And It Comes To an End...

 Happy 5th Birthday Boston!

Thank you all for sharing your wonderful children with me this year.  

Under the Sea

With the rainy weather on Tuesday it almost felt like we were under the sea.  After the rain abated some, we went and splashed in the puddles.  Is there anything more delightful than the pure joy of watching children splash in puddles?  I also got to watch their faces light up as they fished for letters then created words from these letters.  We looked at numerous pictures of fish and sea creatures and spent some time discussing the environments that they thrive in.  Among other books, we read The Rainbow Fish and discussed how we can be happy helping others.  We danced and danced and sang one of their most favorite songs, "Slippery Fish".  What a fantastic week!

Creating their fishy masterpieces.

 Feeding the butterflies that hatched much earlier than I anticipated.  One of these years I'm going to time it just right, so we can release the butterflies on the last day of preschool.  I know the symbolism of that is beyond the children, but for me as their teacher and you as their parents, I know you appreciate the metamorphosis that has occurred this year.

 Love Porsche's big flouncy hat bouncing about while playing hopscotch.

Waiting for the butterflies to emerge from their little homes.

The butterflies flying away amidst loud cheers from the children (thankfully my neighbors are kind).

 Their plants have done wonderful this year.  Hopefully later this summer there will be watermelons and pumpkins growing about. It's been so fun to watch them with pride in their eyes observe the growth of their little plants.

 Happy 5th Birthday Kyler!

 Watch out- vicious sharks on the attack!

Of course, on fish day we just had to feed the fish in the pond.  There were so many that came to gobble up my stale bread.  The turtles even came to join in the feast.   

I'm still not sure how Porsche shoe ended up as fish food but alas it did.  I ended up wading into that yucky water to retrieve it.  Then I lost my shoe in the process.  Lots of laughs at the pond (and lots of soap scrubbing the yuck off my legs).

Creepy Crawlies

I must confess I am not much of an entomologist.  Bugs creep me out, but alas they are such a huge part of our world that we must explore them at preschool.  The children seem to be free from the hesitations I have with holding bugs or having them creep on me.  They were fabulously curious about all the insects around them.  We watched a clip of a video that showed insects very up close and we learned about their body parts and how they are created to trick their predators.  

Counting ladybug spots.  The children actually took turns being the teacher and got to write out the number of the spots to be put on the ladybugs.  They are getting better at writing out their numerals.

Observing the ladybugs in ladybug land.  My biggest fear is the top would pop off and I'd have ladybugs all over, but the children were very careful and just watched in awe as they scurried about.  We also watched caterpillars until they decided to build their cocoons.

They found oh so many insects in they backyard...

 and by the pond.

 Porsche made little name tags for her snack- so cute!

The ants go marching two by two hurrah hurrah!

Kings, Queens, Castles & Thingsm

Looking beyond the fluffy (but very fun) Disney Princess explosion in our world, there are many great learning opportunities associated with Kings and Queens.  We talked quite a bit about brave and kind Knights and Kings and Queens who use their manners.    The children were a bit surprised when I showed them pictures of real life Kings and Queens (Thank you England for keeping your royalty). Such a fun week and a reminder to me that their is royalty within each of these little ones.

 The classic lacing shapes are a classic for a reason.  Working on fine motor skills is preparing them for all that writing that is in their future.

 Before you can become a Knight you must practice saving a damsel in distress.  First you have to ride your horse and use your lance to fight off the bad guys (it was a balloon that Kyler had just popped).

 After crossing the moat and storming the castle you come face to face with the dragon-tossing bean bags at him is the best way to get rid of him.  Then you get to save the princess!  All the Knights did fabulous and saved the princess each time.

 The kids had so much fun with these crackers with letters stamped on each one.  Cheeze-its aren't something I buy normally, but when they encourage early literacy I'm all for it.

 We talked about how shields were important to identify the Knights.  The children thought about what they could put on their family coat of arms.  In the end it was so much fun to just cover them up with paint.

 Our Jousting Tournament

 On Guard...Our Knights and Princess Knights in shining armor.

 The children could absolutely loved this straw builder set.  Seriously, they didn't want to do anything else.  So we built in the morning...

 and kept building...

And built some more.  Even then, it was with great reluctance that they cleaned them up (I promised them we would play with them this Summer)

Avah is such a pretty Princess!