Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Week two of preschool was a success! This is a fun group of kids. Here they are during playtime, the girls in the kitchen and the boys putting cars in the "castle jail".

 

Our story for the week was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. This story focuses on letter identification so we did a lot of playing with letters.

 

Each child had a plate of letter crackers with the letters in their names and they had to match and glue them.  They did pretty well with this activity. 

 

Then we went outside to hunt for letters buried in sand. You can't see the letters here because the kiddos had already snatched them up as I grabbed my camera! It was fun to see how many they could find.

 

After snack and outside time, we painted our own coconut trees.

On the second day of preschool, we explored a coconut. We felt the outside, noted its color and shook to hear the liquid inside.

 

Then we cracked it open. We saw the color inside and felt it was smooth. Some tasted it. For snack we had a Pina Colada Pop so they could taste something with coconut milk in it.

We came inside and found those missing letters again!  This time they were hiding under the cracked coconut halves. The kiddos enjoyed seeing what letters they found under the coconut they picked.

Then we took our coconut tree paintings and turned them into Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees by adding letter stickers.

Busy Bees with their finished products!

1st Day of Pre School!

Our Busy Bees 2012!

Now this is one fun group of kids!  I really enjoyed being able to teach these cuties for their very first day of Pre school.  They were so well behaved.  So attentive.  So eager and excited.  On the first day, I got a lot of blank stares as I pulled out the weather chart, taught them Scat the Cat, etc.  Inside I was dying and trying hard not to laugh out loud.  Once they felt me out a little bit, and got used to the whole pre school idea, they were excited to help and take turns and do what came next.  Attention spans were SHORT, very, very short so random things got thrown in here and there like play-doh, puzzles, and blowing bubbles outside.  

 

 This week we read Jesse Bear, What Will you Wear?  It is a cute story about a day in the life of a bear named Jesse. It talks about what he'll wear, what he eats, times of day, and a whole lot more.  We dressed up our own Jesse Bear, found hidden bears on every page and talked about Jesse Bear's healthy lunch.

 

We "sorted" bears.  Mostly the kids just loved making them into a train or lining them up.

We talked about love and ways we show love.  In the book, Jesse Bear's Mom and Dad show love and care for him in different ways so every time we saw love, we held up a heart.  This was not a hit.  They mostly loved just poking each other with the ends of the heart or making the heart fly like a butterfly.  :)

Stewart helped Jesse Bear find his shirt by tracing lines and he did it perfectly!

And this is what happens when Elliott is up from nap time.  They were all so sweet to him and each wanted a turn to "sit by the baby."

I wish I had taken more pictures!  All in all, it was a great first week.  It's going to be a fun year!

New Busy Bees

 We had our park meet-up day, and boy is this group different than the last.  :)

Technically, everyone is new, but we are so happy to have Kelli and Stewart join the busy bees!

 You can tell that all of these kids are second or middle children.  All of the kids left their moms side to go play (unlike last year). 

 Preschoolers: Ava, Blake, Stewart, Luke, Trevor and Margaret.

Cute boys. 

 

Megan made these cute get-to-know-you name cards.  I think all the kids loved them.  I know Ava still carries hers around and explains each picture to everyone. 

 Trevor listening as Megan talks about his card.

 Kelli entertaining Grant so I can be the paparazzi.

 Soon to be big sister, Margaret, listening as she is being talked about.

Yeah!!  We're so excited to start preschool!

Duck on a Bike

April 30, 2012 and May 2, 2012 we read the book Duck on a Bike. Duck had fun riding a bike on the farm. It wasn't very long before all the farm animals were riding bikes. The kids had fun playing with Fisher Price farm animals.

During Writer's Workshop, Emily helped the kids think of things to write about. Writer's Workshop is my favorite preschool activity. The kids are creative with their writing and drawings about the exciting things in their lives like getting a new bunk bed or proclaiming their love for ice cream. By the end of the school year the kids really seemed to learn how to write a short sentence.

We pretended to ride our bikes around the farm and look for turkeys that walk around in our neighborhood.

Emily and the kids had a contest to see who could write their name the most. The girls were very competitive and wrote their names several times. The boys wrote their names five times and called it good.

All the kids worked on their packet of farm activities. The kids were great with the dot-to-dot and maze pages. They had fun matching the baby animals to the mommy animals.

The kids decorated farm animals with sparkles, paint, glitter, and feathers. They were the cutest animals on the farm!

We had a great time making barns. Everyone was very unique in designing their barn. We glued on sticks and glitter. We also glued on some hay for the animals to eat. I think the kids had the most fun putting on all the animal stickers. We had some pretty crowded barns!

The Grouchy Ladybug

On February 15, 2012 and February 22, 2012 we had a great time reading the Grouchy Ladybug! We talked about what makes us grouchy. Here we are showing our grouchy faces:

We played a counting/memory game with ladybug spots. We all took home our own game.

Next we took a nature walk to see if we could find any ladybugs. We did not find any ladybugs, but we had fun running around outside!

After the nature walk we made ladybug clocks. The kids learned how to tell time with the hour and half hour. They were impressive!

Our phonics lesson for the week was J and K. Here the kids are Jumping for Joy with Jingle Bells. It was a fun and noisy lesson.