A months of firsts... and lasts.

Summer is a time of transitions.  Friends who have been with me for two or three years are ready to move on to elementary school, new friends are ready to start preschool, and sometimes "old" friends come back for the summer.  This month we've had 4 children leave, 3 start, and we're not quite finished with the changes yet.  Come August we'll have several more.  

I think most teachers find this a bitter-sweet time.  It's wonderful when our students have mastered the year's curriculum, and I know I  want them to go on to their next educational adventures, but...  that means moving on, and after such a long time together, they - and their families - feel like members of my family.  New kiddos are fun, and it's an adventure getting to know each other.  I guess I could say those new relationships are full of promise.  No one knows what is to come, and we're all full of hope.

Here are a few of the things we've been doing as we say our hellos and goodbyes at school this week.

We're enjoying playing with manipulatives after lunch, learning about shapes and numbers together.

We've sorted, and pretended a lot.

 There were a couple of stormy days this week, so we got out of our rhythm, and improvised with whole days inside.  Play-dough to the rescue!

Several of the preschool children have mastered their letters and sounds, and have begun trying to sound out words as well as "read" books.  This week I started several of them on reading predictable texts full of sight words - which is really teacher talk for the next stage in teaching them to read.  This is a magical time, when children are trying to break the reading code, and have the tools to start figuring things out.  What a joy when a child looks up from a book at me with shining eyes and announces, "I can READ!"  With just a little more support and guidance, they will be unstoppable readers, because they know they can.  It is an exciting time!

One of our kiddos had a birthday this week, so of course we had to bake cupcakes. 

 I took two groups on field trips this week, and for several of the children it was their first time to go on a trip with me.  One group had a blast at the FW Museum of Science and History, and the other group loved seeing a Mad Science show at our local library.  If you are in the Arlington area, you really should know about all the free programs the library has to offer this summer - check it out here and the museum here.

 Pretend grocery store...

 ... snakes and spiders to observe...

 ... trains to play with...

 ...water play...

 ...and giant blocks to haul and arrange.  I asked one of the children what she was making.  "A sculpture," she told me.  Yes indeed!

 Another day we made my pumpkin gingerbread muffins for snack.  The children get very excited about the muffins, and not only because they help to cook them!  I have the recipe posted on my website:   http://paulaspreschoolandkindergarten.webs.com/favoriterecipes.htm  There is more pumpkin in the recipe than there is sugar, so it is jam packed with nutrition, as well as flavor.  They are super-moist... and even the newest 3 year olds can help to make them!  I hope you'll try them too - and let me know what you think!

Our summer is off to a great start!  We have a lot more fun to look forward to as we get to know our new friends, and learn together every day.  I hope your summer is jam packed with fun and learning too!  Have an awesome day,
Paula

Post Script
Ms. Julie just called me out to see what they kiddos are doing on the playground this morning.  They  are trying to make it rain.  They're out on the playground, sitting in a circle.  They're holding hands and have their eyes shut, and are chanting "Oh, ma-hey-ah."  Gosh I wish I'd have a change to get a picture of that!

Bluebonnets, Museum and Lots of Fun at Home

It is spring time in Texas, and the bluebonnets are in bloom.  I took 3 groups of kiddos on field trips to take photos in the flowers on the way to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.  They were so sweet in their group pics!

The museum offers so many fantastic learning experiences for the kiddos. My personal favorite is the giant foam blocks.  The kiddos love the physicality of moving the huge blocks, and creating structures.  They have to think about how to fit blocks together and how to make their buildings strong.  They love looking through the holes, or filling the holes with cylinders that can attach to other blocks too.

 Of course, if you play in the foam long enough, your hair builds up a static charge.

 There's a pretend grocery store...

 Giant light play activities...

 Mirrors...

 An ambulance and hospital area...

 

 Cool water play...

 Things to manipulate and put together...

 And a giant train set.

At home one afternoon we were tickled to find a momma duck with 8 brand new ducklings!  We were surprised by how well they could climb up the dam, and how far from momma duck some of them ventured. (There is a creek behind my house, which we can observe through the fence.  The egrets and herons are also starting to show up again now that it isn't so cold.)

 We also enjoyed parachute and bicycle play outside, and although I didn't take photos of it, we had new Easter and spring themed learning centers inside.  I'll have to post pictures of those next time!

Happy spring!

Letter Ii

What could be better for the letter Ii than ice cream?!  We had a delicious science project on Monday.  I bought 3 flavors of ice cream, and each child predicted whether they would like each flavor.  Believe it or not, several kiddos didn't think they would like the cherry cordial, or peanut butter fudge flavors! 

