Already the end of the year?

I can't believe it is the end of the year! This one has gone by so fast. Just a reminder for my parents that next week we have our Teddy Bear Picnic on Tuesday at 10:00. Have your kids bring their favorite Teddy Bear and a sack lunch. Graduation is on Thursday at 10:30 at the park across the street. Can't wait to see you all!

Here are some of the latest activities we have done:

Mother's Day- grew some flowers for our moms and painted the outside of the cup. I also asked the kids what they loved about their moms and they got to make a letter for them and draw a picture. They were so excited to give these to them.

Rock Unit: I always love teaching this unit. I start this unit by teaching them about the three different types of rocks. Sedimentary, Igneous, and Metamorphic. These are too big of words for my preschoolers so we call them sand rocks, lava rocks, and heat and pressure rocks. I have some fun experiments we do to show them how each of these rocks are formed. Then they bring their very own rock collection and I have a day of different centers for them to experiment with their rocks. They always love this day!

Making a rock pet

Measuring their rocks and seeing how hard or soft their rock is compared to other objects.

Checking to see if any of their rocks are magnetic. (We had one this year :) And looking at rocks with magnifying glasses.

Rubbing rocks on tile to see what colors are in their rocks.

Does their rock contain LimeStone? We checked with vinegar. Very stinky experiment but neat! If it has limestone then the liquid will start bubbling after a couple minutes.

 Does their rock sink or float. I actually have a couple that float because they have so many holes in them.

We had a Shark day to talk about the sound "sh". This was a lot of fun. We sang a song to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus.

The mouth on the shark says snap, snap, snap. All through the ocean. (snap fingers)

The teeth on the shark say chomp, chomp, chomp. All through the ocean. (Smack hands together)

The tail on the shark says swish, swish, swish. All through the ocean. (Move hands back and forth)

The people in the water yell "Shark, Shark, Shark". All through the ocean. (Cup hands around mouth and yell shark)

We made a web of all the things we know about sharks. And apparently sharks eat your arms and armpits. :)

We also played a game that is like musical chairs but you have a couple sharks and the rest are fish rather than chairs. I found the soundtrack to "Jaws" online to play for my music. Once the music stopped if they were standing on a fish they were safe and if they were standing on a shark they were out. A few girls were scared during this game. I had to keep showing them that they weren't real sharks. 

For cooking we made this yummy treat that I found online.

Shark Snack

We made ours just out of the individual pudding cups though.

We have been practicing our songs for graduation a ton. They are so excited to do 5 Little Monkeys with these puppets we made. 

I can't wait to see the kids on Tuesday. Our caterpillars have been hatching into Butterflies all day and my little girl is so excited for the kids to see them! 

Plants and Butterflies

We have been learning about Plants and Flowers! We planted some of our own plants and I love hearing the kids talk about how their seeds have lots of roots. Or as my little girl calls them "roops". Here are some of the fun activities we have been doing with flowers. 

We made these flower masks out of their hands. This activity works well if you trace their hands the class time before. It takes way too long to cut out during class time. I have learned this from experience. ;) Also, I love having the kids practice making patterns with the colors. 

We practiced drawing flowers on our white boards and included the 3 main ingredients to grow a plant: Water, sun and soil.

This picture was taken because this little guy really wanted his mom to see his cool tower he made today! Hope you enjoy it Nicole.

For cooking we had to make dirt! I love this recipe, it is always a favorite and so yummy. Chocolate pudding, oreos, whipped cream and gummy worms.

So I am so excited to now have a new house with our preschool in the basement! The kids were so excited for the first day of class in their new preschool. I am loving the fact that at the end of class I can leave the mess and come back to clean it when I get a bit of a break. Here are some pictures having fun with some new costumes I got for our dress up box. 

 Super Hero Cape: But this guy loves being Harry Potter in this costume. I love hearing all the spells he is casts.

 The Big Bad Wolf. This one is a favorite. I think I need to get more animal costumes.

