Y Week, Picnics and Plants

Well, it took 3 still cameras and a video camera, but I was successful documenting our experiences from the last two weeks :)  This week we had fun with the introduction of the letter Y.  I know it's hard to tell, but here we are playing with yo-yo's!

 We also learned about exclamation marks, which was completely adorable to hear the kids pronounce :).  We worked on the word "Yes" and of course - yelling anything that had an exclamation mark at the end.

 We made Y creatures to join us for our picnic for the day.  I believe that the twins made a princess and a fairy Y, "R" made a "Mario Y" and there were dinosaur Y's and Spiderman Y's of course.  I took a Y stamp and let them add arms, legs, etc. as well as words about their Y drawing.

 We were to have a picnic snack on Monday, but wouldn't you know it that it just had to be crummy weather - snow.  Yep.  80* Sunday, snow on Monday.  Silly Colorado.  Never fear, though.  Picnics are okay on my living room floor.

 We also sorted beans this week.  I gave each person a small container of mixed beans and some tweezers.  They shared ice-cube trays and were challenged with sorting their beans into the trays.  They loved this activity right when they walked in the door so much that I left it out for them to play in the couple of minutes it takes to have everyone wash their hands before snack.

 We did a lot of reading about plants on Wednesday.  We wanted to learn more specifically about the seeds involved in plants.

 Oh yea, the excitement for the day you ask?  We had a beetle join us for preschool.  I guess that the snow outside wasn't very exciting for him, so he joined us in the classroom.

 We spent Wednesday's art period cutting and gluing like crazy!  We made pictures of flowers and then labeled all the parts of the plant.  It was a good beginning/ending sound figure out what the word could be and glue it in the right spot type of experience.

 I think one of the things I miss the most about school aged kids is that they can clean up after themselves more efficiently.  I never wonder why my house is a complete mess because I know that running a preschool is just a perpetual mess making experience, but it's nice to be able to send most of them home after a few hours so I can do damage control and get ready for our next messy adventure.

 Speaking of messy adventures, I just didn't have any clean hands to get any pictures of this activity in the process.  We planted wheat grass and drew faces for our cups.  They are currently living on my window sill and I hope they sprout enough (3 inches or more) by Monday so we can give our little people "haircuts."  If they don't sprout enough by then we'll just do it Wednesday, but then they get to go home to their families.  I love doing this spring activity every year!

Look for a book giveaway coming soon!  We'll be learning about the parts of plants and would love to have you join us for the fun!