Summer

Dramatic Play
We continued our Ice Cream Shop we started last week.

 
Blocks
We had out the Duplo Legos, one of the kids' favorite toys.

Art
Day 1, I had out green paper, pencils, and scissors and asked them to make leaves for our tree. It was great cutting practice for them! They could just cut, or draw their own leaf, and a couple asked me to draw their leaf for them to cut.

Day 2, we painted with watercolors.

Small Manipulatives
We had our counting file folder games out again.
 
Counting ice cream sundaes, with a numbered cherry to add to the sundae with the matching number of candies.

Pom pom shape mats

Writing
I added the colored pens to their regular writing supplies

Outside
Another rainy week!! So we had to play inside again :(

Large Group
We read The Day Before Summer Vacation and talked about fun things they like to do in the hot summer. Then, we reviewed all the seasons. We sing them each day with our weather song, but it's good to review! We then had journal writing time for them to write some of their favorite things to do in each season.

Day 2, we read a Tree For All Seasons, and focused on the summer tree, and the green leaves they added to our tree. We then made our 4 seasons books. Each page was just a blank tree to start.
For summer, they painted green leaves.
For fall, we painted fall colored tissue paper on with starch.
For winter, we painted with "snow paint" which is glue, shaving cream, and glitter.
For spring, we glued on split peas to be leaf buds.

Small Group
We stuck to the summer ice cream theme.

My group had ice cream cones and we matched the rhymes.

Miss Kim's group had ice cream cones with capital and small letters. They put the cones in ABC order, then added the matching ice cream on top.

Spring

I had hoped for the sunny side of spring, to show warmth as a sign of spring, but we got rain instead. It's also a great sign of spring! Just a cold one.

Dramatic Play
Flower Shop!
 
Since Easter only gave them 2 days to play, we did an extra day of the flower shop. Plus, flowers fir the spring theme perfectly.

Day 2, I changed it into the Ice Cream Shop. They'll only get 1 day during this theme, so it will carry into our two days learning about summer. I have some play ice cream cones and treats, but I also added empty boxes of cones and Dilly Bars and ice cream cartons. They're reinforced with packing tape, but if they ever fell apart, I guess I'd make the sacrifice and eat more ice cream for more empty boxes and cartons.
 
It was a huge hit! We had tons of employees, running around, dishing up ice cream and running the cash register. They were not thrilled when I let them know part of their job was also clearing the tables when customers were done. They had just finished clearing out all the treats for the customers, and the table was piled high, but they did it! It was constantly busy, serving and cleaning up.

Blocks
Day 1 was the doll house

Day 2 was the farm and animals


Art
Day 1 was spring sponge painting on blue paper. Their pictures reminded me of warm and sunny days! They made so many, every flat surface in our room was filled with drying pictures.

Day 2 was feathers and glue. They made lots of interesting creations.


Small Manipulatives
Number bird nests with marbles from here

Flower, heart, and star links

Number folder games


Writing
Flower and bug stickers

Snack
Popcorn! We sang Popcorn Popping as it popped, and talked about spring blossoms.

Outside
On Thursday, we went out in the clouds, hoping to have time to play and plant flowers in front of the play house. My kids had helped me prep it the day before by turning the dirt and building a rock border. Once we started, the rain came! Luckily, it just sprinkled for a bit. We planted some different varieties of zinnias. The kids got to choose their seeds, dig their hole, then plant their seeds. We would have watered them, but the rain was enough. Most of the kids waited in the play house or on its porch as we planted, to stay out of the rain. I was glad each child got a turn to plant, and we got back inside before the rain picked up harder.

***As a side note, this area will soon be grass, hallelujah! As you've all noticed our dying grass up front, we are digging that up to level out, as we also level this area and the west side yard. As soon as that's done and the new sprinkler system is in, we will plant grass seed. That will mean that the play house area will be closed off a bit while it's growing. But when you all return next year, it should be beautiful! It has been put off all spring with all of the rain, but this Saturday is the day it all gets dug up! There will be a few transformations out back this summer too, so stay tuned! I wouldn't let my husband make the whole yard off limits at once, so the leveling and sprinklers and new grass out front will have to wait until summer. Thanks for your patience with the ugliness of our yard this spring.

