also learned about the artist Claude Monet.  We found France on the globe and heard a wonderful story called A Blue Butterfly about Monet.  At art center we've been making our own water lily paintings and blending colors, just like Monet!

Mrs. Jenkins came in on Wednesday for music and Mrs. Swietlik came in on Thursday to help us out. We also had 2 birthdays this week!  Sam and Hadley both turned 4!

On Tuesday,Sam brought in a birthday treat of teddy grahams and yogurt dip with sprinkles...yum!!  Thanks Sam!!

On Wednesday, Hadley brought in super delicious cupcakes for her birthday treat!  Thanks Hadley!!

We went outside and used sidewalk chalk after we heard The Dot.  We had fun making dots, lines and all sorts of other designs with our chalk!

Tuesday was extended day.  We made leprechaun (pistachio) pudding as a special afternoon treat!

Hadley was our Maple Leaf this week!  She invited G.G to come and read stories to us on Wednesday.  We heard 2 of Hadley's favorites!  On Thursday her Dad came in and read us a story about Crayons...we loved it! Here's the link: The Day the Crayons Quit . One of Hadley's favorite things to do is puzzles so her dad brought in a bunch to share with all of us!!  We had lots of floor puzzles to work on.  We all worked together to create different puzzles...so fun!!  Thanks Hadley and family for helping make our week so special!

Listening to The Day the Crayons Quit

Fun with floor puzzles!!