What an exciting day as we welcomed back one of our owls who has been out with an injury for a few weeks. They children were so happy to see him return. He too, was very happy to be back in class. We continued our discussions about birds and were very lucky the weather held out just long enough for us to take in a nature walk trying to spot a bird in the wild. During art we read a sweet book titled, "Little Green". It is about a boy how spots a hummingbird outside his window. He spends time watching the hummingbird and paints a picture that mimics the birds erratic and sharp movements. Once the story was finished we turned on some instrumental music that sounded a little like a hummingbird in flight. The children listened to the music and painted like the boy from the story. This activity really got us in the mood to see some real birds. We gathered a bunch of binoculars and headed outdoors to see what we might spot. We got a close up view of a mocking bird, a swallow flying over our heads, and several house finches and sparrows. Even if we couldn't see them with our binoculars we certainly could hear them chirping out their sweet songs. Another great week in the books. Next week we will study insects. We will hunt for Roly Poly bugs and Ladybugs. Hope we find some! Have a great weekend.
When I look back to September it is truly amazing how much we have grown up! In the beginning of the year every child needed assistance washing hands, using the bathroom, finding our totes, opening our lunch boxes, holding scissors. The list goes on and on. This morning as we were washing our hands I realized that most of the children no longer need a stool to reach the sink. They will often tell me they don't need my help, they can do it! Isn't that what we want for them? To feel empowered, to do for themselves. I have seen so much growth this year. I'm so proud of these growing Owls! The children really enjoyed painting their own birdhouses today. They choose the colors they wanted to use and worked diligently to paint every inch of the homes for their feathered friends. Once they are dry they will be going home with the children. We also discussed that birds are all born from eggs. Last week we were supposed to make some Cascarones but our day was so full we ran out of time. So we saved them for today and had fun filling them. The glue will dry and they will be sent home on Friday. The rest of our morning was filled with bird themed games and activities. Looking forward to Friday as we hope to go on a bird watch and make a bird feeder.
To say that today was a world wind of activity would be an understatement. We had a day jam packed with activities that we couldn't fit everything I had planned in! But it was so worth it. The children loved being cowboys and cowgirls for the morning. The trick roper visit was a big hit and so was our lunch. Our morning began in the kitchen as we mixed up all of our Cowboy Stew ingredients. Everyone was able to add an ingredient or mix things together before turning on the crock pot. From there we stopped in the classroom for a potty break and snack before visiting music. Next we headed to the playground to have some piñata fun. We all took turns hitting the piñata and trying to empty it of all the treats inside. (Trying to take pictures of kids swinging a stick, while holding the piñata string, and making sure everyone was at a safe distance was a task!) Our time outside was cut short because the Trick Roper was ready for us. Kevin Fitzpatrick is a World Champion Trick Roper and he put on an exciting demonstration for the children. Many students had an opportunity to participate. We even had a special friend join us for the fun. From there we made a stop at the OK Coral, where we were able to ride some bucking broncos, race some stick horses, and pose for a picture on the saddle. We finally made our way back to our room for a little down time. We had several rodeo/farm themed games ready to explore. We finished our morning with lunch made by the children. Some of us liked it better than others. Some were reluctant to try it but everyone found something to enjoy. The Cowboy Stew was delicious topped with cheese and tortilla chips. We also drank some "Cowboy Coffee" (chocolate milk), enjoyed some fruit salad, and ran out of time so we sent cupcakes home to enjoy with our family. As you can see it was a day chock full of fun. I hope you all enjoy your Fiesta Holiday on Friday. We will resume classes next Wednesday. Thank you all for contributing your ingredient to help make our special lunch.
