"Nn" Easter and Spring Party

We talked a lot about Spring today. We talked about how flowers are starting to grow, about seeing baby animals around, and birds building NESTS.

We read "The Best Nest" by P.D. Eastman, and Miss Janalynn even passed around a real bird's nest for all of us to see. We headed up stairs to the kitchen where we watched butter melt with marshmallows. We poured the marshmallow mixture over Chinese NOODLES and then proceded to get our hands gooey by shaping a NEST with the mixture. Miss Janalynn added jelly bean eggs and a marshmallow peep to our nest.

Miss Janalynn had the music for the "Bunny Hop". We all took turns being the leader and tried to do lead the rest in the fun hopping dance.

After making a Easter Bunny Basket out of milk jugs, we played Duck. Duck Goose, while Miss Janalynn hid Easter Eggs with our names on them around her house (It was rainy weather outside, so we had our Easter Egg Hunt indoors). It was a lot of fun today. Plenty of sugar and movement.

In our older class we started on our NAME Pictures.

"Mm" Rain and Rainbows

M is for mouse. We read the nursery rhyme in a book, "Hickory Dickory Dock". This version of the Rhyme had all these animals coming and going around this grandfather clock. I had to laugh when Luke asked, "Why is the clock outside?" Good question!

We then made our own clock with a movable mouse that went up and down our clocks.

For snack we had muffins and milk Mmmm...

With the continued theme of weather, we talked about Rain and Rainbows. We made a large rain cloud with shaving cream and a drop of black paint. It was soft and smooth to use our fingers to spread the fluffy mixture onto our paper clouds. After our clouds dried, we glued tinsel on the clouds to look like rain. Miss Janalynn had tinsel EVERYWHERE! But it was fun to dance with with our clouds were done.

For music time, we learned 3 new songs. Rain, Rain Go Away. It's raining, It's pouring, and I can sing a rainbow.

In the older class, we practiced our printing of our letters, using the chalk boards. We also made little mice, with yarn tails for pretend pets.

Windy Weather and the letter L

Lovely Lions

We sang our weather song, and reviewed the weather today. We talked about Windy Weather. We looked at different pictures and decided if the wind could blow them or not. We read the story "Like A Windy Day" by, Frank Asch. We colored and cut out kites that we will be useing in our Spring Program. Along with our kites, we sang "Let's Go Fly a Kite". We made our own wind with our mouths, and blew a pin wheel that we got to take home.

Our letter today was "L" Lauren, Luke and Lucus, were all pleased to have the "L" be the letter of their names. There were a lot of wordless singing of La-la-la-la! and laughing today. The popular tale of the "Lion and Mouse" was told using Miss Janaynn's hand puppets.

After the story, we made Lion masks and a snack of Lime Jello with whip cream.

We played a follow the leader type of game called, "One Little Lion", and continued singing our weather songs.

Our 4-5 year class learned to make loops. We made a "Loop 'D Loop" craft using curling ribbon, I think regular ribbon or yarn will work better for next time. I was really pleased to see how well the childen caught on. It's fun to see them learn something new and a bit more complex, plus it is a wonderful small motor skill to practice. Get those small fingers working!!

letter K and Weather

After reviewing our letter up to date, I introduced the letter "K" It was a great day for Kiely. We then continued to name many people we knew that started with the letter "K". We also realized that the letter "K" sounds like the letter "C". What an eye-opener to find out that Cat starts with "C" and Kitten starts with "K". Lauren, my animal lover, was amazed to find that out.We read the book "Katy-No-Pockets" by Emmy Payne. And then the funny book, "No More Kissing!" by, Emma Clark.

Fun snack was the cereal, Kix. We glued as we ate the cereal onto a glued "K" then colored and glued "K" pictures around our Kix K.

After snack, we talked about the seasons and what type of weather there is in each season. We talked especially a lot of Spring, since it is now spring. We made our four seasons tree art. We glued tissue flowers to our spring tree, fome leaves to our summer tree, finger painted fall leaves to the autumn tree, and chalked snow to our winter tree.

Singing time had lots of movement, with our for seasons song. And many fun weather poems.