 Little Angel

The Chef

Here is our new water table that is the new favorite thing to do during centers. 

We also just started our Butterfly Unit. I ordered our caterpillars and we read the book The Hungry Caterpillar. We made some fun stuff to learn about the butterfly cycle. 

This is a sensory butterfly. We used a large plastic bag and added lots of fun things to it. Such as; feathers, pom poms, buttons, crete paper, ribbon, cellophane, glitter and whatever else I could find in my box of art supplies. We took time to use adjectives to describe what each object felt like or looked like before putting it into the bag. I love some of the words they used. Slimy, soft, hard, rubbery, slippery, tickley, crinkly, spiky, and there were many more. Afterwards, close it shut and blow a little air in it. Take a pipe cleaner and tie it so you have the wings and 2 antennas. 

 We also made butterflies out of food for cooking today.

Here are our butterfly life cycles made out of pasta. Well, all except the egg. I used a seed for the egg. But the caterpillar is rotollini, the cocoon is a shell shape, and butterfly is a bow tie. I let them color them with markers to add more color. They really love this activity.

It has been a great last couple of weeks! We also went on a field trip to Macey's grocery store. It was so much fun and the kids got so many freebies! I found out 2 new things about Macey's. They have a meat tumbler that you can have your meat tenderized and marinated and then they vacuum seal it for no extra cost. And you can also get a cake with a picture of yourself put on it made out of sugar. Both sound like something I would like to try :) 

Happy Belated Easter!

We had a great time last week learning about chickens! I thought it would be a great time to do some fun chick activities since Easter was coming up. Did you know that if chickens have red ear lobes they lay brown eggs, and if they have white ear lobes they lay white eggs? I didn't! I am always amazed at the things I learn while teaching preschool. :) We first made a web on a white board of all the things the kids already know about chickens. (have feathers, hatch from eggs, dads are called roosters, mom is a hen and the babies are chicks. etc.) Then we added some stuff that we didn't know like the ear lobes, that they eat mostly oats but also eat small mice and lizards. They are omnivores.) Afterwards we watched a video on my apple TV about a baby chick hatching from an egg. 

We also played a fun little game. I had a basket of eggs and they each got a turn to come up and open one. Each egg had something fun in it to do. (Dance to the chicken dance, tell the class a joke, read an easter book, jump like a bunny 3 times, and so forth :) The kids really liked doing this! 

We also made little baby chicks. I just cut out some eggs from my egg carton. The kids got to decorate them with markers. Then we used pom poms. googly eyes and beaks to make their baby chicks. They all were so cute with them and loved telling me the name they had picked out for them.

For cooking we made some bird nests. You just need some melted chocolate and chow main noodles. Mix them together and then make them into a little pile to look like a bird nest. Add some jelly beans for eggs and a mommy chick (peep) to sit on them

We also sang some fun songs this week too. Both of them have actions for the kids to do. 

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny Tap your toes. 

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny wiggle your nose. 

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny climb to the top. 

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny hop, hop, hop. 

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny jump, jump, jump. 

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny wiggle your rump. 

The next one starts with everyone sitting in a circle. Then one person starts walking around while you sing this little song. 

One little chick went out to play. 

On a sunny springtime day. 

She was having such a good time. 

She asked a friend to get in line. 

The person walking gets to pick a friend that joins them and then you keep singing until everyone is in line. 

LADYBUGS!

Today we learned about lady bugs. I found some great non fiction books at our local library that showed all the different stages of the life cycle of a ladybug. They really had a good laugh when we got to the stage, PUPA. It sounded a little too much like another word. :) We also read the story The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. I love this book! It is so funny. 

We then had some fun with hand painting. Just paint your palm red and then stamp it onto the paper. Next use your pointer finger. Dip it into some black paint and add the head and some spots. Last paint the side of your hand green and stamp it to make some leaves. After washing up, the kids got to use markers to add a sky, rainbow, aphids (the bugs ladybugs eat) and whatever else they wanted.