Animals in Spring - Tot School Tuesday

We had so much fun talking about the coming springtime on Tuesday.  We had a sensory bin of green rice (like the green that will be growing soon).  In the sensory bin there was also Easter grass, erasers with baby animals on them, and bunny rabbit toys. We scooped and dumped almost all day! 

 We also played with spring eggs trying to match tops and bottoms, colors and snap them together (quite difficult even for my 4 year old).

 It was great fun to pretend we were animals waking up from hibernation or returning from migrating south.

 Snapping together a ladybug egg.

 We did lots of reading about spring and baby animals.

 Our art today was stamping with pre-inked stamps of baby chicks and eggs.  The kids loved them!

 We also started talking a little bit about money.  They got to play with our large laminated coins.

 We learned a song called "Popcorn Popping".  Find the music here.

 We glued the popcorn on our apricot tree pictures and then they got to snack on them, but only after I took the glue away :).

 Pretending to be a tiger.

 Here comes mommy cat!

Trains - Monday Preschool

On Monday we got to talk about trains in preschool.  We had so much fun playing with the train tracks while everyone arrived. 

 We also had two boxes set up as train cars that we were coloring with markers.

 Everyone got a conductor hat (to keep) and a bandanna to wear for the day. Don't they look great?

 We've been working really hard at the basics of blending letters together to make sounds.  We've been playing the same game each day with different word families.

 This week is a review week so we practiced the letters that we've already learned.

Some of the preschool kids are ready for a slightly more challenging text so we started introducing Bob Books.

 Train art.  We used a picture of a train, colored it and cut it out.  Then we used parts of paper towel tubes to make them stand up and look like they had wheels.  They were fun to play with after we were done making them.

 We've started learning about coins.  On Monday we talked about pennies.  They are copper colored and worth 1 cent.

 The weather was still beautiful so we started preschool B in the backyard.  We had blankets and pillows and a couple of boxes of just right books for everyone to snuggle in and practice their reading.  (Oh, we had also set up the circus tent in case the wind was too chilly.)

We had book boxes out that they could choose from for reading.  It is helpful to let them start picking out what to read and practice identifying "just right" books that aren't too hard or too easy.

 Back inside we're continuing to work on counting to 100 by 1's and 10's.

 We started a book today about an Easter Egg Hunt.  We each drew and wrote about what we like about Spring/Easter time.

 "I like to find the Easter eggs."

 "I like to color the big eggs."

 "I like to find the Easter Egg."

 In our quest to count to 100 by 10's we've been playing with unifix cubes and images that represent sticks of ten. The goal of these cards is to organize them from smallest to largest.

What a great day of learning!

St. Patrick's Day - Thursday Tot School

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  We had so much fun in school today coloring, painting, exploring our sensory table, reading books and playing with our large blocks and slide.  I forgot to grab green lentils, so we played with red lentils on a big oil pan. 

We explored some 3D shapes with St. Patrick's Day artwork.  I like to create these shapes with Velcro on the edges so that they can be taken apart and reassembled over and over.

We love playing with our large foam blocks and practicing walking up and down the ramps.

We painted short sections of paper towel tube with green paint as a St. Patrick's Day bracelet. 

We had a very fun art project today!  I took a piece of clear contact paper and attached a white frame around the edge so it left a sticky section in the middle.  We used pre-cut pieces of green tissue paper to create a stained glass window. They turned out awesome!

Wednesday Preschool - St. Patrick's Day

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day is always so much fun.  Kids are really a fan of the large motor hopping game that's in the St. Patrick's Day preschool pack.  We play this game throughout the year.  It starts simply with just jumping from spot to spot until you get to the end.  Then we count each jump along the way.  Now, we're ready for something more difficult.   It's like a human sized board game.  We roll the dice and jump that many spaces and repeat until we get to the end.  Preschooler LOVE this!

Making shamrock hand prints.

We're still working very hard on learning what a good reader does.  (Look, Point, Say the Sounds, Listen to the Sounds) I have a word at the top of the board with a green light on the left hand side (to indicate the starting position) and a red light on the right hand side to indicate the ending position.  Then we practice sounding out the words.

We're learning about the piano right now and how to play a pattern on a piano.  There is a great webpage that has a piano that words wonderfully on the SmartBoard.

As we work on identifying 3D shapes we're exploring if they roll down a slide, bounce, or slide.

Putting together our own paper cylinders.

Working on some comparing and contrasting reading comprehension.