Transportation Used For Work

We read I STINK! and I’M DIRTY! I love these books. They hold the children’s attention, they are funny, well written, I STINK! includes the alphabet, and I’M DIRTY! includes numbers 1-10. We talked about Transportation that people use for work at circle time… Fire Truck, Police Car, Trash Truck, Airplanes, Spaceship, Helicopters, School Bus, Water Patrol, Army Tank, and Tractors were some of the ones the children thought of this morning. We made balloon rockets with a piece of yarn, a straw, packing tape, and a balloon. They LOVED the balloon rockets! We created our own form of transportation out of shapes! We also did more magnet experimenting with magnet wands and cut up pipe cleaners in and out of a bottle. We had a Great Week! Next week we will be talking about Weather. Have a great weekend!

Airplanes

We learned a fun new song today called I’m a Little Airplane.
I’m a Little Airplane
written by Leanne Guenther tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”
I’m a little airplane, way up high,
With my great big silver wings, watch me fly
When the pilot tells me, I’ll come down,
Swooping and gliding, to the ground.
http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/transportation/m-songs-airplane.htm
We painted wooden airplanes made out of craft sticks and clothespins. This was very much product art, but sometimes you do things just because they are cute. The kiddos loved painting them and I know they will love pretending to fly them around! They will also have a magnet on them, you could use them to hang art work on your refrigerator. We made paper airplanes and had races. During playground time we brought out our airplanes, helicopter, jet, big cars, and trucks.
We are still working on names for our new class beta fish. I posted pictures on our facebook page:

Transportation and Magnets

We read Go Dog Go . This was a great book to reinforce opposites! We experimented with magnets today. We made a scene on a paper plate; road, air, water, we even had a field. Then the children made a car, boat, truck, or airplane, we cut them out and put a magnet on the back of each one, and a magnet on a craft stick. We then used the craft stick to move the form of transportation we made around the plate.
http://www.meaningfulmama.com/2014/03/magnet-track-craft.html

Boats, Boats, and More Boats!

During Circle Time we had a discussion about boats. We talked about who had been on a boat, and what they did on the boat. We also talked about different types of boats. One of our children had even been on a Dolphin Cruise! That is one of my favorite boat rides! We learned a new to some (Miss Brittany) game called Red Light Green Light. If you have never played before it is so easy. Have your child teach you tonight and play with them :o)
We made a boat out of cut in half paper plates, craft sticks and the children decorated them and cut a sail out of construction paper and glued them on. We also decorated a flag for our floating boats we made for the water table out of a pool noodle. “L” wanted to take our boat building to another level. He wanted 2 plastic bottles, so I followed his lead and he made an Awesome Sail Boat!! We decided we did need to leave the lids on the bottles, because without the lids, the bottles would fill up with water and sink. Expanding children’s play by following their lead… That is what it is all about!!

Thank You for sharing your Library book with us! And “P” is also reading!!

Transportation

This week we will be talking about one of the children’s favorite subjects Transportation! Anything that drives, flies, or floats is what these kids LOVE! Today we sang The Wheels on the Bus and we read a book called The Wheels on the Truck. We did a group painting project with a drag strip, the children drove the car of their choice through paint and then down the drag strip. I love group painting projects because it requires them to share and work together. After they were done with the group project they could come to the table and make their own smaller version. After the painting was done we were left with a bunch of cars covered with paint, so we had a car wash!!

Spring-Fork Tulips

We have a reader! Thanks E for bringing in your Mom and a library book to read to us! Awesome Job! I’m always so impressed when we get a reader in preschool, and I take no credit! Yes, I would like to think I help lay the foundation to make it easier to learn how to read, but when we have a reader in PreK it is all credit to mom and dad!
Miss Brittany sat up an obstacle course for us to run during Music and Movement time. They had a lot of fun and ran off some energy. During craft time we did something we had never done before, painted with forks. Thanks Pinterest for the great ideas! This art activity turned out so cute and I was so impressed with their creations! Adorable Flower Art!!
A Look Ahead: Next Weeks Theme will be Transportation
REMINDER: Book Orders Due March 26

Happy First Day of Spring!

When will it be Spring? was our book of the day. It is about a bear cub that keeps waking his mommy up from hibernation to ask if it is spring yet. She says not until you see butterflies, swallows fill the trees, bright sun, and the weather gets warmer. After the story the children pretended they were hibernating bears waking up for spring! We drew a picture of something outdoors and then added fingerprint rain drops. We also used our droppers to make it rain on an Easter Egg that we will hang on our Easter Tree. We built with blocks, played some games, and enjoyed the nice weather! Thank You Miss Vicki for coming in early today to play with us!

Spring – Clean up time

So glad it is the last official day of winter. I hope the weather agrees! Today we talked about what the weather is usually like in Summer, Winter, Spring, and Autumn… of course we do live in Missouri so we know the weather changes quickly around here! We worked on our names with the shamrocks again, naming the letters and trying to line them up in the correct order. During table time we had a picture starter with green lines at the bottom of the page, I was going for grass or flower stems. I didn’t give them any direction just gave them the paper with different kinds of paint. We got a rainbow, a flag, a bird, a horse, a man, and maybe one flower. I love how their minds think. We also played with our letter/number water table again.

We have been having trouble at clean up time lately. Mostly not wanting to stop playing and not wanting to put things where they belong. Today, the dress-up center was left with a big pile on the floor. So, the dress-up stuff got packed away for a day or two. We had a talk about being respectful of their things, taking care of their things, and putting them away where they belong so they can find them next time they want to play with them. I told them I don’t want them to put them away for me, I want them to put them away for them. This is THEIR classroom they should take pride in their things and WANT to put things where they belong. If you could talk about this at home this week too that would be awesome. This would be a great opportunity to talk about taking care of their rooms or toy rooms :o)

Who needs Paper when you have skin!

He asked for gray, I gave him black and white… he was pretty excited when he created gray!

SPRING!!

We are all so happy that it is starting to feel, smell, and look a lot like spring! Today we went on a nature walk to look for signs of spring. We collected some rocks and pinecones and thought it would be fun to paint them! We also turned our sensory tub into alphabet/number soup!

The Leprechaun Was Here!

What a fun day! The children came in and found a big mess! (To see all of the mess I posted pictures on our facebook page) We didn’t catch him, but we think that he has been sticking around PLA all day. He has played a few tricks on us. He turned our milk green, used our bathroom, and put our tables away. We didn’t mind the no tables we just had a Breakfast Picnic! Even though we didn’t get the leprechaun or his gold this year we did have a lot of fun and he left us a note and some gold candy!