The boys and girls enjoyed exploring the centers this morning. Our favorite was the addition of some new magnetic blocks. We spent quite a bit of time figuring them out and building towers and spaceships. We worked on some fine motor strengthening with play dough. At circle time RoboKitty was back by popular demand. Everyone was excited to visit with her again. Next we headed to the big table for some art. We discussed how robots move. I showed the children pictures of gears and then we decided to paint some pictures. The fun twist was that there was a gear on our paintbrush. Everyone made several paintings. We also revisited an activity we had tried earlier this year, water transfer. The children have gotten pretty good at working with pipettes at this point so I gave each child a tray with two glasses. One was filled with water and the other was empty. Then I challenged them to move the water from one glass to the other without picking up the glass. Our only tool was the pipette. Everyone worked hard to complete the challenge. There were a few spills along the way but we also learned how to clean them up using the pipette. All of the children worked hard. Once they had transferred the water successfully they were allowed to pour the water from one glass to the other, yet another valuable skill. It was another beautiful day on the playground as well. Everyone was excited to be back together this morning. We spent time in centers, working on our scissor skills, and meeting a new robot, RoboKitty! She was definitely a fan favorite today. At snack time we enjoyed crackers and cheese. The boys and girls worked on their knife skills as we cut our cheese into bite size circles before we ate it. After Motor Skills we returned to our room to meet RoboKitty. She is a robotic cat that sings, dances, and even purrs when you pet her head. We all sat in a large circle to allow RoboKitty room to roam. She visited each student and everyone thought she was just great. Next, we sat around the big table and made some robot name art, worked on our scissor skills, drew self portraits, and made more maps for Ozobot to try out. We finished with some time outdoors. Everyone was happy to run around and play together. We had a wonderful time this week. Next week we will work on magnets. The robots were such hit they may stick around for another visit next week. Enjoy your weekend!
A little rain never stopped the Owls from having fun! This morning was no exception. We had the best time learning about robots. We played some robot games, danced, and even met a real mini robot, named Ozobot. One of the fan favorites this morning was a tray with several locks and keys. The locks were programed with a capital letter on one side and a picture of what a word that starts with that letter on the other. The keys also had a lower case letter and its matching upper case letter on the other side. This letter matching combined with the fine motor aspect made this quite a challenge. But the boys and girls LOVED it! They spent quite a bit of time working to figure out how the keys went into the locks and that turning the key opened the lock. Only the locks with our first initials were laid out. I thought the entire alphabet would be too overwhelming at this point. Definitely a game to revisit. We also throughly enjoyed playing with Alphabots. They are a type of transformer. They start out as letters and with a twist and a turn they become robots. Playing with letters is an awesome way to learn. The children had a lot of fun in music dancing with scarves. Back in our room Tootsie brought her favorite book about robots. We all followed along with the proper hand motions etc. Next we headed to the big table to create one of a kind robots with recycled collage materials. We needed a lot of glue to make everything stick. This has to be my favorite art project of the year. They always turn out so amazing. What creative artists the Owls are. Just as we were finishing up the fire alarm went off. And if that wasn't enough of an exciting jolt as I opened the door to lead the children outside the heavens opened and poured on us. We all looked like a bunch of wet rats. Many of the children opted to change into dry clothes. If your child needed dry clothes please replace those in case we should have a need to change again. Once we dried off we were introduced to a real robot, Ozobot. This is an amazing little coding robot that is perfect for preschoolers. Ozobot reads colors, red, green, blue, and black. As he passes over the colored lines his light changes to reflect the color of line he is walking on. For advanced children you can but the colors together to give Ozobot commands to speed up, spin around, move backwards. It is such a fun little robot. I made the first map Ozobot followed and then the children had the chance to make their own maps for him. Despite the rain we had an amazing day together. I am looking forward to Friday. Tootsie will introduce us to her friend RoboKitty. I think the boys and girls will love her! See you then.
We were back at it this morning with more Cocoa fun. The children enjoyed dramatic play, stuffing marshmallows into their container, sensory play, letter games. and more. After Motor Skills we took a little in house field trip over to the Life Skills Kitchen in the D Wing. We were very excited to make hot cocoa. While we waited for things to heat up we decided to do a science experiment. In keeping with the idea that marshmallows are big and fluffy we each got a piece of Ivory Soap to microwave. This is a wonderful sensory experiment. Minus tasting the soap of course, we could smell it, see it transform as it was begin heated, listen to the microwave, and feel the new texture of the soap once it came out of the microwave. This experiment will only work with Ivory Soap. When Ivory is made it is whipped which leaves air pockets in the bar. Those air pockets have water vapor trapped inside. When heated the water vapor expands causing the soap bar to "grow" and morph into new and exciting shapes. Each student had the opportunity to watch their bar up close. By the time we had completed the experiment our hot cocoa was ready to enjoy. After that little bit of sugar we were ready to head out to the playground to run around. We had a great time together this week. Next week is probably one of my favorite weeks of the year. Robot Week! We will meet a few different types of robots, get to program them and even build our own unique robots with recycled materials. It is sure to be a great time for everyone. See you next Wednesday.
Everyone was excited to be together this morning. Once we made it to the room and put our things away the children were more than happy to dive into new centers and mix up some hot cocoa in our dramatic play area. Among our favorite centers were learning how to use a hole puncher and some blue Kinetic Sand that we could pretend make cocoa with. During art we used our fine motor skills to either cut or rip brown paper strips into small pieces. Then we squeezed some glue on to a cocoa mug shape and stuck our paper bits to it. Then we mixed up some white puffy paint to use as whipped cream on top of our mugs. We used a jumbo marshmallow as our paint applicator. Once we cleaned up we each got a fresh marshmallow to taste. When playground time came around we had a lesson in how to put our coats on by ourselves. We placed our jackets at our feet with the tag pointed at our toes. Then we bent down and slid our hands into the arm holes. As we stood up we flipped our coat over our heads and our arms slid into the sleeves. It will take some practice to become independent but we are off to a great start. Everyone was having fun flipping their jackets on. Friday is looking like it will be another chilly day. We will be making and taste testing hot cocoa with marshmallows. I'm sure everyone will love it!
