Farm Friends

Howdy all!!! This weeks preschool was fantastic! Our theme was Farm Friends, so we talked about farm animals this week. First, of course, was play time. There were some cars and Little Pet Shops for the kids to play with. Then we had Circle Time. This week one of the students, Maya, had a birthday!!!! So when we did our calendar, we had her come up, so she could see what day her birthday was.
Then we did our letter, F. In the special bag there were a stuffed fish, a flower, and more.
Next we did Show & Tell. There were some fairies and lots of horses!

Then the activities began!!! We decorated some puppets, and then played with some clay and plastic animals.

After playing for a bit we had snack. We talked about how a lot of animals on the farm eat hay, and then ate our own "hay stacks" like animals!!! Everyone loved this and pretended to be a different animal! The boys especially "got into" their snacks.

Once everyone was done eating, we made touch & feel books. These books were so cool, because you could feel the animals. To make these we glued the words and animals in the books.

Next we made Balking Chickens. We glued eyes, a beak, and a feather onto a plastic cup with a string & sponge attached to it, and then we took the sponge, got it wet, and rubbed it on the string to make the chicken balk.

After our chickens, because it was her birthday, Maya brought some doughnuts for us. Yummy!!!!

Last of all, we milked a cow!!!!! The children enjoyed squeezing and pulling!!! We milked the cow until the parents came and picked up the children from a fun day at the "farm!"

Baffling Bugs

Another Wednesday, another big and busy day of preschool!!! Before Circle Time the children dressed-up as bakers, and made "food" for each other to "eat."

After our Circle Time we had Show and Tell. There were some boots, blankets, and bugs.

Then we read a book called The Crunchy Munchy Caterpillar, and made our own caterpillars and put them in their chrysalises, paper bags, to see if they would turn into butterflies! (They were purposely glued to clothes pins so previously made wings could be attached.)

After caterpillars came bumble bees. We read The Greedy Bee and talked a bit about how bees dance to communicate, and then we did The Bumble Bee Boogie!!! We played some music (the Hokey Pokey) and danced until Miss Cindy stopped the music and then they had to stand on a pad that was green, a square, etc. But they had to share the pads and they couldn't be Greedy Bees.

Once we were done boogieing we had our snack. We drank some "nectar," smoothies, out of our flower cups using a proboscis, a butterfly or bee's tongue that is similar to a straw. We ate "Butter"-fly toast. We toasted some bread and cut it to look like a butterfly, then used an edible paint made out of milk to paint our butterflies. Then we spread butter on them so they were officially butterflies. One of my favorite comments from the students was "My mom never let's me paint my toast at home."

Next we made finger print ants. We talked about how bugs have a head, thorax, and abdomen, and then we dipped our fingers in the paint and gave the ants three body parts. Then we gave them 6 legs, some eyes, and 2 antenna.

Last of all, we played mosquito tag. The children all had a sheet of stickers, and they would run around and stick them on each other, giving them a "mosquito bite."

This blog post has been brought to you by the letter B.

Under the Sea

This weeks preschool was another big hit!!! Our theme was Under the Sea, so after Circle Time we had a show & tell based on the theme. There were stuffed sea creatures and shells of all different shapes and sizes.

The first game we played was a diving game. We had a blue sheet, and all the children held the sides of the sheet while one of them "dived" under the sheet, grabbed one of the sea creatures, and shared what they found with us. After the diving game, we made wave bottles. First we put all of the little creatures we wanted in our bottles. Then we filled the bottles with water and sprinkled some glitter in them. Then we taped the lids closed. (Everyone brought these home.)

Then we ate snack, candy fish in Jello. While eating, the children were read a book called Rainbow Fish.

Once we were finished with our snack we made Rainbow Fish. We took an already printed fish, glued pieces of tissue paper and an eye on them, and put on our special shiny scale. (The children also brought these home.) Then we had a singing time. We sang 5 Green and Speckled Frogs, 5 Little Fishies,
(Fish version of 5 little monkeys) and 5 Little Ducks. For 5 Green and Speckled Frogs and 5 Little Ducks we had one of the children dress up and act out the song. We also played Hot Potato, but we passed around a fish instead. Last of all, play time. We had a fishing Memory game, and a water area they could play in. Landon, another student, found a toy shark that laughed when you squeezed it.

All about Me

Our first week of preschool started off rainy, but fortunately everyone arrived safely. Since our theme was All about Me we learned about ourselves and our friends. First we did Circle Time. Each child had a turn to come pick something out of a bag. Everything in the bag began with the Letter of the Day M. Some of the things were a marker, a map, and a mirror.

Then we did Show and Tell.
Because our theme was All about Me each of the children showed us something special to them.
Mariska (one of the students) brought a monkey, and because we were learning the letter M it went great with the lesson.

After Show and Tell we played a hiding game. In the game we picked one child to go in the other room with Miss Cindy, and we picked another child to hide under a sheet. Then we had the child in the other room come back in and try to guess who was under the sheet.

Then we made place mats so that we could have something to put our snack on each week. On the place mats we put our name, birthday, and hand print. Then the children decorated the mats with stickers and markers.

Once we finished our mats we had snack which was a paper plate face. We put out lots of different options, and the children made faces out of them. While the children ate Miss Lauren read them stories and talked about the five senses with them.

After snack we played a game called Bones, No Bones. First we talked about how our bones help us. Then the children were given clues, and they had to guess what animal the clues were about. Then we would all pretend to be that animal with bones, and NO BONES!!!! When they heard no bones the children would collapses to the ground like an animal without bones.

The last thing we did was make "self puppets." We took paper bags and decorated them with yarn, construction paper, and googly eyes, so they would look like us. (The children brought these home.) Once they were through with their puppets the children played until their parents came.

We had a great preschool day, and we can't wait to see you all next week!!!