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.