Since the weather was lamb like and warm, we went outside to play "Kick Ball".

my 4-5 year olds made weather wheels to hang on a door knob. You turn the wheel to what the weather is like for each day.

St. Patrick's Day Party and the letter"J"

The weather was a "lamb" day and most of us just wore a "Jacket" today! We modeled and showed off our jackets. We learned the sound of "J" with our jackets, and then making a paper jacket that really opened up with "J" pictures inside. We decorated them with pockets and our names on the outside of our jackets.

After a story about a school class that celebrated St. Patricks Day, with a school party, we had our very own party!! We snacked on green punch and cookies, and played some games. we played "Build a Shamrock". We rolled a dice and if you roll a 4 you get a heart shape leaf. You try and make a shamrock with your leaves. We took turns hiding the pot of gold and playing "Hot or Cold". Our favorite game was "Don't Eat Paddy"!

Since the day was nice, we took a jump rope outside and "Jump-Roped" These guys are still little, but I am still impressed to see how well they can Jump!

Lucky Charms and the Letter "I"

"I" is a harder letter to teach children. There are not a lot of "I" sounding words. I went with the word "in" we put a picture of "inch", "insect", "ice", and "itch" Into a pocket. Then we sang the "Itching"song and the "In and out of the window" song. A lot of silly movement!

We had fun exploring what was a lucky charm. We talked about St. Patricks Day! What a lot of Lucky Charms there are with St. Patricks Day like, 4 leaf clovers or shamrocks, Leprechauns, Rainbows and Pots of Gold. We read the story, "Jack and the Leprechaun", by Ivan Robertson about the luck you receive if you catch a leprechaun. I showed a few other lucky charms, such as a rabbit's foot, and a horse shoe. Best of all was bringing out the "Lucky Charms" cereal, and sorting the marshmallow charms and eating them. We used our fingers in finger paint to make a "Field O' Shamrock" picture. For snack we ate green pudding, and everyone ended up Lucky, because each of us found a gold coin in our pudding! What a Lucky Day!

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb! Letter "H"

Today we Change our preschool tree from Hearts to Shamrocks. We talked about the new month. We talked about March and how spring is almost here! The Color green is a popular color during the month of March because of St. Patricks Day. Then we learned that during the month of March there can be funny weather. One day it can be nice and warm and then the next day it can rain, be windy and maybe even snow. I explained the temperments of a lamb and lion is a lot like the weather. We read the book, "Sheep in a Jeep", by Nancy Shaw and Looked at some pictures of lions. Then we played a fun game pretending to be lions and lambs. Don't be surprised if your child starts recognizing each day a "lamb" or "lion" day. For a fun craft we traced our hands, one on black paper and one on yellow. After I cut them out, we glued cotton balls onto the black hand to make sheep. Then we glued orange onto the yellow hand to make a lion. A fun march keepsake.
For letter "H" we read the story, "Old Hat, New Hat", (one of my very favorites as a child) by Stan Berenstain. Then we made our very own "just right" Hats, with "H" pictures glued to it. The girls wanted a princess Hat, so I stapelled pink streamers to the top of them. All the children enjoyed our snack of HOTDOGS!!!
singing time we had fun taking turns with actions to the fun moving song, "If you're Happy and You Know It!"

Letter "G" and Dr. Suess

What's in Goat's Garage coloring book with "G" pictures was colored, the the fun "The Three Billy Goat Gruff", book was read and acted out with our very own Billy Goat puppets. We reviewed sizes, with our 3 goat puppets. For our snack we had Granola Bars.

We then talked about who Dr. Seuss was. Some of the children thought Dr. Seuss was the "Cat in the Hat". I had some explaining to do. I wish I had a picture of Dr. Seuss, because they were hard to convince that that he was a real person, not make believe. After the deep discussion, of who Dr. Seuss was, we talked about his books. We then read "The Cat In the Hat", "There's a Woket in my Pocket", and "Ten Apples Up on Top". Then like the book, we glued tiny paper apples onto a picture of ourselves, we looked like the funny characters in the book, "Ten Apples Up On Top". We painted red stripes on tall paper to make our very own tall hats just like the cat in the hat.