Dr. Seuss Day

We had a fantastic day!  It was a lot of fun celebrating Dr. Seuss in preschool today.  I had to pick some of my favorite photos to share, but I also included a video collage of all the photos from today (I believe I took 64 pictures).
We started the day by coloring some "Cat in the Hat" hats.  I was so glad last night when I went to prep these hats that I had done extras last year and they were mostly done for me.  Yay!  If you want to make some yourself take an over sized white lunch bag and draw lines every two inches.  I drew a red "x" in the middle of every other rectangle and that's where the kids colored.  Then you cut out the inside of a paper plate and staple the bag to it.  I've made these every year for about 10 years and it is so much fun every time!

 Our first three to finish making their hats loved playing with them while the rest were finishing coloring.

 We headed downstairs next to read "The Cat in the Hat."

 I used printables from Mama's Monkeys and 2 Teaching Mommies. We had all sorts of activities.  I made lapbooks of a sort with these printables by taking a large sheet of construction paper, gluing some pages on the outside and an envelope on the inside and laminating them.   We traced the letter "H" and the word "Hat"...

 We played shape matching and shadow matching games...

 and then headed upstairs for snack time.  Here a crowd has gathered at the kitchen sink to wash, somehow the bathroom is "so yesterday!" and the kitchen is the new "hip to was my hands here" spot.  Awesome, some just need to grow a few more inches :)

 We put 10 eggs into a pan and started cooking them on the stove top (I secretly added food coloring).  While our eggs were cooking we read, "Green Eggs and Ham." The kids were uncertain about the green eggs and ham we had for snack, but everyone tried them and liked them in the end.

 We had a new friend "R" join us for preschool today.  She was a blast to have and we hope she joins us for preschool in the fall.

 We made these adorable "Thing" popsicle puppets that you can find at toddlerapproved.com

 "C" thought it was awesome getting attention for his red painted face, so he took the dot markers and painted his whole face.  What a silly kid.

 I love that the kids decided they should line up all their "Thing Puppets" on the piano like this.  How fun!

 For math today we worked on some size comparisons...

 and matching sets of trees to a numeral...

 and having "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" race to the finish line!

I love celebrating Dr. Seuss birthday and am excited that we get to do a few more fun activities on Friday for Fortifying Friday.  It's days like today that energize me to keep coming up with fun activities for our little preschoolers.  Thanks for sharing your kids with me!

Wednesday's Review

Preschool on Wednesday was a review day.  We missed the twins and little J this week.  If you're so inclined please pray for the twins, they are quite ill and could use all the prayer warriors possible.

 Review days are a lot of fun because we get to pull out some of the store bought games that cover all the letters or math concepts etc.  We learn about playing games and taking turns all while reviewing what we've learned throughout the year.

 We also get an extra story time on review days.  I don't think kids are read too enough, I often say, "I'll read it to you later." because I'm busy with a project and I feel bad about that.  Today we read, "The Pout, Pout Fish" and talked about how we could be pouty or happy - it's all up to us!

We had a great Spanish and ASL class a week ago Thursday.  It was the last of a 7 week series on "Eat and Drink".  This week we started a new 4 week series called "Baby Signing Time" that covers a bunch of basic signs such as eat/drink, pets, more, family members, diaper, hurt, etc.  We had a great first week and we look forward to more fun!

 EMan really loves his little girl friend - they bonded the other night when her mom babysat my boys :)

 We also had a fun playdate this week since Monday was President's Day and we took a little break from preschool.  We enjoyed lots of playtime and had a picnic lunch in the living room.

 Here's the felt board from our first class in the Baby Signing Time series, it is a lot of fun to have this class with such great friends!

Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

Today was a fantastic day in preschool.  I'm feeling great because I'm caught up with our blogging and we had so much learning going on today it was awesome!  We started out by making some hand print suns.  We learned about the sun today because our letter of the week is U.  The hand prints were a challenge to see how great we've become at our cutting skills.  I helped them trace their first set of hand prints, then they traced their second set.  They cut out both sets (for the most part) by themselves.

 I created a sun letter wheel to practice all of the letters we've learned this year.  I did make a mistake and included R and took out A (because I thought I was out of space), but the kids loved practicing their letter names and sounds this way.  You can download a copy {here}.  Just cut out both circles and the square on the sun and attach with a brad in the middle circle.  Then spin and practice the letter that appears. If you do download it let me know about it by leaving a comment!

 At art time we continued our sun art project by making a face for our sun.

 We also had sun lacing cards.

 Our math activity was a hit today.  It certainly was a lot of fun learning the words under/over and above/below.  I made it very clear that this is not something we get to do without permission, but I apologize if your child starts to climb under/over or above/below your furniture.

 During music time today we put on a puppet show with U the Pup from the Amazing Action Alphabet.  It was interesting listening to the different dialogs the kids were having with their pups :)

I was disappointed that my camera ran out of batteries at this point in our day.  We finished music with an introduction to the rhythm sticks and singing the song Mr. Sun.  I was impressed at their awesome behavior with the sticks today.  I wasn't sure how well they would go over, but everyone was listening and acting appropriately with them.  I think we'll pull them out each day for the next little bit while we learn about the beat in music.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Little Adventures Preschool celebrated Valentine's Day on Monday this week.  We started by reading some Valentine stories and then made some crafts from the stories.  We made a game of Tic-Tac-Heart and learned how to play.

 We celebrated A's 4th birthday at snack time with some cupcakes and a song.

 Art time was full of heart shaped handprints

 and Valentine frames.

 The frames served a purpose - they became the targets the all the little cupids got to shoot arrows through.  Take one end of cotton off of a Q-tip and load that end first into the non bendy end of a straw.  Then blow it out!  If you get someone with your love arrow you have to give them a hug!

 It was chaos while the kids where blowing their "Love Arrows" at each other.  They were very entertained by the activity and I need to remember it for next year.

 We continued working on big and little for a bit before moving onto heavy and light.

 We tossed around a light ball for a bit,

 then I pulled out the weights!

Heavy and light is still a tricky concept due to the vocabulary word "light" but we're working on it, and I have a great idea in the works for our class next week to solidify the concept!