 Before our taste test, I had each child predict which flavor would be their favorite, and we graphed our predictions.  The next part was our favorite: tasting!  We tried one flavor at a time, and gave them a thumbs down, or more likely, a thumbs up!

 Here are the results of our taste test.  Some kiddos did indeed prefer the flavor they had predicted, but several children were surprised to discover a new favorite.  Scientists make predictions and test them, just like we did, and it is okay even if your prediction isn't the same as the outcome.  That's part of how we learn new things!

 We continued with the ice cream theme on Tuesday with a cool finger painting activity.  The kiddos helped me to put shaving cream, paint and glue in a pan, and to mix it.  We painted ice cream with the resulting goo, which stays puffy when it dries.  This was a fun, sensory experience, not only for our sense of touch, but also for the wonderful smell of the shaving cream!  I found the idea here.

The inspiration for our sensory box this week came from www.lifeisaparty.ca  Once again, the sensory play was a huge hit with the kiddos, and they pretended and role played and talked and talked about ice cream all week.  Do you see the blue plate with sparkly pompons on it?  The children didn't know it, but they were practicing sorting and classifying as they played, as well as working those fine finger muscles.  Incorporating plastic fruit, cookies and cakes, plus empty bottles from sprinkles really took this play much further than just the bowls, tubs, and pompons have in the past! 

Here is an activity that is part of each week here at school: making a page for our abc photo albums.  Each child puts stickers and stamps that begin with the letter of the week on a page topped with a die cut of the letter.  You can see I incorporated a sorting activity too, with insects and instruments mixed in with the Ii items.  On the facing page in their abc photo album I'll mount a photo of them doing one of our fun letter of the week activities.  The kiddos love their photo albums, and read them often... reinforcing the letter sounds as they admire their work and their photos.  When they eventually leave me, each child has a fun abc book to take home, full of photos of themselves. 

Our Itsy Bitsy Spider activity came from Mailbox magazine.  The kiddos colored a house, then taped on a straw with a plastic spider on it, to make the water spout.  They moved their spiders up and down the water spout as we sang the song, and of course we read The Itsy Bitsy Spider, by Iza Trapani.

Musical instruments were available to play outside, and the kiddos came and went from that area...

... but by far their favorite outside game this week was "monster".  Mostly the teachers are the monsters, and chase the kids while making growling noises.  The kids never tire of this game!

Here's another part of our routine that I haven't blogged about yet: our singing and dancing time.  Each day, once breakfast is over, we clean up the toys and gather on the carpet.  I have created an educational  playlist on Youtube.com for each week of the year, and we all dance and sing together.

I like to start each session with a fast paced, high activity song or two.  We especially love Storybots, Harry Kindergarten, and The Learning Station, as well as Sesame Street Podcasts!  Each playlist includes an alphabet song and counting song, and most include a Spanish language piece: El Perro and El Gato are awesome, and Sesame Street has many great videos available too.  I try to incorporate nursery rhymes most weeks, and then a few more things that I think every child should know.  By the time we've finished 25-30 minutes of singing and dancing, we're ready to sit down for a few minutes to do our daily preschool time.

One of our songs this week was The Inchworm Song.  We sang about the inchworm measuring the marigolds... and then looked for inchworms on our marigolds outside while we sang the song some more.  We didn't find any inchworms, but we still enjoyed the marigolds!

I'm thrilled with how a new (to me) art project worked out this week.  I found this project at http://www.flickr.com/photos/artsyt/3592528765/in/pool-78198665@N00.  We looked at photos of real irises - I couldn't find real ones - and at Van Gogh's Irises, then chose pinks and purples to make our symmetrical iris paintings with.  A touch of yellow for the inside of the flower finished them off.

 Aren't they beautiful!  The children were very proud of their irises, and I'll be adding them to our Artsonia gallery.

Our field trip this week was to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.  We hadn't been to the new Curious George exhibit yet, and the kiddos were eager to see it.  It was terrific!  We played at the fruit stand, mini golf, a construction area, blew huge fans at pinwheels, and much more!  One group of kiddos even got to see a rattlesnake, skunk, bobcat and armadillo!

Of course, we always enjoy the Children's Museum area, with trains, a hospital pretend area, and a grocery store.

Today there was a new attraction that I think I liked as much as the kiddos: huge foam blocks in lots of shapes and sizes.  Check out the creation 3 kiddos worked on together for at least 30 minutes.  We LOVE our museum!