Lunch is provided tomorrow so you only need to bring your water bottle.
The children enjoyed a variety of new centers today. We explored a farmers market full of fruits and vegetables in the dramatic play area. During art we painted barns. We talked about all the animals you would likely find on a farm. After a few animal sound games and a guess the animal riddle game, the children wanted more time in centers before heading out to the playground. It was a perfect, no jacket kind of day. We are very excited about Rodeo Day coming on Friday. We will have time in the Rodeo Room, a visit from some real farm animals, and a special Cowboy Lunch. Come dressed in your favorite western gear and be ready to RODEO!
Lunch is provided tomorrow so you only need to bring your water bottle. There were only 5 Owls in class today so it was a pretty chill morning. We enjoyed centers, Chapel, and other activities. This morning I put up a large sheet of paper with stickers all over it. Below the paper the children found markers. I asked them to use the markers to connect the stickers. This required a steady hand and self control to connect the dots. You could hear the children repeating over and over to themselves. " Dot, dot and STOP!" They did extremely well with this challenge! A little Chapel video will be sent in GroupMe. During art this morning we stamped hearts. We had a science activity planned for Wednesday that we ran out of time for so we did it today. Each child received a ball of baking soda with a little treasure buried inside. Their job was to use pipettes and vinegar to uncover the treasure. Once they found their treasure they were allowed to keep it. We then continued making baking soda and vinegar explosions. We finished up the morning with some playground and of course lunch. Next week we will be ready to Rodeo! Please remember to bring in your cans of pinto beans for our Cowboy Lunch by Wednesday, Feb. 21. Wear your finest western gear and join us for all the fun we have planned. See you next week!
We were very busy playing in all new centers today. We had a salad bar set out in dramatic play, sensory and fine motor centers and letter sorting (X and O's) on the light table. We had a great time decorating our Valentine Mailbags. It's hard work peeling all of those sticker backs off! Before our party we headed out to the playground for some fun! A very special thank you to our party parents! They provided a wonderful lunch and delicious cookies for us to decorate. Everyone enjoyed themselves! Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! Thank you for the sweet treats, cards and kind words. We had a wonderful day! Looking forward to Friday and some more time together.
We were still short a few owls today but that didn't stop us from having fun. We continued with our pets and vets theme. The children tended to their animals, played pet themed games, and built many pet cages. We learned new songs in Chapel today. I will add a little video to GroupMe. Then we took our pets on a walk to Motor Skills. After Motor Skills we went to see a presentation from Mr. John about bugs and insects. Everyone listened intently. Many of us were brave enough to hold a living hissing cockroach as well! After the presentation we headed back to the classroom to work on our scissor skills. It was a great day! We are eagerly anticipating our Valentine's Day Party on Wednesday next week. The children will bring in Valentine's Day cards for their friends. We will decorate "mailboxes" in the morning before the party. Lunch will be provided so you only need to pack water bottles. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Let me know if you have any party questions. See you all next week!
Our little Owl's were very excited to be aspiring veterinarians this morning. We had a large variety of pets and doctor tools to choose from. The light table was transformed into the X-ray reader, the sink became the doggie wash, and the blocks were used to build animal cages. We were delighted to welcome the Tobin Performing Arts Education Outreach again this morning. They brought us a wonderful shadow puppet show. We watched "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". The children were mesmerized. I will attach a video to the GroupMe. After snack our pets were getting restless and needed to go out for a walk. So we each chose a pet and tied on a leash. Then we walked them to music class where the pets sat and watched the children learn about high and low sounds. I will attach a video of that from Ms. Rachel as well. Back in the room we listened to a story called, A Pet for Fly Guy. The children really enjoyed it. Then Tootsie had brought some fun Kitten glasses to try on. Next we headed to the big table to make Pet Rocks! So much creativity. We finished up our busy morning with some fresh air. Friday we will have a visit from Critterville. They will be bringing some creatures for us to explore. We will also have Chapel Time and continue our Pets and Vets unit. See you Friday!
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!
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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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