The boys and girls were at it again. They loved all of the ice cream play we were engaged in this week. The highlight of our day was making our own homemade vanilla ice cream! Motor Skills class gave us quite a workout as we practiced hand eye coordination! Back in the room we were busy making ice cream name pictures. It is exciting to see that everyone now recognizes their own first initial and many of their friends. I was out shopping yesterday and came upon some red kinetic sand kits on Christmas clearance. I scooped them all up so we could use them to make "ice cream" treats with today. There is something about kinetic sand that is just irresistible! The time had finally come to make our own ice cream. We began by voting and graphing our favorite flavor, vanilla or chocolate. Once we had decided that vanilla was the class favorite, we headed to the big table to help mix up a fresh batch of vanilla ice cream. Everyone got in on the action. Once the base mixture was ready we poured it into an electric ice cream machine and added ice, and rock salt. We plugged in the machine and turned it on. It was a little noisy so we decided while it did its job we would head to the playground. When we returned from the playground we discovered the machine had mixed up the most delicious and creamy vanilla ice cream! We got to taste test it once we finished our lunches. As you can imagine, we finished lunch in record time today! It was so delicious many of us were licking the plates clean!
Next week we will be learning about hot cocoa. Fitting for the cold week ahead. We will make and taste test our own cocoa too. It is sure to be another fun filled week! Stay warm! I think the children are having the best time with this theme! Who doesn't like ice cream, right? We had the best time exploring all of the ice cream themed games but our favorite by far was playing in the ice cream shop! Overheard in the ice cream shop this morning... "Hey, let's put a cherry on top." "My favorite is chocolate with chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles!" "Put sprinkles on it before you try it." "Who wants ice cream?" "My mommy makes me ice cream when I am good." "Do you like ice cream or ice pops better?" "My favorite ice cream store is HEB." "Wow! Ms. Kristen look at how big my ice cream is!" The boys and girls enjoyed their time at Music class with Ms. Rachel. Once we were back in our classroom we read an ice cream story and then headed to the big table to work on some fine motor skills. Today we snipped ice cream cutting strips, made our own puffy paint, and worked to make ice cream treats with our play dough. We are all looking forward to tasting some homemade ice cream on Friday. We will combine science and cooking to whip up a fresh batch of vanilla ice cream to try. Hope to see you all Friday!
We had a wonderful day welcoming our newest Owl friend. The children enjoyed centers, crafts, and even a snowball fight! During art we decorated large snowflakes with beautiful sparkles. We also used paint sticks to make a tape resist snowflake painting. They turned out beautifully! Next, we headed out to the common area and had an epic snowball fight! It was so much fun! This gross motor activity had us running, jumping, catching and throwing. It really got our blood pumping! After all of that morning fun it was time for some fresh air. It was the most beautiful day and we didn't even need our coats. Overall it was a wonderful day! Our newest Owl was a perfect fit for our classroom. Next week we will transform dramatic play into an ice cream parlor. I have a feeling the boys and girls are going to love it! Have a wonderful weekend!
To say that the boys and girls were excited to be back at school would be an understatement! Everyone came back eager to see one another and explore new centers in the room. This week we are learning about ice. The kids loved practicing writing their letters in a sand tray, building a snowman, making smoothies in the dramatic play and exploring the blocks. We rang in the new year with a fun 2024 collage project. We painted glue on the numbers and then placed some sparkly confetti over the glue to bling out the year! During science each child received a big block of ice that had 3 arctic mini erasers trapped inside. Their job was to try and free the erasers. If they could free the erasers from the block of ice they could keep the erasers. They were given a cup of water, pipette, and rock and table salt to help speed up the melting process. One by one, everyone was able to free their erasers. We finished our morning with some fresh cool air. We will play outdoors every day unless it is raining so please send coats or light jackets. We will also be learning how to put our own coats on in the coming weeks. As you work with your kiddos at home to reinforce this new skill remind them to put their jacket down on the floor "tags to toes", reach into the arm holes and flip the jacket over their heads. They will be able to put their own coats on in no time! Looking forward to Friday. We will be welcoming a new classmate! We will also make some insta-snow to explore and will have a fun snowball fight! Can't wait to see you then!
It is hard to believe the first half of the school year is behind us! Where has the time gone? We had a wonderful time today playing with the babies, building gingerbread houses, making ornaments, and enjoying our Birthday Party for Jesus! During Motor Skills the children enjoyed a snowball fight and other winter games. Back in the room we used ribbon to measure ourselves. We cut the ribbon and stuffed it into an ornament. We will always remember how tall we were when we were three. Next up we were challenged to build gingerbread houses with a wide variety of building materials. There were different blocks, ornaments, candy canes, bells, buttons, jumbo pompoms, and more! We got very creative! It was finally time for our party. We enjoyed chicken nuggets, carrots, and veggie straws. Then we exchanged our books and opened the presents. Everyone went home with a wonderful new book. We finished out the party by decorating and eating cupcakes for Jesus' party. Everyone had a wonderful time. Thank you so much to the party host! I couldn't have done it with out you! The children had a wonderful time! I also want to take a moment to thank you all for your generous gifts and sweet words. I love working with these kiddos and thank you for sharing them with me a few mornings each week. I pray you all have the most blessed Christmas with friends and family. Enjoy making memories together! See you in 2024!
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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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