Wild Animal Adventures

I heard a lot of roaring, hissing, braying and howling at preschool this week. The children played a spirited game of Animal Memory giving a loud "hip, hip, hooray" when a match was found, kept us guessing during animal charades, listened to zebra and hippo tell stores (puppet show) and then made their own puppets and even took a journey to Africa in the safari bus. Their exuberance for all things animals was apparent as they delved into a lot animal play during free play.

Searching for animals near the pond. Sometimes I forget how literal children are and talked about hippos drinking at watering holes like this. Avah then went on a serious hippo hunt and kept asking where they were. I'm afraid she was quite disappointed on the realization that there are no hippos in my backyard.

Searching for animals on the safari.

Working together to plan a fantastic block zoo.

Getting the tools ready to build the zoo.

Lining up some animals for a walk.

Watching the fascinating builders next door. They watched a forklift deliver pallets of bricks and watched the bathtub man deliver his goods. It gave me an opportunity to talk more about the process of home building with them.

Resting in between dancing songs. At the end of each song I encourage them to lay down till the next song starts-gives them a chance to catch their breath after all those crazy moves.

Slithering snakes.

Counting out bananas to feed the monkeys.

Sierra got the camera and took this pictures (one of many surprises I found on my camera). Sometimes I have the children practice writing their numerals on top of mine with different colored chalk. This is a great activity to help reinforce writing their names. Try it with crayons, markers, chalk or even paint- so fun!

Mother Goose on the Loose

We spent a lot of time reading, reciting and acting out nursery rhymes this week. Nursery Rhymes are chock full of great brain development activities so while we had a fun time, we were learning too (always my objective). Hopefully your child will be able to recite one or two for you.

Welcome Avah! We all had so much fun getting to know her. She fit in so well with the other children and acted as if she were amongst her best friends. We are excited to have her join us.

Astronaut Boston getting ready to blast-off.

The "Ship"- a spaceship and a boat and....

Captain Porsche giving out instructions.

The class showing Avah how to do Allie Alligator- she caught on quick.

Porsche brought two books in the share bag that she read to the class. She even let them take turns turning the pages. What a priceless moment watching her read to her friends.

I got to read to the kids in the story cottage. Of course, we had to do some dramatic play after stories were over.

Coloring our Humpty Dumpty eggs before we had them fall. The kids were fascinated watching them fall to pieces. Then we got to sample some extra hard-boiled eggs. Most of them loved to eat "Humpty Dumpty" eggs.

For their last activity of the day they sat and softly sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while they made their star pictures. (I'm serious- they really did sing softly and sweetly)

Day two of the ship adventures. This time Gideon took to the helm with Boston as his first commander and various children taking turns.

What do you see?

Checking the progress of their journey by looking through their journals.

Creating with play-doh.

Gideon's birthday cake masterpiece.

Running races and

playing ball ended our fabulous preschool week.

Brrrr....It's Cold!

It was a frosty week at Preschool this week. The weather cooperated and was indeed cold, though it could have really cooperated and snowed- wouldn't that have been fun. Instead we used our imaginations a lot and created our own snow fun.

It took a lot of concentration to move "snow" balls into cups. They deserved the pride they showed when they filled them up. Sierra smiled and giggled the entire time she played in the "snow".

Actually they all enjoyed this activity and turned the table into a very wintry scene. They quickly realized how much fun it is to practice writing letters in the shaving cream.

After working together and cooperating well together they built their "cave". Finding a spot for all the bears in the cave was a bit tricky, but they managed to all hibernate. I heard lots of snoring in their cave.

Porsche practicing her snoring and then roaring (only when springtime was declared).

The first day back these children just wanted to play together. When each child would arrive they jumped up and down with excitement. The friendships they are developing with one another are priceless.

Our "snow ball" fight.

Porsche taking aim. Since I was the target of most of the snowballs I was grateful they weren't real!

Putting all those snowballs to work building a snowman. The children built this entirely themselves. They decided they needed rocks for eyes, gravel for the mouth (we couldn't find any but they did find a twig in a mouth shape) a carrot nose and of course all the accessories.

Creating snowmen to show Mom & Dad.

It's so nice to be back in preschool. We sure missed all of you and are looking forward to many more fun weeks to come.