Valentines Day

Are your students getting excited about Valentines Day?  It's such a fun holiday to celebrate - there's good things to eat, crafts to make, and kind words spoken or written.  A lot of the children seem to show up in red, pink and purple clothes, often with hearts on them.  Valentines day can be a lot of fun, and even although I don't have a class of kids to prepare for it this year, I thought I'd share some of the things we've enjoyed doing in the past.

One of the things my kiddos have always loved to do is cooking.  There are a lot of fine motor skills and life skills involved, not to mention measuring and counting.  For our Valentines day party I like to have the children bake cupcakes - and they are all too willing to oblige!

After our snack, our party begins in earnest.  A lot of parents come and join us, so I like to take the opportunity to show the parents what the children have been learning.  Valentines is a great week to talk about the letter V in preschool, and you can see one of our letter crafts behind this happy kiddo.

Another way we show off what we've been learning during our party is with a modified game of pass the parcel.  I grew up in Australia, and pass the parcel was a popular party game.  It's a bit like musical chairs, but with a gift.  While music plays, the gift is passed around a circle of children.  When the music stops, whoever is holding the parcel takes off one layer of wrapping.  There are always a lot of layers!

 Between each layer, I put a note on a heart shaped paper, with directions for something for us to all do.  Some are simple and fun, like go hug a grown up (I don't say parent, in case someone doesn't have a parent attending, but of course it's their own grown ups they go to first!)  We also have directions like "say something nice to the person next to you" or "smile at someone you like."  My oldest students are usually able to read these simple directions, but if they can't, there's also former students who come back to visit, brothers and sisters who want to join in and help.

Other directions include reciting learning songs, jumping up and down while we count to 20 - just quick little things that are part of our daily routine precisely because they help the children learn and remember.

Of course we have the obligatory Valentines containers.  I use paper sacks that the children decorate at school earlier in the week.  That also is a lesson.  I show them a bag I made years ago.  One side has layer upon layer of ribbon and stickers, hearts and sparkles - way, way too much.  We talk about the word "gaudy", and how you can't see the things that are on there because there is too much.  The other side is what I call "tasteful" - enough decorations, not bare, but not ridiculous either.  Check out their bags, I think all the kiddos hit the target!

Many of the children write their friends' names on treats or Valentines that they bring.  Sometimes parents help them, but not always.  Either way, they take turns reading the names of their friends, and delivering their Valentines.  Reading names is a great way to begin reading, what could have more meaning than your own name, and the name of your friends?  They see each other's names in our classroom so often that even the 3 year olds can usually figure out each name - even if only by the first letter.  Oh yes!  We practice looking each other in the eye and thanking our friends for each card or treat, no matter how small. It's easy to get overwhelmed in the giving and receiving, but gratitude is not only a social nicety, but I think a big part of feeling happy.

Our Valentines learning gets another boost about a week later.  Those of you who work in early childhood will smile and understand totally!  My husband usually gets me roses for Valentines (I'm a lucky wife!), and I enjoy them as long as they last.  There comes a day though when they are no longer attractive on my kitchen counter, and it's time to move them on.  Not to the compost or the trash can, oh no!  We can sort and graph with them!

But we still aren't done.  The children love to pull the petals off, pretend with them, give each other flowers... those roses still have at least 2 days of learning left in them!

 Eventually we take them outside and inevitably they are thrown up in the air, danced in, gathered and dumped, loved upon until they are no longer even pretty scraps.  Some end up in sandcastles and "soup", others dry up  on the playground and settle into the mulch. 

I've used this activity with my own kiddos for several years, and they love it.  I hope yours do too!  It's an easy emergent reader that has children reading "This heart is ___ (color)" - a simple text to help them work on color words.

If you're planning your Valentines Day learning, I hope you'll also check out my Valentines Day resources.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

A simply wonderful Halloween!

Halloween is such a fun holiday!  I love the stories and crafts, the costumes and pretend, and the orange, purple, black and green colors.  I LOVE everything pumpkin, not just the delicious foods made with it, but the decorations and the opportunity to study cool non-fiction subjects along with the holiday. I'm not so sure about knocking on doors and taking candy from strangers, but overall, Halloween is pretty cool!

It would be easy to go overboard on this holiday... well... on almost any holiday.  To do too much, to plan too much, to buy too much, to expect too much... and I'm sure that sometimes I do exactly that.  With only a week to go until I close my school, and an interstate move to plan, organize, etc., this year I had to go simple, and I think it was just right.

