The Owls had fun exploring arctic animals this morning. We identified several animals that live in the arctic region. We even played in SNOW! The children also really enjoyed our art project today. We again went with a non-traditional paint brush and used tooth brushes. What fun! Who know you could paint with a tooth brush. The children thought this idea was very silly. There were lots of giggles as they "brushed" their snowy scenes. The children also used some upper body muscle when stamping snowflakes, and hand eye coordination to stamp circles with do-a-dot markers.
The Owls had a wonderful morning. The highlight of the day was a toss up between our art project and science experiment. I loved how after a few minutes many of the kiddos decided two paint stampers were better than one! These tape resist snowflakes turned out beautiful. For science to day we melted primary colored ice cubes in a cup to create a new secondary color. Many were amazed that you could literally see the ice melting. We learned that putting a red and blue ice cube together they will melt and create purple, red and yellow melted to create orange and yellow and blue made green. This process was fascinating for the children and lead to many mature questions...
"Are my ice cubes going to melt and be the same as hers?" "Will it be the same color if I try again with more ice?" "What makes them melt?" "Why are they getting smaller?" and my personal favorite, "What happens if we put all three colors together?" The boys and girls had a great time exploring many new activities. We did a lot of counting, cutting and melting today. The Owl's scissor skills have come a long way! We are pretty much all holding our scissors correctly with little to no correction needed. The children are all able to maneuver both the scissors and what they are cutting at the same time. Long gone is the awkwardness that was present at the beginning of the year. Today I set up a vertical cutting station over the sensory tub. I tied a ton of yarn over the tub and called it "icicles". The children were more than thrilled to cut away at our hanging indoor icicles. We finished our morning with an icy experiment. The children were each given a block of ice, jar of water, rock salt, granulated salt, a spoon and a pipette. I challenged the boys and girls to see if they could melt their ice with the tools I had provided. They wasted no time diving in. Once they understood what was happening I introduced some spray bottles with colored water and the results were beautiful. The kids made a fantastic mess but the learning, exploring, risk taking, experimenting, joy, discovery and imagination that accompanied the task was well worth it.
The children enjoyed a winter wonderland today. We painted with "snow" (puffy paint and glitter), went on a snowflake hunt and listened to a special story about making winter friends. Our day ended with a special twist on the ever popular baking soda and vinegar. I really just have to change the name of a few things and the kids go crazy for it. Today we buried snowflake gems under a layer of baking soda. This was our snow. We then used vinegar dyed blue to search for snowflakes. Once we found them the children were encouraged to grab their snowflake with jumbo tweezers because after all snow is cold! What fun we had with this familiar activity by using our imaginations and mixing it up a bit.
This morning we had the pleasure of welcoming Mr. John Rimerez and his creatures to the preschool. He brought several interesting animals to share (a hissing cockroach, a skink, a tarantula, a milk snake, a banana snake and a boa constrictor named "Champ". We had a great time learning about these special critters. We also worked in the classroom on a variety of inviting activities. One of our favorites was writing in the snow, aka shaving cream! We got a big surprise when we went out to the playground today. The preschool got a delivery of new rubber mulch and the grounds keepers have not had a chance to spread it yet. It was just sitting there in inviting piles for us to climb, roll down, jump in and enjoy. Despite the cold it was probably the most fun the owls have had on the playground all year! We also had a great time indoors. We made 3D art with tin foil and did an experiment to make raisins "dance".
The children were so excited to be back together after a two week break. We wasted no time getting back into the swing of things. Collage work is a creative way to explore different textures and strengthen hand muscles while squeezing glue bottles and manipulating small pieces. We ended our morning with a fun science experiment. We revisited the ever popular baking soda and vinegar but this time we called it "Fireworks". In honor of the New Years celebration we made our own person fireworks with the colors of our choice. I love that you can see how amazed and engaged each child is in these photos. They love doing this over and over again! 2015 is off to a great start! I am looking forward to our adventures together as the year continues.
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Why Blog?Here you will find little snippets of our days together. When my children were in preschool and would come home I would always ask, "So, what did you do today?". All they ever said was, "Played." That didn't tell me much. I hope this blog will be a place to share what we have done and help you ask more directed questions of your child. You will see first hand just what we do after you kiss your little one goodbye in the morning. It will also be a great place to visit and see just how much your child has grown and learned throughout the year. Archives
May 2023
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