Qq is to queen as queen is to Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, Moms!!  This week we learned about the letter Qq and it's sound.  Our theme this week was queens as well as Mother's Day.  We talked about how the moms are the queens of the house.

Our art project was to decorate a flower pot.  There are three paper inserts and the children chose which one they wanted to color.  If they want to color more, you can take the clear part off and pull out the other two inserts.  I ordered them through Oriental Trading Company (love this company).   We used markers to decorate the inserts.  On the second day, I taught the children how to repot a plant.  I pointed out that on the bag of potting soil are directions on how to repot a plant, so that even someone who has never done it before can feel and be successful.  I took some nice pictures  of the children working on the Mother's Day gifts.

For our books, I read The Princess and the Pea and The Princess and the Pizza.

In the Newsletter for May, I listed the centers that we will do.  I have changed that.  Since I'm testing your children, I am letting them have free choice on what to play with.  While they play, I test only on the areas they didn't master the last two test times.

This week we celebrated two birthdays.  The pictures for the birthday girl are posted.  I will post the pictures of the birthday boy next week.  Since I'm going camping for Mother's Day, I won't be able to post what we did on Friday.

Enjoy the pictures

coloring inserts that go into the Mother's Day flower pot

Putting potting soil into the Mother's Day pots

Repotting the flower

Cinco De Mayo and Review week

This week we are reviewing all of the letters and numbers we've learned. We say the letter, the letter sound, and the actions that go with each letter.  We played with 2 piece puzzles where the matching piece is the upper and lower case letters.  The children enjoyed that.  Next, I have playdo letter cards.  We rolled the dough into a snake shape and put it on the card.  They have a lot of fun rolling out the playdo and I had to get them back on task.  Finally, I have letter builders, where they put the pieces together to form letters.  For numbers, I have various review games.

For art, we made pinatas.  When I did a test pinata on the weekend before, I followed the instructions from a website.  It asked for watered down glue and tissue papers.  After my test pinata dried, I popped the balloon like I was told, but the balloon wouldn't come off the tissue paper and it shrunk my pinata and warped it.  I tried to think of how I could get it to not stick.  I put the balloons in a ziplock bag, but after the children already applied tissue papers, did I realize that that wouldn't be a good alternative either, because how will the children break the pinata? That night I removed the tissue encrusted plastic bags from the balloons and followed another recipe (which was in my curriculum book the whole time...*double sigh*).  I mixed water and flour, dipped strips of newspaper in it and applied it to 5 balloons.   For the second group, I called one child up at a time, while the others played, and helped apply the strips of newspaper.  They REALLY enjoyed this!  They got special one on one time with me and they enjoyed the uckiness.  The second day we applied colored tissue paper all over the newspaper layer with runny glue.  The M/W/F group spent one more day applying the last of the tissue paper.  I'm going to have the Tu/Th group do that instead of the other art craft.  I want the children to experience a project from beginning to end instead of quickly moving on to something else.

For centers, we strung beads to make a color pattern, made letters with playdo, and played with the hands on games and activities regarding letters and numbers.

Enjoy this week's photos:

um, paint the pinata, not your hand ;)

My future 2012-2013 French Valley K-Prep student!  She joined us for Music at the end of the day.

Musical instruments

Matching letters

rolling out the dough and putting it on the cards

May 2012

Here is the Newsletter for the month of May, 2012

Tt is for tree

This week we read two books that featured an apple tree.  I'm lucky to have an apple tree in my backyard blooming.  The first book is Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.  The children loved that book and when I asked them "why" questions, they were very insightful.  The second book is The Apple Pie Tree, by Zoe Hall.  Reading books about the theme is a great way to lead them in to discussions.

For art, the children cut out pre-drawn rectangular trunks and a tree top.  I've seen a lot of improvement in some of the children who didn't know how to cut in the beginning of the year.  Then they pasted them onto blue construction paper.  Finally, the children put their pinky finger in a red ink pad and pressed it on the tree top to look like red apples.  The second art project was to sponge paint pre-cut paper leaves.  In the first group, I put out yellow, brown, green glitter paint, and light green.  For the second I pre-mixed green with different colors to make different color green like yellow, white, orange, brown, white, silver glitter, and gold glitter.  Both groups' leaves turned out great despite the differences. 

This theme could have been done during the fall when leaves turn colors, but I wanted to do it during the spring right after we talked about Earth Day.

For our centers, on day one, the children sharpened pencils, put paper clips on paper, and screwed nuts and bolts together.  For the second day, the children had free choice with all of the "toys" available.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier blog, but I rearranged the schedule.  The children were very used to the previous theme and I felt a change needed to happen to snap them into more excitement.  I realize children thrive on routine, but sometimes they also need change.  Kind of like when you rotate toys at home.  It's more exciting and the children jump from one activity to the next.  I had a discussion with a lot of preschool teachers on line where around this time of year, the children get antsy and need a change.  It might be the longer day, the anticipation for kindergarten, developing and testing new limits and abilities, or just bored with the same old same old.  The new schedule is featured on my website http://www.frenchvalleykpreppreschool.com/curriculum.htm and is very exciting.

Here are this week's photos:

Putting paperclips on paper

Sharpening pencils

He brought me over to show his creation.  Beautiful!!!

I said, "What would happen if you added that block?"  So he started stacking more.  When it crashed, he was tickled.

There she blows!

Friday class free-painting with watercolors

Nuts and bolts

Ee is for Earth

Happy Earth Day!!  Explaining Earth Day is challenging.  I asked them if they'd like to live in trash like in the movie - "Wall-E" and they said, "No!" I went on to explain how we need to separate our trash so that things like cans and bottles can get reused.  If we recycle, new materials don't need to be made, which can save us energy and the use of energy is causing our earth to heat up.  There's so much to tell them!

For art, the children followed along with Ms. Esther when they did the sand painting. Each color had blue Crayola sand mixed in. Sand paint feels heavy and is gritty. We used aqua for the ocean, brown for the earth or dirt, green for the plants and mountain, yellow for the desert, and blue for the sky. I didn't get any pictures of this.  Most of my students did a great job following along with me! My Pre-Kers are going to do really well in kindergarten, because they can follow the teacher!

The second art project, I call "Sand Splat Art", because you fill a stocking with sand, tie it, soak it in paint, and then drop it on a paper. They are hanging in the preschool room. The children don't like the idea of not being able to take their art home. Studies show that their art should also be displayed in preschool, so they feel some ownership and good that their work is displayed proudly.

Our center was dress up clothes. I need to change the way these are put away, because it takes so much time. I think next year, I'll have the clothes hanging and then a bin where they throw all the accessories in, instead of worrying about which accessory goes with which costume.

Our letter was the letter Ee and our puppet pal was Esther the Elephant! They thought that was funny that it was named after me.

Sometimes I borrow the actions for phonics from the Leap Frog DVDs. For the letter "Ee", the action is an old guy who can't hear right and he says "eeeee?" as he cups his ear.

Next week is Tt is for trees.

Enjoy the photos:

Birthday Boy!

A bunch of sillies!

He gets to ALL of the jobs!!

Passing out napkins for the cupcake and to wipe off the frosting.

He liked the double sided markers!

Not enough time to dress in costumes, so they chose to play with trains.

Trying to write the letter Ee

I can do it!!!

We're on a train to take the patients to the hospital

He seems like a natural.

Friday - using the sand paint to do what they want.

An Earth Day rainbow!

There's sand in that stocking.

"Ohhhh, now I understand!  This is fun!  Can we use two?"

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