Friday, March 7, 2014

Hold the phone!

Has your child ever seen an "old fashioned" telephone with a rotary dial?! :)  Some of the kids don't even have push button phones in their homes.  They only know cell phones!  Every once in a while one of the kids will pick up a block and hold it up to their ears to make a call - that makes the teachers giggle as much as the rotary phones make the kids giggle!  Can I take a message? :)  And in case you were wondering, when the kids "call" someone on the phone, it is usually Mom, Dad or to order pizza....


Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Making patterns

Patterns are a basic building block of math skills.  Our number system itself is based on a pattern.  We talk about patterns all the time at preschool but the concept doesn't really make sense for quite a while.  The idea that something has to stay the same and repeat over and over forever is a tough one because they can't see the forever part.  When they can tell me a pattern, show me a pattern and reproduce a pattern, then I know the concept is taking hold in their minds.  In these pictures, the pre-k kids are making their own AB patterns from unifix cubes, saying them out loud and then recording them on paper - and with that, they are one step closer to being math geniuses!

 

Monday, March 3, 2014

Water table

Sometimes it's just fun to play in the water...and as an added bonus, the play kitchen dishes all got a washing!  That's just good, clean fun. :)

 

Friday, February 7, 2014

5 Senses

This activity is for our sense of sight.  Each child made his/her own "Eye Spy" bottle.  They chose small items from a tray and dropped them into an empty plastic bottle.  Then we filled the bottle 3/4th full of dry rice.  Once you shake it up, you can then roll it back and forth to find the items.  What can you spy?

 





Thursday, February 6, 2014

5 Senses

We did a unit on our 5 senses in the 3's class recently.  This is one of the activities we did for our sense of touch (and smell sort of since the shaving cream was raspberry scented!).  Boy did they love smearing it all around, drawing in it, writing their names, and most of all....washing their hands again and again!  What is it about playing in water that is so much fun?! :) 


Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Snowmen!

It's been so incredibly cold lately that a post on snowmen seemed appropriate!  Here are 3 cute snowman projects we did recently in each class:

These little cuties are making a "find the carrot nose" snowman!  The kids put the eyes and mouth on the outside of a ziploc bag and added a top hat.  Then we filled the baggie with shaving cream and added a foam carrot nose.  The kids had to squish the shaving cream around to find the carrot nose and get it centered in the right place - and of course, squish it up and do it again! And again!  
If you every wondered what to do with empty pop-up wipes containers...well here's the answer!  We peeled the wrappers off and turned them into snowmen, complete with felt scarves, button eyes, carrot noses and socks as hats! The kids thought these were so funny!

 And here we have "melted snowmen."  These are made with puddles of white glue!  The kids add the snowman parts, including little sticks for arms.  So cute!


Friday, January 24, 2014

Reading the Pictures

Each day after cleaning up their snack place, the kids choose a book to read.  We do this in all three of our classes.    This is the Threes class.  Everyone sits, everyone reads while we wait for the others to finish with snack.  Back in September, several of them would say they don't know how to read!  We talk about "picture reading" - looking at the pictures and telling the story that way.  We even practice by looking at a book together and guessing what the words might say based on what they see happening in the illustrations.  We check faces for expressions and talk about how characters might be feeling in the story.  We check for any motion in the illustrations and talk about what that tells us - like splashing water or lines behind a running character.  Although reading aloud to children is so very important, allowing them to "read" to themselves has equal value.  It builds confidence, independence and fosters imagination - just look how engaged these kids are in their "reading!"