Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!  The children and I had so much fun celebrating the good friendships we have here at preschool.  We sang fun songs, investigated nature outdoors, ate delicious snacks, talked about cupid and all the ways we show love to others, created special valentines for our families, read some great stories about friendship and love and so much more!

 Kooper matching uppercase and lowercase letters.

 Gideon learning to cut out hearts.

 Thomas identifying the numeral with the correct number of hearts.

 Abie saying "I Love You" in sign language.

 Just love those cowboy boots!

 Camden creating a gluey, glittery, colorful, work of art.

 Happy 4th Birthday Camden!

 These clever children created a great game that involved the hose. Their use of interpersonal communication is improving tremendously!

 What's a party without balloons!

 Abie getting her envelope ready for the valentine exchange.

 Camden getting ready to shout, "Bingo!"

 Avah sending lots of letter during playtime.

The kiddos so very excited to share their valentines with each other!

What's the Weather

The weather never fails to disappoint in February- it changes constantly and gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about the world around us.  The children loved learning about air and clouds, rain and storms and of course sunny days too.  

 Camden sponge painting his windsock.

 Puzzles, puzzles and more puzzles!

 Enjoying the beautiful weather outside.

 One of the ways we learned about air and what it can do- keep a tissue in the air!

 Abie enjoying dancing with scarves

 One of our many science experiments about the weather.  This one taught them why it rains.

 Abie playing dress-up.  I love her pocket stuffed with money!

 Kooper practicing his writing

 Lined up and ready to go home

 It rained letters in their name and they had to find them and spell out their name.

Playing a rousing game of thunder & lightening tag.  

Animal Adventures

 We had so much fun this week learning about animals.  Tuesday, we did our normal preschool day backwards.  The children got a kick out of it and it was a nice change of pace for a day.  We talked a lot about various animals and their habitats, we learned about unusual animals and discussed the difference between a mammal and a reptile.  We played zookeeper, made all sorts of noises and movements that somewhat resembled animals, created animal books and puppets and read some fabulous books about animals.  After all that animal business I think a trip to the zoo is in order soon!  

 Play dough fun with animals

 Secret in a sack!

 Dancing like animals

 Observing the animal charades game

 Creating animal books

 Working on letters, numbers & patterns with zoo animals

 Acting out "Good Night Gorilla"

 

 Hula Hoop fun

 Getting ready for the puppet show

Exploring Outer Space

Preschool was out of this world this week!  We had so much fun learning about our solar system and the job of astronauts.  We watched a video clip of the first monkey to orbit the earth and so many questions ensued that we just had to learn more about astronauts.  We saw where the astronauts live in the space station and saw what they ate.  We even tried some astronaut ice cream.  We all decided we like the real thing much better.  The children were such engaged and eager learners.

 After learning all about the planets and meteors that orbit the sun, we went outside to play meteor ball. This preschool version of dodge ball wore me out pretty quick but those kids just kept on going and going.

Gideon happy to be outside on a gorgeous winter day.

 The first step in our art project was to shake a box filled with paint, glitter and "planets" (marbles).  They were continually amazed by the process.

 The next step was to create their own galaxies with planets and stars.

  After washing the paint and glitter off the "planets" we played with the marble run.  It's so fun to watch the children work together in teams to create and build.

 Bouncing on a mattress is the closest we could come to experiencing what it would be like to walk on the moon. 

 Yeah they loved this!

 Abie counting out stars.

 Such a silly boy!

Astronauts ready for their physical training.  

 Kooper racing through the obstacle course.

 The children couldn't help but zoom around with the rockets they made during art.

 After watching a short video of a space shuttle launch, we had to try to launch our own rockets.

The children took turns being the sun while others chose a planet to be and orbited around them.  Mostly they either wanted to be the smelly planet Venus orbiting close or Pluto orbiting way out (I know, I know, it's not a real planet but rather a dwarf planet).

Sensational Senses

Our five senses are pretty amazing!  We had a wonderful week discussing how we learn and how we detect danger using our five senses. We talked about how silly it would be if our eyes could hear, our ears could taste or our hands could see (I personally could use that!). We created with play dough, played I-spy, did numerous experiments, sang and danced and read lots of book about our five senses.  I could tell they were very engaged in this unit as they continually talked about their senses and identified them as they went about their preschool day.

Smelly jars...

 sure are smelly!

Their faces were hysterical!  I wish I could have caught them all on camera.

 Measuring just the right amount,

Stirring so well, 

and eating our delicious cookies for snacks.  Before we indulged they identified the senses they were using which happened to be all five!

 Making lots of music as we discussed our ears.

 Did I mention we made lots of music?

Camden showing off his five sense guy.

The children use some sensory boards as we talked about our sense of touch.  They figured out that  elbows don't feel as well as fingers do.

 The children got to wear some old glasses to see what it's like when you can't see very well.  We sure are grateful for our sense of sight!

 Super Thomas working on five senses cards. I don't think any of them made it into backpacks as the children created a game with them and then another game and another till the trash can was full.

 The kiddos were so excited when they got to taste chocolate...

 until they realized how yucky and bitter it was. Sorry if your children shun chocolate now.  I made up for it by giving them a taste of salty chips, sweet gummy candies and

sour lemons.  Camden actually ate his!

Abbie working on pegboards.