click on the photos to be taken back to a time of paint mixing, hand printing, mailbox decorating, yogurt tub repurposing, valentine rainbow making,  hearts raining , surprise mirror peeking, and valentine quilting.  we’re celebrating at preschool this week…lovely it will be!

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game on!!!  we’re using smarties as markers and we play black out…surprise!  everyone wins!

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when the calendar turns to february, our classroom turns to valentines.

we’ve had wonderful two toned pink playdough and heart cutters.  the play dough even had some glitter and jewels hiding in it!

i love this next picture for what i remember about the moment. there is great conversation and kind debating going on over some topic i don’t even remember.  these are three pre-k kids engaged in what i want our classroom always to be:  a place where each person is worth listening to.  good stuff.

those two blocks with green duct tape are actually a “play dough oven” that has doors (2 more flat blocks) that open and shut.  never mind that we have a play oven, this one works much better.

there’s a valentine corner filled with lace, paper, glue, stickers, tape, markers, crayons, fabric, tape, yarn, fake flowers, foam bits, …

and oodles of handmade valentines that only a child could make.

next week we’ll add the mailbox to the valentine corner and pull out all the red and pink legos we can find.
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well, it is R week.  it is also our week to celebrate valentine’s day.  so, we present you with a valentine themed rainbow made of rectangles.

we looked at a real rainbow online, read the definition of a rainbow in our dictionary, heard the concept of good old ROY G BIV, discussed shapes and tried to figure out which shape word started with that R sound,  then moved to valentine colored rectangles.

a glue arch was made, covered with one color of their choosing, then another arch was made.  older preschoolers were succesful in taking leftover papers back when they picked up a new color, there was a bit of exercise added in.  sometimes i intentionally have things positioned far away so they simply have to walk farther!

i also think it’s a good brain work out…to have to remember why it is you are walking past the blocks and puzzles….oh yeah, to get that pink paper.  i need more work outs like that.

r is for rainbow, no matter the color scheme.
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oh, goodness, we’ve had a good time the last two days.

as we’ve been anticipating, we’re having a whole week of valentine fun.  this way everyone gets in on it.  children are invited to bring valentines.  we save them in the teacher kitchen until our “party” towards the end of the day.  after all, we needed time for our recycled yogurt tub valentine holders to dry from all the glitter and glue.

then we bring each stack of valentines to the circle and find out who brought them.

then teachers help pass them out, there are a lot of ooooohs and aaaaaaahs and thank yous and even a few i love yous.
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