Graduation

Our preschool celebration on Wednesday night was super wonderful!

 We sang songs, used rhythm sticks and bells to show what we've learned...

 Each child received a present (book) which we read as a group.

 Family was invited to make bookmarks while kids decorated their graduation hats.

 We had an overall fun and enjoyable celebration!  Thank you for being a part of the2011-2012 preschool school year with Little Adventures Preschool!

Towards the End of the School Year...

We play with all the fun things that we've come in contact with throughout the year.  Starting with rhythm sticks...

 We write and draw about what we've learned and what we like about preschool...

 We cheers each other at snack time...

 We pull out favorite art supplies...

 And paint to our hearts content...

 If that painting is a tornado, a person, or footprints,  it is a fantastic work of art.

We look forward to Wednesday being bitter-sweet.  As we've all grown a year older, we'll be concluding this school year with a preschool graduation on Wednesday evening from 5-6.  Please let me know if you have a child in preschool and are not going to make it. If you're a friend in the area and would like to come show your support for our preschoolers please email me.

Tot Skool - On the Farm

About a week ago we invited our friends over for an afternoon tot skool about farms.  We played with play dough on an "F" mat.  I used a picture of a farm and put the letters Ff in really big font over it.  We laminated those sheets and used them to make the letter f out of play dough.

 We pulled out all the animal hand puppets and talked about which ones live on a farm, and (in our area) which ones live at the zoo.  EMan had a blast with the hand puppets who decided they'd better tickle him.

 These sisters figured out how to ride the horse together.  It was quite impressive!

 We used the pack from 2 Teaching Mommies found here: http://www.2teachingmommies.com/p/unit-studies.html to supplement our activities.  Which included coloring farm animals (laminated) with dry erase markers.

Q is for Quilts and Mother's Day

Every time I get around to blogging I'm reminded that I'm still in this learning curve for our camera.  So we have wide angle pictures for these days.

 Dot-art identifying "mommy" Q and "baby" q.

 Quilting with pipe cleaner...

 We also made a Qq Quilt full of paintings.

 For Mother's Day we used pipe cleaners to make flowers.  I put 3-4 pipe cleaners of the same color together and then took a green one and wrapped it around the center of the others, twisting the green together.  Then the kids took the colored ones and wrapped them around their fingers to make the flower pedals.

 They also wrote a note to their moms about why they love them.  They were so adorable!

Our Mother's Day Song

Today we are learning a Mother's Day song.  Enjoy:

Kids' Camera and "I Ain't Gonna Paint"

Many years ago when I upgraded to a new camera (the one I just broke a couple of months ago) my old camera was still working adequately enough to let my first and second grade students use it.  Now I let my preschoolers and my kids use it.  My boys were playing with it in the last few weeks and here are a couple of pictures from them.

I think this picture could win an award - that's me gardening in my pajamas (I tend to do that).

 A couple of pictures of daddy...

 And EMan taking a picture of himself.

We also took the opportunity in the warm weather to repeat an awesome playdate, "I Ain't Gonna Paint!"  We started by reading the book and then we let the kids body paint.

 They all started out so clean...

 Mid adventure I was surprised by a visit from my friend's husband and brother who brought a birthday cake.  It was my birthday after all :)  So, add to the body paint, some body frosting!

 Like I said, they started out so clean...

 When all was said and done we washed the kids down and they were as good as new!

Z is for Zoo

I'm having camera problems again :( So I apologize that I am just now getting this up.  Last week we learned about the letter Z!  We've also been working on patterning in math.

 We had some independent reading time with books about all sorts of animals.

"J" loved reading about the frogs!

 We put Z the Zebra in his sleeping bag from the Amazing Action Alphabet!

 We also set up a zig-zag course in the backyard to practice running zig-zags.

 So, remember when we planted wheat grass a few weeks ago?  Well, problem is that I can't grow ANYTHING in my house.  I made some rookie mistakes that really irritated me because I know better.  So I ended up buying a couple of pots of wheat grass from the grocery store, transplanting them into their cups, and then letting them give their characters a hair cut.  Ay, carumba!

 We began investigating patterns that follow an AAB or ABB pattern this week.  We played with unifix cubes galore while each child worked on making their own pattern.

We've been very busy lately!  Since we will no longer be watching "T" full time we've made sure to schedule lots of play dates to keep the boys actively engaging with other kids.  Last Thursday we went to Open Gym at our local rec center.  The boys loved it!

 We also went to the aquarium (and got a pass so we can go lots in the next year).

 And Saturday morning we went to Lego Kids Fest downtown.  The boys loved playing with the Lego's and the statue of Batman out of Lego's was quite impressive.