Community Helpers: Mail Carriers & Doctors

This week the children learned about the men and women who help us in our community as Mail Carriers and Doctors. At this point in the school year these children play so well together and follow directions to perfection. We are able to spend time helping each other learn rather than trying to keep behavior in check. They are truly an amazing group that I feel so blessed to teach. Thank you for sharing a piece of them with me each week. Kyler the mail carrier. It was fun to help the children match the letters in their mail bags with the various mailboxes. Great numeral recognition activity.

The perfect package- Porsche! The children spent free play time pretending to mail everything in the preschool room! They ended up spending the last half of play time putting together all the puzzles they "mailed".

An impromptu rhythm band. Though it was very loud, they loved making music together.

They were so excited to write letters to their moms and dads and then mail them. My children were thrilled to open the mailbox to find their letters in there (even though they put them there!). It was a beautiful day for a walk as well. The children got to tell me about all the things they heard, felt, saw and touched (no tasting on this walk). I'm amazed at how quiet and calm children can be when they are outside observing the wonderful world around them.

Sierra and Porsche set up a Pediatrician's office and took care of all the babies. The boys loved giving me "shots".

Medicine Dropper art. By squeezing the bulb of the medicine dropper over and over, their small muscles got quite a workout. They each did three or four and wanted to keep going and going.

I forgot the grab my camera and snap pictures of outdoor time when the children played a game of t-ball (wow they can hit hard!), sardines and put band-aids all over me. Six little doctors in training!

Hippity, Hoppity Easter

Happy Easter! This is one of my favorite holidays all year and having these six fabulous preschoolers to join in the fun made it even better. We had fun doing the bunny hop and singing bunny songs, reading stories about bunnies and colored eggs, and of course hunting for eggs!

Little bunnies nibbling on carrots in their "burrow".

Making Easter baskets- pretty messy but very fun!

Two out of six bunnies looking at the camera, not too bad considering they'd been hopping about all morning.

It was a building morning, with skyscrapers, trains and rocket ships being built with Lego's, blocks and bending builders. Easter eggs were hidden all over the classroom with letters on them and the children tried to find the eggs with their name letters on them. It soon became apparent that they were more interested in hiding themselves and finding each other! Eventually we did find and identify all the alphabet eggs (and found all the hidden preschoolers!)

The children were thrilled that Kyler thought of each of them when making his Easter egg snack. They all loved eating the jellybeans of their favorite color.

Dyeing Easter eggs. They had so much fun making beautiful eggs. In all the excitement of the egg hunt, I forget to send them home with the children, so you'll just have to trust me on how great they were.

Eager children ready to go fill their baskets with eggs!

Got one! I filled the eggs with number so that the children could have more practice recognizing the numerals. However, by this point in the day, all the children wanted in those eggs was candy! They did each get to find one egg that had a bag of skittles inside. Before eating them though, I had them sort and count the candies so at least we did get some math in.

You Are What You Eat!

I can't believe that I didn't post this last week- I am so sorry! I got it half done and got distracted and forgot all about it. My mom and my sister and her five children (oldest is 6!) came to stay with me until my sister could move into her new house in Kingsville, Texas. I do love children and it was fun to have a house full but I'm not used to crying babies at night. Anyway on to preschool...

Journal time. What is your favorite food? The children could either draw a picture or write the words themselves. Boston did both!
Gideon showing off his drawing of him eating cake.

Pretending to grocery shop. I was a bit surprised that more of them wanted to be shoppers than to be the cashiers. They all did such a great job taking turns and sharing!

Finding healthy foods to eat and working out small muscles with the scissors.

Sorting food...

Sorting money...

and sorting these plastic counters that the children usually use as money.

More shopping and more buying.

There is nothing cuter than dinosaur juice mustaches. The children helped me find food from each color in the rainbow to blend in our smoothie. We talked a lot about filling our body with a variety of foods and eating from the rainbow. Hope it helps with the perpetual picky preschool eating habits!

Creating vegetable people. I love how each child's personality is shown through their creations.

And of course exercising their bodies and while creating this structure of sorts.

Getting From Here to There

Getting from here to there can be so much fun! The children got to investigate my truck, checking out the engine, tires, windshield wipers, etc. They had so many questions about how vehicles operate. Next time I'll have a mechanic on hand! For boat day they learned the importance of working as a team while they rowed a "boat" together, they loved eating their egg and cheese boats for snack and reading about the little tugboats so eager to help others. What a great week!

Counting cars, planes, and trains. Sorting and matching all the methods of transportation. Racing around in their "cars". Wow- 2 inches! The Car Wash- this is just the beginning of what turned into a cleaning free-for-all. Race cars. A little quiet book time after all that racing and car washing. Learning all the letters in our names. Learning how boats float (and what doesn't float). Does it sink or float? They had lots of fun floating and sinking many different objects and of course getting wet in the process.