Wild Animals

At the request of some students who wanted to learn about bats, we did focus on bats the first day, then the rest of the weeks were focusing on a variety of wild animals, so we could hopefully touch on most everyone's favorites!

Dramatic Play
Week 1: bat cave. It wasn't super fancy, but a tent made a good cave. I have some bat posters I got at a teaching conference years ago, and finally got to use! I also hung bats from the tent ceiling (that didn't last-they were torn down and played with right away!) and put some other creepy crawly animals in the cave, like scorpions, snakes, and spiders. They enjoyed playing in here the 2 days it was up, but by the end of the 2nd day, I was ready for it to be done. They just did less playing and imagining they were bats, and more rough housing and knocking the tent over. It's a good 2 day center.



Week 2: Zoo. They loved this! I kinda set up cages with blocks, but they had to improvise and expand them a lot. I'm not sure why, but I hadn't expected them to want to pretend to the animals as much as they did. The zookeepers were super busy, rebuilding cages, chasing down their escaped animals and getting them back into their cages, and also feeding their hungry animals. They had a great time. They often lacked visitors to the zoo, since so many were animals, so I had to buy a lot of tickets and visit often. The stuffed animals were fun, but they liked the animal costumes and being the animals the most.






Blocks
Mini-zoo with small animals, then the second week, the zoo expanded into the blocks area.

I also had several animal puzzles and games on the shelf that got played with a lot. They especially loved playing animal headbands! It was hilarious to watch. They'd be giving someone clues, and another kid would just walk up and yell to them what animal they were. We're still catching on to asking questions and giving clues I guess!


Art

Bubble wrap roller painting. This was a fun new painting experience they really liked!


Play dough and animal cutters


Q-tip painting



Watercolors

Small Manipulatives

File folder games



ABC animal foam puzzles


Animal puzzles


Flat marbles and animal ABC pages from here


Animal lacing cards


Magnet board: pattern blocks with animal cards


Writing
Animal stickers

Outside
We finally have snow! I filled the colored water bottles each day, and they love going out and coloring and painting the snow. They especially like mixing colors with each other to make new colors. I just use old empty bottles like syrup, shampoo, ketchup, honey, etc. I found the ketchup bottles were a little harder for them to use, but they were able to do it if they squeezed hard enough.

Large Group
We learned 2 new songs, Going to the Zoo by Raffi, and The Elephant Song by Dr. Jean. And we learned the word "wild."
Day 1, we read Stellaluna. We learned about bats by watching a youtube video about them. I was most impressed that they eat so many bugs! I'm sure the kids only heard the part about vampire bats that feed off animals, and didn't pay attention to much else!
Day 2, we made a giant venn diagram on the floor, and sorted our toy animals by wild, domestic, or both.

Day 3, we read about and learned the life cycle of a frog.
Day 4, we read about animal habitats, then watched this Sesame Street clip about habitats. It doesn't get much better than Lin Manuel Miranda rapping. Then we took the toy animals, and sorted them into habitats by placing them by a picture of their home.

Small Group
We don't have Miss Kim coming anymore, with her new work schedule, so they are learning to work independently in one group, while another group works with me. It's going quite well!
One group drew and wrote in their journals about their favorite animal, while my group was practicing cutting a zoo animal wheel thing. The finished product wasn't a big deal, but practicing cutting was!
The next week, my group practiced numerals and counting with animal magnets. The other group worked on an ABC animal puzzle together.

5 Senses

Playing catch-up here! Thanks for your patience with my blogging, or lack thereof last month.

Dramatic Play
We just simply had our housekeeping/kitchen set up. This was the kids' request. I had thought about another restaurant area, but when I asked them, they just wanted to play house. Simple, and a well-loved center!

Blocks
Large foam number puzzle. I love this one for the texture.


ABC train blocks

Wood train tracks, for 2 days due to popular demand


Art
Day 1, since we missed 1 apple day due to sickness last week, we finished some things today. So for art, we did apple stamping.


Jello collages. I LOVE the smell of this one! This one was popular all day, with a line waiting to fill an empty seat. They loved the smell, and watching the colors turn bright in the glue.

I decided to get rid of this spice rack this summer, then as I dumped out the few spices that weren't empty yet, I realized I should have kept them for a great sensory experience too, but too late! I recycled this for our art, and filled the jars with Jello powder. When we actually did it, I needed the space for the bins to collect extra powder, and it looked more like this.


Play dough with different textures for stamping. They liked showing off cool designs to each other, and they table ended up pretty full with other stuff they brought over to stamp and see its texture. And we used that word "texture" over and over and over.


Made gingerbread men for snack, then painted with dot markers.

Small Manipulatives
Links

Bristle Blocks

File Folder games about faces (my kids have cool church teachers that make these-and then I steal the ones I want for preschool)



Gingerbread Man floor puzzle


Letter magnets on the board. They loved these more than I expected. They liked connecting them to make trains, and spelling their names.


Farm Sounds Bingo was out after we'd used it in small group too.


Writing
Scented markers

Scented colored pencils

Texture Line markers

Snack
Apple Pie, from last week. They weren't huge fans, but they tried it.

Smoothie. This was a fun way to use all 5 senses, since the blender is so loud!

Gingerbread Men. They made them during art, then got to eat one for snack, and decorate another to take home during small group.

Outside
Sensory table: cornmeal, because it's a sensory experience we hadn't done yet! I added in test tubes (the kids call them potion bottles) just for something different, and they had a lot of fun.

Tents and Tunnels. I didn't get a pic without kids, but they had a lot of fun dragging them around and making new set ups and designs. They especially liked them upside down this time. I guess whatever works.

Large Group
We didn't learn a new song this week, but we did read and act out this poem each day.

Day 1, we read Your 5 Senses to introduce them. We went outside with a 5 senses paper on a clipboard, and they drew pictures of what they smelled, heard, saw, touched, and tasted. Most tasted the raspberries or grapes, but a few got more adventurous and tasted grass, which I strongly discouraged! They had a great and productive time exploring, often running up to me to tell me something else they heard or touched. So even though a paper comes home with scribbles, I know they were observing and finding real things.

Day 2, We read about our sense of touch and made texture hands. I had hands cut out already, and a tray full of items. They chose which ones to use and glued one to each finger. Then I had them describe its texture and I wrote down on each finger how it felt.

Day 3, We read Look Here, and talked about sight. Then we played a game about not having sight. We set up some obstacles in the room, then they each took turns walking through it blindfolded. They got to choose a seeing friend to help them, by using touch to hold their hand and guide them, or using sound by telling them where to go.

Day 4, we read The Gingerbread Man and acted it out. This was their favorite activity of the week! We then talked about what senses we used to make and eat our gingerbread men for snack (spoiler alert: all of them), and then again for the book, what senses did we read about? And we filled those out on a chart. They really loved the retelling part! The next week, I kept the book in the reading center, and found quite a few of them "reading" it as they flipped through and read the pictures.

Small Group

We finished the apple centers we hadn't from last week.

We explored taste by tasting salt and sugar, then journaling our favorite things to taste.

We explored texture and touch by making texture rubbings around the room.

We explored sounds by playing Farm Sounds Bingo.

We explored smell by smelling different bottles and sorting which ones smelled good or bad to them. Then they did a worksheet (Ugh, you know I hate those), but with a good purpose. While I'd always rather sort the real smells (like we did) than do a worksheet, they really need the cutting practice! So they cut along the straight lines and I helped them hold their scissors correctly. I didn't worry on the sorting and gluing side, since many were just being silly, and that's just fine in preschool! So if your child came home with garbage on the good smelling side, I know :)

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.