Snowy Caves and Bats

At lunch today the children were showing off how much they learned this week to my mom, Miss Vicki.  They told her that bears hibernate in caves and they come out in the spring, but not polar bears!  Polar Bears like the snow.  They said that frogs go in the mud until spring.  And birds fly in the sky far far away until spring, and fish go down to the bottom of the lake when it is cold!  It always amazes me how much they pick up and how they recall the information is so fun to hear!  Most of that came from the song we are learning this week.  I will post it in the newsletter tomorrow :o)  We pretended we were hibernating bats in the motor room.  We made snowy caves and the children made their interpretation of a bear!  

REMINDER- Hibernation Day tomorrow!  Send the kiddos in their PJs with their favorite stuffed friend!

Insects in Winter

We read Not A Buzz to Be Found by Linda Glaser.  I love this book!  The pictures are awesome and it really held the children’s attention.  So where do all of the bugs go in the winter?  Some of them fly south for the winter like birds… some of them hibernate… some of them stay safe in their eggs until Spring.  We got messy with “dirt” finger paint and then drew tunnels for the ants to hide out in until Spring.  I also had the children who are still learning to write their name trace over the one I had written with a yellow marker.  They are getting so good at this!  Some of them are so close to writing it independently, and we have some that already are writing their names!!
REMINDER: Friday is Hibernation Day!  Send your child to school in their PJs and bring their favorite stuffed friend!

 E is pretty sure there are some insects hiding in here for the winter!  He found them as we were waiting for the bus!

Hibernation-Migration-Adaption

Hibernation, Migration and Adaption are the words we will learn about this week!   Today we picked out an animal and then built them a shelter using anything in the room.  We then walked around the room and talked with each child about the shelter they made and if the animal they chose was one that would hibernate, migrate or adapt.  We also set up a bear cave in the motor room, and made snow play dough!  I used an opal glitter, but it really isn’t glitter at all it is shiny pieces of plastic that are more like confetti… Not such a good idea!  They just kind of sit on top of the play dough and then fall off all over the place!  UGH Glittery Mess!  I’m probably the only preschool teacher alive that really does not like glitter! Thankfully Miss Brittany cleaned up the play dough mess! The children didn’t seem to mind that the glitter wasn’t staying in their play dough!

I Have a Dream…

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” Martin Luther King, Jr.
In honor of this day we talked about friends, and acceptance of everyone.  We compared similarities and differences with each other.  And talked about what makes a good friend.  We read I’m Like You, You’re Like Me and Bright Eyes, Brown Skin.  At the table we paired up and drew pictures of each other.

January 17 Newsletter

Snow and Icicles

Well we made it through our first full week back to school complete with a full moon!  The effects of the moon finally wore off around Thursday!  We had fun learning about polar animals, and experimenting with ice.  Today we did ice and snow finger paint and made icicles with glue.  This is one of my favorite projects, it is so easy and the children love it.  Just have the children squeeze a thick line of glue on the top of a piece of blue construction paper and then have them hold it up.  The glue runs and it makes really cool icicles. Finish it off with some white glitter!!  

Penguins and Polar Bears Oh My!

I’m a little penguin Black and White, I waddle to the Left and I waddle to the Right, I can’t fly but I can swim I waddle to the water and jump right in!  That is our song of the week, and it sticks in your head!  The children LOVE it!  To get up and go to Centers the children chose their favorite polar animal on a chart and wrote their name under the picture.  The arctic fox and the penguin had the most votes with 3 each.  We did a science experiment today called fizzy ice.  We added baking soda to a bowl of ice and the children used droppers to drop vinegar on the ice.  We also added watercolor to the vinegar to make it even more fun, and sprinkled some salt on the ice too.  It was pretty cool!!  The older children made polar books and read them with me, the younger children had the option to make one if they wanted too. One of our mommies joined us for breakfast and circle time today :o)

Polar Opposites

Today we read the book that inspired our theme this week called Polar Opposites It is a great book, about a Polar Bear and a Penguin.  They are opposite in every way: One is little one is big, one is white and one is black, one is messy and one is clean, one likes to get up early and the other likes to sleep late… You get the idea, but they are still really good friends.  We talked about that today at circle time, how we are all different and some of us are Polar Opposites, but we can still be friends!  We painted with opposite colors today we used white paint on black paper.  We also worked on our cutting skills by cutting out a polar bear and then gluing cotton balls on it.  They loved their soft fuzzy bears.

Ice Ice Baby

You knew that title was coming at some point this week!  We had fun exploring Ice today!  First we had to go find a small toy from the classroom.  They brought them up one at a time and as a class we had to decide if we thought it would slide down the ice or not.  Some had wheels so they would roll, but then we would turn them sideways to see if they would slide or not.  After the Slide / No Slide experiment we experimented with Ice, Salt, and Watercolor Paint.  They discovered that salt makes the ice melt faster!  They loved using the droppers and watercolor!  We added pictures of Polar Animals to our easel.  The boys did their own experiment to see if big or little cars would go faster. We also had a special guest reader!  Thank You to Miss Coli for reading the fun Monkey books and doing some of our favorite monkey songs… 5 Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree and 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!

Polar Opposites

This week our theme is Polar Opposites.  We will be talking about Polar Animals and learning about Opposites.  Today we played in shaving cream snow, and painted with a special ice paint (It is actually Epsom salt and water when it dried it looks like ice).  We read a book called Over and Under the Snow,  as we read the children helped me find some opposites.