Let me start off with a huge thank you to one of our sweet parents who came to our rescue this morning. When I arrived at school today and started my set up I went down to the refrigerator to retrieve our worms. To my horror, the fridge is set too cold and our worms were frozen. I was beside myself but after reaching out to you all I am pleased to announce that our days' plans were salvaged as a replacement tub of worms made it to our room before the children were any wiser. And let me tell you the worms that came in today were ACTIVE! They were so much fun to watch. Several of them were little escape artists fleeing the observation trays. Once we had observed these amazing creatures we ventured out into the Life Skills garden. We have been working in the garden all year to grow vegetables and herbs we uses in many of our recipes for the class. We thought it would be a wonderful addition to our garden to place the worms in the beds where they can work on helping fertilize and aerate the soil. It was fun to watch the worms dig straight down into the soil. We know they are in a much happier place doing what God made them to do. As soon as we returned to the classroom the alarm sounded for a Lock Down drill. Our job is to hide quietly in the bathroom with the lights out and doors locked until the drill is over. I told the children the alarm meant that we had to play "hide and seek" with Mrs. Kunkle. We locked our door, turned out the lights and hid in the bathroom. I gave everyone a lollipop to help keep us all super quiet. We did a great job and everyone loved the "game". They all wanted to play again! After the drill we sat at the table while we finished our treats. Everyone thought their blue tongues were hilarious! The children also enjoyed a simple science experiment where we explored the worms segments. We took simple paper wrapped straws and squished the wrapper all the way down the straw. We gently removed the wrapper and placed it on our trays. Then we dropped a few drops of water onto the wrapper. As the wrapper absorbed the water our paper "worm" grew. This is a fun trick you might want to try again the next time you're out to dinner. We finished our morning with some worm paintings and a special treat of a gummy worm. It was one of our most memorable weeks this year! I am excited for our cowboy/fiesta celebration on Wednesday next week. Please don't forget your part of the Cowboy Stew. We will make that together once we arrive in the morning and eat it as our lunch. Dress in your favorite western gear and come ready for a great Trick Roper Show. It will be an exciting morning!
Worm week could not have come at a more fitting time of year. This spring season in particular we have seen an explosion of inch worms and other oak tree worms everywhere we go. Our playground and gardens are full of little creeping, crawling, creatures. The children notice them out on the pathways, playground structures, and sometimes even tagging along on their clothes. So this week we will take a closer look at worms. These gentle creatures are useful to us in many ways but many have a fear of them. Admittedly they are not my favorite creatures either so I needed to be brave in front of the children, handle the worms myself, and show them that there is nothing to fear. Oh, how I love the curious minds of three year olds! This morning was full of fun and personal discoveries. We learned a lot about earthworms and how they help gardeners. The children were very interested in meeting our special guests. We discussed at length that these worms are God's creatures. He created them for a very special purpose. We needed to treat them with gentle hands and soft voices. Before we got all hands on we needed to explore with our eyes. We compared a real earthworm to a gummy worm. We compared the two worms side by side. Next, we paired up and each group got a worm to observe. With their magnifying glasses they could get a close up look at the worm's segments, and how they contract and expand them to move. We were fascinated to learn that worms do not have bones. We also discussed that the worm's skin is very sensitive and when we touch the worms we need to be gentle and not pull or poke them but let our hands be still and feel the worm wiggling along. After about 30 minutes of exploring and examining we tried to put the worms back in their container. They seemed to really like their visit and didn't want to leave. We also made worm puppets, learned how to make play dough worms and explored the many centers set out this week. Rolling all of those play dough worms was a great fine motor activity. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the children did with it.
Looking forward to Friday. We will spend a little more time with our worm friends, participate in an experiment aimed at showing the children exactly how the worm's segmented body works, and we will release our little friends into the preschool garden that the Life Skills classes are working with on Monday's. See you then! Another busy day in the Young 3's class. We enjoyed making paper plate flowers, working with play dough, using glitter flower stickers, and making prints with the sun. We had a blast making sun prints this morning. This was a new science experiment for me to try with the children. I had no idea if it would work or not. To our surprise it worked!. We each had an opportunity to find an item or two in the classroom that we wanted the sun to "take a picture of". Then we placed our objects on the special sun print paper and placed it in the sun for two minutes. We explored the garden a bit as the sun did its job. Then we dipped our prints in water to halt the development process and set them to dry. The children really enjoyed the whole experinece and made some pretty cool pictures in the process Our paper plate flowers and sticker fun gave our fine motor muscles a nice little work out too. We topped off our morning with some play dough play. I hope you all enjoy the weekend. Hopefully the pollen will begin to subside soon. So many of us are suffering with allergies. I'm looking forward to next week as we explore worms. And, yes! We will have real worms in class to investigate.
The playground was teaming with new life this morning and we had a front row seat to all the creatures sharing our play space. In class today we learned about plants and flowers. Our dramatic play area was a flower shop and there were several flower activities to check out. We made some really beautiful 3D button flowers. We also enjoyed some fine motor sensory fun as we built a flower garden in some green Mad Matter! We will be back on Friday we more fun! See you then.
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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
March 2024
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