Animal Adventures

I promise we did much much more than the few pictures I took this week represent. I guess we were having such a good time, I forgot to snap pictures of it. We began the week with a rousing game of animal memory followed by a circle time where we learned about various animal habitats. We spent the time outdoors hunkering down in the new little playhouse while it rained for a minute. The sun came back out and the kids ran and ran some more (seriously, where do they get their energy?). We moved our bodies just how we thought the animals do, read lots of books about animals. They especially like the mixed up Chameleon who wanted to be like all the other animals. We also did a puppet show about a Hippo who learned about being a good friend. After beautiful art work was created, tummy's were filled with lunch and lots of animals got played with it was time for some journal stories about animals. We spent Thursday counting out bananas to feed monkeys and making patterns with balls for our seal friend. We discussed the difference between mammals and reptiles and talked about animal families. We ran as fast as cheetahs outside and hopped as high as kangaroos. What a splendid week of learning all about our animal friends!

Dancing like animals do.

Slithering like snakes.

Animal art projects.

I love that happy smile on Boston's face!

Kooper working on building something great.

Duck, duck, Rainbird? They initiated this game on their own, so I'm not quite sure where rain bird came but it's sure cute.

Animals on the prowl.

Avah categorizing all the animals by habitat during playtime.

Into Outer Space

Moons, stars, meteors, astronauts were all a part of our fun preschool week. We spent some time doing astronaut training and they all did just perfect with astronaut exercise, learning about the moon and stars, being creative, eating healthy foods and being a good friend- all the things that will make they all great space explorers.

We started out the week with building runs for marbles. Their little minds were so engaged in this activity. We brought it out again during playtime and it was certainly the toy of choice!

Watch out for the big green meteor! Meteor ball aka dodge ball is a classic they LOVE. I am so thankful for cool winter days where we can all run outside for a while.

Marbles became little planets that with a little paint and a little shaky shake created beautiful artwork.

Creating constellations.

Jumping just how we think it would be to jump on the moon- high!

Porsche counting out stars.

Astronaut training obstacle course. They all did so much better than I did on this course (I kinda got stuck in that tunnel:)

Manning the space ship that is ready to fly into outer space.

5-4-3-2-1 Lift off!

Sensational Senses

I'm so sorry that this post didn't get completely published. I'm not exactly sure what happened so let's hope these pictures post correctly this time.

Our fun week of learning through our senses was filled with the wonder and awe as we focused on each individual sense for a bit.

Smelly playdough- I almost tried edible play dough (one more sense for them) but thought that was a bad precedence to set. The kool-aide play dough was yummy smelling enough for our creators.

Testing out their sense of smell- some delicious and some seriously yucky ones.

Learning all about sound waves and how we hear with this simple yet completely engrossing activity of putting rubber bands on cookie sheets to make music.

These fun puppets reminded us of how grateful we are for our senses.

Touching, feeling, investigating with our fingers.

Oh what do you see. Charlie is seeing a very blurry world through the some of my old lenses.

Just for fun!

What if we only saw one color?

Using our sense of touch in the sensory bin.

Lastly, the classic fingerprinting. We ended this unit with using all of our senses to hear the hum of the oven then the ding when the timer went off; to smell the heavy scent of ginger and cinnamon; to see the round shape on the tray; to feel their warmth in little hands and to finally to taste the chewy gingerbread cookies. Doesn't get better than that!

Brrr...It's Cold

The little heatwave we had last week didn't deter us from celebrating winter-preschool style. Even though the children don't have tremendous amount of experience with winter activities, they all know how much fun a snowball fight can be and how great it can be to build a snowman. We did all those things amidst chatting with each other about our Christmas holiday. The children were so excited to see each other after the holiday break. It's so fun to see their friendships deepen as the preschool year goes on. We welcomed Kooper, Avah's little brother to preschool. He is so eager to join in and participate in all the preschool activities. I'm looking forward to another great semester here at Butterflies & Bullfrogs Preschool!

Using tongs to catch and count "snowballs".

A favorite sensory activity to play in "snow" (they commented that they smelled like their daddy's). Note Gideon in the back- this isn't a favorite for all children. I try to be sensitive to the personalities of your children and will never force them to participate in anything.

Not only was it fun, but they got to practice their writing skills too.

And the class snowman that we created after our snowball fight. It was fun to have Sierra join our class again for a day before she headed back to kindergarten.

Creating our own snowflakes with a variety of shapes.

Learning about ice. We tried to melt large chunks of ice by using eye droppers filled with warm water until...

they figured out it was faster to break it apart by pounding with wood and then their feet.

Five little snow pals standing in a row

Each has a hat and a big red bow

Out came the sun and it shone all day

And one little snow pal melted away.

After our discussion on what animals do in the winter we had to practice being bears. First we had to make our den, then hibernate (and snore really loud) until spring when the bears woke up and roared (really, really loud). Repeat numerous times!!

Making wintry snow pictures.

Playtime became building time- this is a castle.

This became a cage for a giraffe

And this became home to lions and tigers. Of course playtime morphed into other activities as well. This was just the beginning...