Large Group
Day 1, We read B is for Bunny, which is a springtime alphabet book. We learned about baby birds and farm animals, blossoms and flowers, flying kites rain. Lots of spring fun!
Then we sang Popcorn Popping and Rain is Falling. We made popcorn blossoms for our class tree, gluing popcorn onto pink blossoms. It now looks like spring in here!

Day 2, we read Grow Flower Grow. We had planted our flowers out in front of the play house. We now learned what they needed to grow, and the book taught us it wasn't pizza and spaghetti! We then planted seeds in our pots to take home. They are zinnias, same as in front of the play house, and I hope yours will grow well at home!

Small Group
My group practiced beginning sounds with this page from The Measured Mom. I was so impressed by how well they did! I was more focused on the sound, than the letter it made, but many also knew the corresponding letter. After we figured out the sound, I told them the letter that made the sound, and they found the sticker for their page.

Miss Kim's group kept working on numbers and counting. These pages also came from The Measured Mom. They had lego stacking flower pages, where they build towers with that number of blocks. And they did these flower clip pages. Once they counted and clipped the right number, Miss Kim traded them for a new page to count.

Think Spring!

**Updated with pictures

Sorry about last Wednesday and all the sickness. I had everything all set up to go, but I'm thinking I'll just do what I had planned during our 4 seasons review next month. So, we'll be doing the water cycle stuff then. And now, everything is all bleached and sanitized and ready for your return Monday. :)
I don't have many pictures this week, so enjoy your reading!
Dramatic Play: Ice Cream Store
These kids love the cash register and this piece of cardboard! Every time it comes out, they just can't stay away. We had fun working at the Ice Cream Store this week. We had play ice cream cones, Dilly bars, and play fruits and other desserts. Plus, we had empty ice cream containers with styrofoam balls as ice cream scoops. And of course, spoons and bowls. The purses and money are a must, and a favorite. We did a lot of math here, counting scoops and money. And there was also a "Counting Sweet Treats" game that they played a lot, that worked with numbers 1-10.


 


 

Literacy:
We did a lot of ABC review this week. We had the letter easter eggs out again from dinosaur week, that match the capital and small letters. Inside were toys that matched up with each letter. This was a great "learning through play" moment as I just sat and played with the toys with some of the kids, then we started figuring out their beginning sounds and matching them to their eggs.
We also had several ABC puzzles out, and ABC stickers in the writing center.

Art:
We tried out another pinterest idea, condensed milk painting. It was fun and sticky and very colorful! I forgot to take pics, but they looked awesome. I loved watching these girls enjoy the process of art, by discovering they could swirl their brushes above their papers and just let it drip in cool designs on their paper, rather than just painting. We had a great time.
 
Monday, there was just green paper and scissors, and I asked them to cut leaves for our spring tree. Seems simple and boring, but they all participated sometime throughout the day. Cutting is a great fine motor skill at this age, and they all thought it was so important to get the leaves up in the tree. They helped hang the lower ones.

Large Group:
We read about signs of spring, and began learning our new spring songs, Popcorn Popping and Rain is Falling. We also finished a shape sorting activity we started, but didn't finish during space week.
We are so lucky that my backyard neighbor has an apricot tree right along our fence. It was in perfect full bloom Monday and so we went out there to review our word, blossom, and sing Popcorn Popping. I don't know about you, but I clearly remember singing that as a kid, and thinking it really was popcorn and being confused. So, we talked a lot about that song and the blossoms. We got to have popcorn for snack too, and then used our extra popcorn to make blossoms for our tree.
And it's a good thing we already enjoyed her blossoms, because that wind storm blew them all away!



We enjoyed some fun outside time the first Wednesday, and played our new favorite games Red Light Green Light and Duck Duck Goose. It's so fun to teach them these games and watch them play. We don't quite get all the rules, but we're laughing and having tons of fun! We were stuck inside from the rain on Monday, but we were so busy playing that we did just fine. The rain is a great sign of spring, so it fit right into our lessons!