Jamberry

Jamberry is a fun story full of rhyme and colorful illustrations. To celebrate it, we made jam!

Everyone took turns smashing the strawberries for 30 seconds. We all counted to 30 aloud waiting for our turn. Great way to get that rote counting practice in.

While the kids played outside, I had them come in and take turns dumping in the sugar and pectin. After outside play, the kids came in and taste tested different kinds of jam for snack.

They wrote their names on cards and put it under which one they liked best.

Many had a hard time choosing just one. Here are the final results:

The kiddos liked looking at our graph and could easily count the responses as well as see that the columns were the same size.

On to the craft... Heart painting.

I liked Lincoln and Ryder's heart faces.

On Wednesday, I snapped a quick pic of them during singing time.

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"...

For our Jamberry activity on Wednesday, we noticed all the rhyming words in the story. They got this pretty easily. We also practiced cutting. We went over how to hold the scissors and cut a straight line. Success. Next we tried cutting in a zig zag pattern on a sheet of paper. A little more challenging but achievable. Then I had them try to cut a circle. Still needs practice. But they are starting to get it.

On to the Valentine's Day Party!
Snack Time...

We decorated our Valentine envelopes with stickers and then traded Valentines. They really enjoyed this. They all waited patiently for their turn to pass out their treats and were so excited each time they got something! Simple pleasures...

Happy Valentine's Day!

We missed Evan, but he is well loved. His envelope stuffed full of Valentines awaits him! :)

Mike Mullegan and His Steam Shovel - Monday

This week we read Mike Mullegan and his Steam Shovel.  Mike Mullegan takes great care of Mary Anne (his steam shovel), and digs a nice-neat square for the town hall in Popperville.  After we read the book we talked about tools and how they evolve.

 First, we tried to put the nails in the board with our hands.  We couldn't do it. :)

 Then, we tried to use rocks to get our nails in the board.  That worked a little better.

 Finally, we used hammers to get the nails secured.  It worked! 

 Mary Anne dug a "nice and neat square" for the town of Popperville, so for math we talked about different shapes. We experimented making shapes with our nail boards.

 For our craft we used the water colors and painted our own Mary Anne.

 Centers - dinosaur puzzle

 Centers - 'magic' markers. Clear markers that turn colors on paper - truly magical.

 More centers - alphabet puzzle.

 Practicing our "Ff's" after decorating "Fran's Funny Frame" with 'f' words. For Fun!! Sorry couldn't resist using some more 'f' words.

My babies love learning about what went down at pre-school while they were away.

Mike Mullegan and His Steam Shovel - Wednesday

 After we read Mike Mullegan and His Steam Shovel, we talked about furnaces (in the end Mary Anne becomes the furnace for the town hall of Popperville).  We went into the garage and looked at our furnace and talked about how it works.  Then we came in and the kids found all the vents in my house.

 We also talked about steam and turbines (pinwheels), and how they make machines run.  We tried making the pinwheel spin with the steam, but it didn't work so well.  We needed a lot more steam.  The kids got their own 'turbine' to practice with at home.

 Then we watched a little video clip of a real steam shovel at work.

 After the kids played outside, we combined snack and craft time.  The kids dug a "nice and neat" square for their town hall (chocolate cake). 

 

They added some mud and dirt (pudding and cookie crumbles) on top from their digging. 

 Then they added their bystanders (teddy grahams), who watched them dig their hole.

 

 Then they got to eat any left overs and the center they dug out.  They get to eat the rest at home.  Your Welcome Moms! :)

 Mike Mullegan and Mary Anne's "nice and neat square" for their town hall.

 Their finished projects (the diggers are from Monday's craft). 

 After our digging adventures we fed Gary the Greedy Gorilla some 'g' words, and then practiced writing our "Gg's".

 One of the moms mentioned once that the kids needed to work on cutting, so I had the kids cut out diggers.  I think they still need a lot of practice with this.  Paige was really good, but most everyone else kept complaining and saying they couldn't do it.  We talked about how busy bees can do anything if they just try. Water off a ducks back, so they say - these busy bees didn't care for cutting. :)

What a fun week.  Mike Mullegan and His Steam Shovel was a really fun topic to discuss and create with.  I think the kids enjoyed it too (not just me).   

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

 

 I didn't mean to skimp out on the pictures, but it just happened that way.  Sometimes it gets a little crazier than other times. :)  

Who doesn't love the "If you give..." series?!  On top of If you give a mouse a cookie, we read a few others as well, like If you give a pig a party, and If you give a moose a muffin.  We loved them all.  For If you give a mouse a cookie, we made our own batch of chocolate chip cookies and drank milk with a straw.  The kids had fun each taking a turn adding an ingredient....and eating them of course.

We also drew pictures of our families, just like the mouse did in the book.  The kids really got into it!  Check our Paige's family...too cute.

My last week of teaching Busy Bees.  I have really enjoyed my time watching this little group grow.

Goldilocks and The Three Bears

 What a great week!  The Busy Bees were really into The Goldilocks and The Three Bears.  Classic story that captured their attention.  A few things we did:

Bear paper chains!  They each got to pick a shirt, pants/skirt to dress the bear and then got to draw the bears' faces.

Trying porridge (cream of wheat).  Not many wanted to try but those that did loved it!

 

 At center time, I had one center be that the kids looked at a flash card and wrote down the letters in the word that they saw.  Here Noah wrote "Oil" perfectly!  Impressive. :)

For a math activity, we sorted little bears, medium bears and large bears to their respective sized houses. 

We went on a Goldilocks scavenger hunt finding her in the colors of the rainbow.  Kids loved this.

For a different craft we had lots of different sized circles that we put together to make a bear.  I especially love Calli's bear with blue eyes and a pink nose.

 

And last but never least, Emily was a huge help this week.  Here is a look at what "Book Look" looks like when she's here. :)