Ms. Julie and I helped all the children put on their costumes after nap, and served this yummy snack.  Donuts, fake teeth and two chocolate chips - and a glass of milk.  The kiddos loved it, and it was quick and simple. 

 It didn't take long for the teeth to come out, and we had some lovely snarling princesses!

My only other plan for the rest of our party was to take group pictures, and then to make our first leaf pile of the season.  The photos went well, and I handed rakes to a couple of parents who came to the party...

 Ta-da!  Leaf pile.  Fun.  Simple.  The children were all very excited, ran and jumped in the pile, and appeared perfectly content.

Here's what I didn't plan - and thank goodness, because it was pretty special to see the children take charge of their fun.  Princess Elsa went and grabbed a crate, carried it over to the leaf pile, and made herself a diving board!

 She didn't mind sharing it, and without much help from the adults, the kiddos figured out how to share the leaf pile.

 Yes, there was some negotiating with the children that wanted to sit in the pile, none of the jumpers wanted to land on their friends.  Some waited patiently, some asked their friends to move, and I scooted some of them along when they appeared to have taken up residence.  Still, with only one very small leaf pile, 8 of our school friends, plus 4 more siblings, there was nothing but good-natured play.

 My favorite part is that the children spontaneously lined up and took turns!  Yes, there was a little cutting in line, but not much, and the children took care of that too.  I even saw one child go to jump, more or less slip off, and rethink what to do.  I could see she wanted to climb back up on the box and try again, and I don't think anyone would have stopped her.  She paused a moment, as if thinking about it, gave a tiny shrug, and went to the back of the line to wait for another turn.  Don't you wish more adults could act that way?

Yes, we had a pretty super, and wonderfully simple Halloween! 

Back to school week

The first week of school is always crazy, busy, and exciting - for the children AND the teachers.  Here's a peek at some of the things we've been doing...

We put injured animals in an "ambulance" and made /a/ sounds as we drove it around.

 We made uppercase letter A crafts, cutting out the shape, writing our names on it, and then adding a poem about alligators and an alligator paint stamp to it.  We also made lowercase a crafts that look like apples with ants crawling on them.

 We made new friends...

and played in the sand.

 We found new perspectives, new ways of looking at the world we're in.

 We tried out all the playground equipment, from swings...

 ... to the climbing gazebo...

 ... and of course the slides!

There were new things to try out, like pattern blocks...

                                                             ...dinosaurs...

                                                                                              ... and other math manipulatives.

We threw bread for the ducks that live in the pond behind my house...

 ... got messy

 ... and found quiet places to hang out with friends.

 We ran ourselves ragged - and my dog Patriot too!

 We took off our shoes and felt the sand squishy and soft between our toes...

 ... and played with colorful ice on a hot afternoon.

 That meant negotiating with friends for the toys, cooperating and sharing.

 We mixed, poured and dripped the melting purple ice water, fascinated with the cold, the color, and the process.

 We found yummy ways to cool off too!  We all know what it means when Ms. Paula starts singing her "Pop, pop, popsicle" song.

 We read about astronauts, and dressed up in an astronaut costume...

 ... made a page for our abc album with stamps and stickers of things that start with the letter A.

 We hunted for roly pollies, and collected them in a container so we could check them out.

 We dug with trucks in the dirt at the sensory table.  Did I mention we got dirty and messy?

 We each made a page for our class book, Up On Top, a variation of Dr. Seuss's Ten Apples Up On Top.  Class books are our favorites to read, because we helped to make them!

 We told which kind of apple we each like the best, and made a graph to show which we think is the yummiest flavor.  Several friends signed "equal," because red and yellow both had 4 votes!

 Next we had a blind taste test, trying out (peeled) pieces of green, yellow and red apple, and deciding which bowl of apples tasted best.

 When Ms. Paula revealed which flavors were in each bowl, we found out that many of us prefer different kinds of apples than what we thought we did.  We did some clever thinking, and decided that when Ms. Paula goes to the store, she should probably buy red apples the most often, because the most people like red ones the best.

We played in the water table, and of course, got completely soaked.   Good news!  It is very hot, and the water helped us to feel cool and comfortable outside.

 We enjoyed the sunshine, but most of all...

                                                                      WE HAD FUN!

By the way, as of this writing, it's only Thursday.  We still have to make and eat our applesauce tomorrow - but that's another post.