Almost time for a new school year

Just wanted to let you know that I will be getting the new year packet out to you that are registered for this Fall. I plan on working on things this weekend and will deliver them to you next week. We will be having our Ice Cream Party on September 10th at 11 am and will start class on Tuesday, September 13. We have been having a great summer! My little guy is now 6 weeks old and is such a good baby. Hopefully he will start sleeping through the night soon :)  I can't wait to get going again, I have missed those cute little smiling faces. Please feel free to call or email me if you have any questions.

Plants, Mother's Day and Bugs

I have to say sorry for taking 2 weeks to finally get back to posting. I try to usually post every week but I think that being in the tail end of this pregnancy has been tiring by the time I am done teaching and then picking up the house. All I feel like doing is taking a nap. I can't believe how quickly this year has gone by. We only have 2 weeks left! It has been such a fun year and I have loved watching how much these kids have grown. Most of them were 3 when they started and they seem so grown up now. Last week we talked about plants and the different parts of a plant. We also talked about the difference between fruits and vegetables and have been working on identifying which foods are veggies and which ones are fruits. This has been tricky but they are starting to get better at it.

I pulled up a tulip from our yard and showed them all the parts of a plant. They were so fascinated to see that plants have roots. For Mother's Day we painted terra cotta pots and then they were able to plant their mom a little flower in it. We also made up a list of things they loved about their mom. It was really funny to see when one person mentioned something that their mom bought for them the rest of the class kept saying things that their mom had bought for them too and that was why they loved them the most. :)  Don't worry moms I know there are plenty of other things they love about you! 

This week we were able to go outside a lot with the nice weather. We looked at lots of bugs and talked about how many legs insects have. Here are some the activities we did. 

We watched and sang along with this cute video about ladybug

Ladybug song

We then made our own little ladybugs. One little guy informed me that " ladybugs are red Miss Julie. " I told him he was right but we were going to make all sorts if different colored bugs. He still wanted all red so he colored some of his red. They were able to put dot stickers on the bug's back and count how many each had. 

For cooking we made some of these yummy snacks that looked like different insects.

Fabulous Foods Insect Snacks

Butterfly Life Cycle

This last week we talked about the butterfly life cycle. I ordered my caterpillars from Insect Lore and should be getting them next week. The kids are so excited about it. Here are some of the art projects we made to go along with it.

Caterpillar

Butterfly Masks

Also today we made these yummy treats for Easter! They were super easy and so yummy :) 

Hidden Surprise Easter Egg Treats

Frog Life Cycle

I am sort of bummed out. I was planning all year on ordering tadpoles from Insect Lore to watch them grow into frogs but when I called to order they said Utah has some law that does not allow frogs to be shipped here. Weird? I tried a few other places but they didn't carry tadpoles, and I thought about doing Praying Mantis eggs because they hatch between 95 to 200 insects but you have to release them right away or else they start eating each other. GROSS! So I think I will just order the butterflies again. They are always so much fun and the kids love them.

This week we talked about the Frog Life Cycle;

We sang some frog songs and then played a game with lily pads and a play frog. You have to try and get the frog to land on one of the lily pads. I was planning on doing it outside with a swimming pool for the pond but the weather was crummy this day.

We also made these wheels to show the life cycle of frogs. It is also fun to do bubble wrap for the eggs if you have some. 

For cooking we made these delicious frogs. I was snacking on the peanut butter dip for lunch afterwards it was so yummy. You can also substitute just cream cheese or chocolate spread if you have a nut allergy. 

Here is the recipe out of my Kid's Cookbook:

Green Apples

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup cream cheese

2 Tbsp. Powder Sugar

Green Grapes

Chocolate chips

Cut apples into wedges, I love using my Pampered Chef Apple cutter. If you don't plan on eating them right away it would be good to put the apples in lemon juice to prevent browning. 

Mix peanut butter, powder sugar and cream cheese together. Put mixture between 2 apple wedges. Add more mixture on top for eyes. Then using a toothpick thread on a grape and chocolate chip and poke toothpick through the apple. 

Enjoy. 

Welcome Spring!

We are so happy that Spring is finally here! It has been a cold winter and it is so nice to see all the flowers popping up and the grass and trees starting to turn green. We talked about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb. Although I am not sure if it quite went out like a lamb with how cold it was. I guess the last day was nice though so we will say it went out like a lamb. Here is a fun little art project we made to go with our theme for the day.

We also talked about all the animals being born this time of year and how lots of animals hatch from eggs. Although these look like chicks they were actually ducks but you can call them chicks too if you want. 

 This little guy made his into a turtle since turtles come from eggs too. He then asked me if we could learn about turtles next time at preschool which is the reason for our next activity. :) This is the brother of the little boy from last year that told me how excited he was for letter T day so that we could learn about turtles. Surprisingly they have never been to Sea World although they love all Sea Life. I think this should be there next family trip. :)

Turtles come from eggs too Miss Julie! 

We were able to make these turtles out of coffee filters. It was fun to see all the different ways the kids decorated the shells. 

We also made turtle bread. I made the dough the night before and then let it rise before preschool. We then shaped it as a turtle and then let it rise some more before baking it. I added green food coloring to the dough when mixing it so it would be really green inside. 

Here's the recipe if you are interested in making it. It was really easy to make and super yummy. I think I want to make it into a regular bread loaf. 

Turtle Bread

March is also the month of Dr. Suess's birthday so we watched a film of the book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue FIsh. 

One Fish Two Fish book/movie

In the book he talks about his pet Yink who likes to drink Pink Ink. They loved saying this over and over again and finding the rhyming words in the book. We made some Pink Ink to drink. Just milk, strawberries, ice and some more red food coloring to make it extra pink. They loved having pink mustaches. 

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess!

Community Helpers

The last couple of weeks we have talked about a few people in the community and what their different jobs are. We talked about farmers and all the hard work they do to supply us with fruits and vegetables. We learned about the job of a police officer and made some hats and police badges that the kids got to wear so they looked like a police officer. We also learned about the job of a baker. How they get up so early to start baking all their foods and have to make sure they measure the ingredients and follow each recipe. We made chocolate chip cookies this day. Next we talked about Fire fighters to go along with our field trip that was today. For cooking we made smores. I originally wanted to make a camp fire to cook the marshmallows but thought it would probably be a little too much work. I am glad I passed on it because we were running out the door after a busy day with melting chocolate all over the kids faces. Our field trip was great. The Fire Fighter reminded the kids to get down low to stay away from smoke and to get out of the building as fast as they could if there was a fire. We also got to see all the trucks they drive and got to look inside of them.

Making Barn animals for art.

Cooking yummy smores and making some fire fighters that looked like themselves.

Trip to the Lehi Fire Station: Getting ready to watch a movie about Fire Safety.

 Crawling out of the building.

Getting help up to see the Fire Truck.

 Heavy, heavy coats they wear.

 Happy to all get our own little Fire Hat.

 Make a silly face :)

We had lots of green on today since it is St. Patrick's day. Before the field trip we had a great time eating a green breakfast and finding out that our Leprechaun traps didn't catch a Leprechaun but he did leave us some gold. :)