Yes I'm still here

I'm so sorry I haven't posted anything in the last week. I kept forgetting to take pictures and some days are so busy that I feel like a tornado hit the house with everything we have done and the huge mess at the end of preschool. We have done a lot of fun things though. For science we finished up our Arctic Animal unit. I was really bummed that we didn't get much more snow at the end of the month to make a penguin statue. O well, there's always next year. For cooking we were able to make some yummy pizza for letter P day. It was so good that I made some more for dinner that night. For letter O day we made these cute little owls out of Heart foams. The kids have been busy learning about money and all the different shapes the last couple of weeks. It's so funny to me that most of them didn't know pennies, nickels or dimes but as soon as we learned about the quarter all of them seemed to know this coin so well. I guess it's probably from asking for money to get a prize out of a machine at the grocery stores. Our Valentine's Day party is coming up soon. If you are interested in helping out with an activity please let me know, I always appreciate the extra help. It looks like the weather is starting to warm up a little. I hope we can all get feeling better as a lot of the kids have been sick this month.

Polar Bears

This week was a lot of fun but I feel so bad that a few kids have been sick this week. We didn't have a lot of kids at preschool this week and it was really quiet. I think a lot of it has to do with the gross weather outside. I really want to feel the warmth again. I hate the cold weather. Anyways, enough about that here's some cute pictures from this week.

On Tuesday we learned all about the letter N. We made these cute noodle

necklaces. The cute little boy on the right always likes to dress up. He was Darth Vader this day.
Polar Bear treats we made for cooking. The one on top has strawberry

yogurt rather than cottage cheese because a lot them didn't want

cottage cheese.

This is a video sharing our experiment on how polar bears have blubber underneath their fur to keep them warm in the cold weather. It was a lot of fun and the kids loved the feel of the shortening on their fingers.

Today was SO much fun! For science this month we are learning about different arctic animals. Today we talked about penguins. I taught the kids about emperor penguins and how the Dad takes care of the egg while the mom swims off to find food for the baby and the dad. We talked about the dad keeping the egg nestled close to his body between his feet to keep the egg warm. If he drops the egg it will break from the cold air. Each of the kids got to take an egg (a rolled up sock) and keep it in between his ankles. It was so cute to watch them protect their little egg and to quickly pick it up and put it back in if it fell off. We then learned about Penguins feathers and how they keep warm. We did and experiment with ice to show how the down feathers keep the penguin warm. The down feathers capture air and this helps keep them warm from the cold wind. It was a great day and a lot of fun. It was pretty funny during cooking to watch them stick the egg we used earlier under their shirts telling everyone they were going to have a baby penguin. Thank heavens it's not my job to explain that one to them :)

Happy New Year!

A
Is it really 2010? I can't believe how quickly the year went by. I just wanted to wish every one a Happy New Year. We celebrated our first day back talking about the Chinese New Year. Even though they won't celebrate the Chinese New Year until the 2nd full moon this year which happens to be February 14. It was a lot of fun for the kids because we talked about the big parade they have. I showed them pictures of the dragon that is in the parade and we performed our own version of the dragon. They loved having a turn to be the head of the dragon and leading the rest of the class around the house. We finished off the day making our own little Chinese Dragon.