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.

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!