The Carrot Seed

  The timing of this book was perfect. The weather was just starting to get warm and we could be outside. Royce had just planted our garden. I tried to teach the kids about how a carrot grows. 

That a carrot grows under the ground and not above like a flower. 

The first project we worked on was matching some upper case letter carrots

 to the lower case letter on the wheelbarrow.

 It was a good thing Grandma was there to help, the kids were a little lost.

I then had the kids move right into math. Each preschooler had a big wheelbarrow and a few cut out carrots. I would tell them a number and then the preschooler would put the right amount of carrots in the wheelbarrow. The last time I give them a short word problem and they were able to follow it.

For the arts we painted a carrot. I loved that each carrot was completely different!!

 Trevor's

He was very concerned where he was going to put the top of his carrot in the picture. I had bought some carrots with tops and showed him that the top can be on the side. That solved the problem!

Margaret's

 Luke's

 Ava's

Blake's

 Stewart's

On Thursday I had the preschooler work on tracing. We followed the water lines to the flowers. We then had a talk on what plants need to grow. They traced the books and then did a little coloring.

For the arts we planted a plant. My thought was that carrots are very hard to grow 

so I had each preschool plant a flower.

Hopefully some have the plants grew.

Corduroy

We kept up with more bear fun at my house as we read Corduroy.  We talked about how this time the bear we were learning about was teddy and not the real bears (panda, polar, black, brown) we had learned about last week. We got a lot of math in this week.  We started with tracing the numbers 1-5 on a paper and then matching them up with the same number of teddy grahams. 

We colored our own teddy, added the overalls and, of course, the buttons! 

Ava was quite artistic with her buttons! It was art after all, so I couldn't keep her to just two. 

A shot of the kiddos playing basketball during outside time. 

For more math we played a game I made up called Wake Up Bears! All the kids go to sleep (close their eyes) and I hid certain numbers of bears under different small buckets. When they woke up, we chanted, "Wake up bears, wake up bears" until we picked a bucket to look under. We took out the bears underneath, lined them up, counted them and then matched them with the appropriate number card. They loved this!  It was great practice. 

For science, we talked about texture and how the bear Corduroy got his name. We felt some corduroy fabric and did some rubbings of things with different textures. 

Above you can see rubbings of a leaf and a hair comb.

We were glad to have Meg and Trev back on our second day of school that week!  They had both been sick earlier. Here they are looking through library books about bears during book look.

For literacy, I challenged them again (as I did the week before). We sat all together at the table and looked at this picture for things that started with B, like bear.  They could not have done this on their own but together we managed it.  I wanted them to get the exposure. When we found something that started with B we circled it.  

One more math activity!  We made button pattern books. A pattern was started already for them on each line, then they needed to glue on buttons to finish the pattern. Many needed help putting these together at first but by the third pattern, they got it! 

This was my last week for the school year! It is always bittersweet. I have really enjoyed this crowd and watching them grow. I just wish they wouldn't grow quite so fast. :) They'll be in kindergarten before we know it. 

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

This week we read We're Going on Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen/Helen Oxenbury. To get in the spirit, we went camping for our playtime! The kids really enjoyed it. 

They enjoyed using flashlights inside the tent and roasting marshmallows and hot dogs...until the boys turned the dowels into swords and started fighting bad guys. Unfortunately Luke was the ringleader of this...sigh.

After reading the story, we discussed position words-- over, under, around, through. (These words are used in the story.) Here we acted out those words with the tunnel.

At the tables we made sequencing books.  We looked at all the places the family went looking for the bear-- through the grass, mud, river, forest, snowstorm, cave. We glued pictures of these places on pages in order (to match the order of these events in the story).  Then our preschoolers had a book to take home that they could read/retell! 

On our second day of school that week we talked about different kinds of bears (panda, polar, brown/ grizzly, black) and where they lived.  We looked at photographs from informational books from the library to see what the different places looked like where these different bears lived.  We learned what the word habitat meant.    

Above is an activity we did around habitats.We matched up and glued on different bears with where they live.

Finally, we looked at graphics from things in the story and identified what letter/beginning sound they started with. I knew this would be over their heads but I wanted to get a feel for what letters and if any sounds they knew.  We did this all together as a group and it worked pretty well.  When I emphasized "b, b, b, bear" most weren't really sure what I was talking about but when I said it was like, "b, b, b, Blake" a few got it.   They knew Blake started with B. When I said, "Yes! B is what starts in Blake and bear, " they all easily found the letter b and were able to circle it.  

Thanks to homeschoolcreations.com for resources. I wish I had written down the name of other site I used in my preschool prep for this week and the following but I can't remember now. Darn. I'll have to remember that for next time!   

Fire Station Field Trip

 Our last field trip was to the Fire Station.  

This was a much anticipated field trip, especially for most of the boys.  

First we saw their break room, office and kitchen.  We learned why they have 3 fridges (there are 3 shifts, and no one likes to share their ice cream, so each shift has it's own fridge).  While we were in the kitchen, the alarm went off and the dispatcher welcomed the busy bee preschool to the fire station.

 Next, we went to where the fire fighters sleep.  Then we went to where the kids wanted to go the entire time - fire trucks.  We learned the difference between a fire truck, brush rig and fire engine. 

 Feeling the shiny metal on the fire engine.

 Checking out all the cool axes and tools.  Of course the kids picked up on the fact that they have to break down doors.

 One of the fire fighters put on his garb for the kids to see.

 Once he put on his mask, and started talking through it, they all got a bit nervous.  I can see why little kids hide when they see fire fighters. 

 Love Evans face!  This was after he put on his mask.

 They got to touch all his equipment and uniform. They taught the kids that this is how they stay safe, and how the kids shouldn't be scared when they see a fire fighter dressed like that.

 Practicing the Stop, Drop and Roll routine. 

Blake

 Luke

 Ava

Trevor did NOT want to be in this picture.  (If any other moms have pictures, feel free to upload them.  I need to put my camera on sport mode when I'm shooting these guys.  Someone is always moving.) 

Of course Ava is out of focus, because she wouldn't hold still. 

 They got fire hats, safety books and stickers.  

I think the kids had a great time at the fire station.