The Three Little Pigs

This week preschool was full of "Huffing and Puffing!!!!" We read The Three Little Pigs, and we learned about building and blowing. First we played "What time is it Mr. Wolf?" In this game one child stands on one side of the room (facing a wall), and the other children stand against the other wall. The children will call "What time is it Mr. Wolf?" And the child facing the wall (the wolf) will answer a time. The children will then move that many steps. (e.g. If the child said 2'O clock, then the other children will move 2 steps.) When the wolf thinks the children ar eclose, s/he will reply to the question with "DINNER TIME!!!!!!!!!" Then the wolf will chase the children to the other side of the room. Whoever is caught becomes the next wolf.

Our next game was about pigs. It's called "Oink, Piggy, Oink." To play everyone sits in a circle around the blindfolded "It." Then It counts to 10 while everyone moves in circle around them. It is given a pillow, which they place on someone's legs. It sits on the pillow then says "Oink, Piggy, Oink." The person under the pillow will make a pig noise, and It has to guess who is oinking. If they guess correct, that person is the next it. If they do not, they try again.

Everyone loved our snack, PIG SLOP!!!! We gave each of the children a bowl of pudding. We had a platter of various foods like marshmallows, cereal, craisins, bananas, and more. These were put in their pudding. Yum!

"I'll huff, and I'll puff... And I'll BLOW your paint around!!!!!" We painted pictures this week, but we didn't use paint brushes, we used straws! We did Huff and Puff Painting!!!! We put some paint on our papers and blew it around. It was fun to see how the pictures turned out!

You've heard of the houses made of straw, twigs, and brick, but have you heard of the house of foam? This week we practiced using tools!!!! We had a bucket full of foam, nails, hammers, screws, and screw drivers, and we did whatever we wanted!!!! This was a big hit!!!

Pigs love mud, and that's a fact, but pigs love pudding too!!! The children finger painted with pudding this week!!!! We rubbed pudding over pictures of pigs, and some of us even wrote our name in our pudding!

Finally, using all sorts of objects, we built houses. Then we brought out the Big Bad Wolf (or the Big Bad Fan), and we watched to see if he could blow our houses down!!!!!

It's been really fun teaching your children, I especially love seeing the different Show and Tells they bring!!!!

Looking for Leprechauns

This week we celebrated St. Patrick's Day!!!! Everyone wore green.

After we read our book, we learned that gold is worth money. Then we did an activity on money.

We learned money names, and we compared appearances. The children glued a penny on a piggy bank picture, they loved coloring their banks!!!

The children went into the other room and made shamrock rolls. They rolled bread dough into 3 balls and a small snake. These made cute shamrock rolls!

When the children came back upstairs, they found leprechaun foot prints which led to an empty bag and a note from the leprechaun. The note said to return the gold to the leprechaun's bag without touching it, and the leprechaun would leave a reward for us. The note also said we could play with the gold once all of it was in the bag. It was fun to hear the different ideas of how we could return the gold without touching it. We ended up using pinchers. The children loved identifying the letters on the gold (it was part of the game)!!!!!

By the time we collected all the gold, snack was ready. Everyone hurried into the kitchen for their snack, but when Miss Cindy pulled it out of the oven...

IT WAS GREEN!!!!!!!

The children were amazed! At first they thought we food colored it, but after awhile everyone was convinced the leprechaun did it. And when Miss Lauren poured the water, it was green too!!! The children were certain this was the leprechauns reward for finding his gold.

After snack we played the gold game. There were 14 pieces of gold. 10 of them spelt LUCKY twice. 2 of them had shamrocks on them. The last 2 were blank. We each took a turn picking a piece, if it was a letter, we marked it off, if it was a shamrock, we marked off whatever letter we wanted, if it was a blank, nothing happened. We kept playing until someone finished spelling LUCKY.

We finished this week by making good luck rocks. We used sequins, googly eyes, and glitter glue. Very cute!!!

Happy St. Pattrick's Day!!!

The Tortoise and the Hare

Slow and steady wins the race, wasn't always the case, at preschool. After reading The Tortoise and the Hare, we did lots of different races. We hopped, we wore a turtle shell and crawled, and we did a wheelbarrow race. The children had a blast breaking through our finish line!!!

Later, we split up. The children with Miss Cindy played a turtle matching game. A number on one card, and dots on the other. (e.g. 4 on one card and 4 dots on the other equals a match)

The children with Miss Lauren made tissue paper collages on paper plates. These were turned into turtles. When we were done, we swapped.

Snack this week was Turtle Shell Tortillas. We put a small tortilla shell on the grill, sprinkled it with cheese, top it with another tortilla shell for a yummy snack!!!

Hold on everyone! We played a reading game that was so much fun!!! Everyone held the sheet, Miss Cindy called out a child's name, we raised the sheet high in the air, and the person called on dove under the sheet. Under the sheet there were paper carrots. The child would grab a carrot and crawl out. They would identify the letter on the carrot, and the game would continue.

Finally we made marshmallow bunnies. A snip at the top for ears, and... Voila!!! A bunny head. All the children had to do was draw a face on it, using food coloring and toothpicks.

The children had a great time running around!!!! See you next week!!!

The Shoemaker and the Elves

This week we read The Shoemaker and the Elves. We practiced buttoning, tying, and we had lots of fun dressing up. Our first game was similar to musical chairs. They would go around the chairs while the music was playing, when it stopped they sat in a chair marked with a letter. There were buckets full of dress ups, these were marked with the same letters as the chairs. The children would look at the letter on their chair, find the matching bucket, and put on something from the bucket. We got all sorts of costumes!!!

After we dressing up, we split into groups. The children with Miss Cindy played file folder games to practice rhyming and matcing letters and sounds...

And the children with Miss Lauren practiced tying their own felt shoes!!! These shoes were a big hit!!!

This week our snack was hiding from us!!! Miss Lauren had some clues that led us to our snack, elf cookies!!! We also ate some snacks that one of the moms brought. Thank you!!!

A bit later, we made elf hats. The children decorated their elf hats, we stapled them, and they glued a couple cotton balls on top. Cute and simple!!!

What a good looking group of elves! Thank you for your support!!!

There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

The book of the week was There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Before we started, the children played with clay.

After Circle Time, we divided into groups. The children who went with Miss Cindy played a fly swatting game. Miss Cindy told them a letter or word, and they had to swat the fly with the letter(s) on it.

The other children made a craft with Miss Lauren. They took a picture of a mouth, and used a tooth brush to paint teeth in it. They took magazines and cut out different objects and glued them into the mouth. On the top of the page they glued a strip of paper that said "There was a big mouth that swallowed a..." It made a very fun craft!!!

For snack we made Apple Smiles!!! They took an apple slice with a piece cut out of it, and they spread cream cheese or peanut butter in it. For teeth they put in mini marshmallows. Everyone loved these!!!!!

Again we divided into groups. The children with Miss Cindy talked about taking care of their teeth. Then they played a counting game about cavities.

The children with Miss Lauren practiced sequencing while playing a beanbag toss. Each of the beanbags had a picture of the different creatures the Old Lady swallowed. We took turns throwing them in her mouth in the right order.

See you next week!!!