Favorites week!

I didn't get pics of it all, but here's what your kids chose as their favorite things to do from the school year:

Dramatic Play

Camping

House/babies

Pizza Restaurant

Doctor's Office

Blocks

Bowling

Magnatiles (this was actually on the shelf for the full 2 weeks, and was off the shelf and being used constantly these 2 weeks. If I had to pick 1 favorite toy of the class this year, this is it, hands down! If you're ever considering a toy for your child for birthdays or Christmas, this is a great one!! It never grows old. And they can be so creative with it. I got my set of 100 on Zulily for $19 a few years back, no joke. They can be pricey, so watch for deals! They are SO worth it.)

Bristle Blocks

Number Pegs

Car mat and cars

Toy castle

Small Manipulatives

Lacing ABCs

Lacing cards

Small magnets (balls, sticks)...no idea what they're called ;)

Puppet theater

Reading Center
They requested all the stuffed animals come down from the cupboard, so they were added, along with some of my favorite books!


Art

Painting in many different ways!
-spin art
-marble painting
-roller painting

2 snack preps, then art...they love cooking! They made mummy hot dogs, a request they remembered from Halloween. And we also made cookies for the last day.

Slime
This technically wasn't a favorite they'd chosen, but apparently slime making went viral this year, so I hadn't been able to find glitter glue all year to make it, and finally had a good reason to do it! It was a big hit.

Many kids asked for the recipe. I don't use an exact one, but if you google elmer's glue and borax slime recipes, they'll get more specific. I was using 6 bottles of glue, and you don't just times the recipe by 6, so that's why it's not exact. I pour in the glue, add a bottle or 2 of water and mix it in. Then I added a spoonful of borax to a couple of cups of warm water and stirred until it dissolved. I added it to the glue as I stirred and stopped when it felt like enough. It was actually too wet, and I had to pour some water off. I also added a little more borax water, as it was too sticky. That's why my recipes aren't exact :) You can store it in a ziploc bag in the fridge.

Snack
The kids voted for their favorite snack, which they all just wanted popsicles. So I convinced them to pick 3 more for the other days.
We made mummy hot dogs, which were just hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls.
We had goldfish crackers and juice.
We made chocolate chip cookies. Some of you requested that recipe, so here it is:

2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large packages vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
4 cups chocolate chips (we did half peanut butter chips)

Cream butter, sugars
Beat in pudding
Stir in eggs and vanilla
Blend in flour and baking soda
Stir in chocolate chips

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

Large Group/Small Group

We read some of my favorite books, that don't necessarily fit in a theme, but I just love to read. We practiced the songs we had chosen to sing to our parents. We wrote in our journals about our favorite preschool moments. We drew self portraits to compare to the self portraits we had drawn at the beginning of the year. We played ABC bingo and put together rhyming puzzles. We made potions-this was most important to the class! Good old-fashioned baking soda and vinegar, made magic with some dish soap, food coloring, and test tubes to mix them in. And we also took a fun field trip to visit some chickens, and play in a different yard! We really had a fun 2 weeks playing!!



Thank you for a great year! I will get pictures up soon on dropbox and email you, so you can download the ones you want. We seriously had so much fun this year. I am excited to have most of you back next year! Have a great summer!! We'll be working hard on finishing the yard, so we'll have some gorgeous green grass to run on! Thanks for your patience with our construction this spring.

Back to School!

I am so excited to be back to school! We have a great class, and I can already tell they're going to get along with each other wonderfully! Here's what we did the first week of school (and I forgot to take many pics, so sorry!):

Dramatic Play
Housekeeping. This is always a favorite. We had the kitchen, food, aprons, chef hats, baby dolls and clothes, beds, blankets. bath, plus the washer and dryer for laundry. There was a LOT of playing here, as kids always seem to love playing house.



Blocks
Tuesday, we had out Mega Blocks and they were a huge hit.
Thursday, we had out the road mat and cars and road signs.


I'm doing this area a bit differently this year, because now I have those 2 storage shelves there. The foam building blocks and cardboard brick blocks will always be there and available, because I think they work into so many other areas of block play. The second shelf has cars and things, and I may rethink that always being out. It ended up a huge mess both days, with every block, and car, dumped out. So, I think I will limit what's on the shelf and available. I love when they can expand their play, but an overwhelming mess doesn't exactly invite creative play either. Back to the drawing board :)

Art
Tuesday, we painted with water colors.
Thursday, we used scissors and glue sticks. These are a staple at the writing center and always available from now on, but I introduced them today and took the time to show how to use them. Scissors are a work in progress, but they now know how to roll up glue sticks and use lids. Important life skills here.

Small manipulatives
Tuesday, we had out puzzles.
Thursday, we played with ABC lacing beads.

Writing
Tuesday, we learned where paper and our writing supplies are located. There will always be paper, crayons, pencils, colored pencils, markers, glue sticks, and scissors available. I usually add something new each day too.
Thursday, we had white boards with white board colored pencils. I am SO excited about these because they don't stain like dry erase markers!















Snack
Nothing too exciting here, just crackers and juice. We are getting the snack routine down before we get too fancy with making our own. I've added some snack helpers this year, in order to have every child have a job each week.
2 kids will help bring the writing table and red table over for snack (I like us to all sit together, family style). Another hands out hand sanitizer, while one hands out napkins, and another hands out cups. Not too hard, but we are working on staying in our seats, while these helpers walk around the table to pass out, instead of running back and forth everywhere. Again, life skills here. They even helped pour their own drinks, and I'd like them to be pouring them completely on their own, eventually.
I also focus a lot on cleaning up our spots ourselves. Snack is great for eating, but it's mostly about sharing, interacting, and being responsible, plus have good manners.

Outside
I was most excited to play outside! Compared to my first 2 years, outside play is much more exciting! We have a bigger swingset with a climbing wall, a much bigger sandbox, and the play house! I didn't even get out the sensory table yet. We have to learn rules and how to safely and properly use each thing, so we start smaller. We also got new diggers that are a huge hit! They can be in the sandbox or garden, and we are definitely going to be getting dirty this year! We've already turned the play house into a mud pie kitchen, so lots of creativity and dirt.



Large Group
Our word was "learn" and we learned each other's names and added them to the word wall. We also learned new songs like "Hello Neighbor," "Tootie Ta," and "5 Little Monkeys." They love singing! We read books, learned school rules, and played I Spy to tour the room. We also wrote in our journals about our favorite parts of school. I try to do 1 journal entry each theme. They start out with only pictures, but I write their words for them, and they start to learn the concept of putting their ideas into writing, and that their words have meaning and what they look like in print. Important pre-reading skills!