(no title)

n is for name cards

the first thing preschoolers do when they arrive is find their name card. we’ve added a strip of magnet to the back and now the preschoolers match their name to their photo (except on april fool’s day when we put them on other photos…boy, that was funny).we sing through the names and figure out who is gone (we add a magnetic frame around the people gone), then taking time to wish them well.

i encourage the preschoolers to use these during work time. some can recognize all the names already, some know them “in their heart.”

b is for (a very) beautiful butterfly

with more learning from the very hungry caterpillar we made butterflies.

the paper used represented all the foods eaten in the book (the yellow for swiss cheese even had holes in it).

the children used precut butterfly papers and glued the food papers on, trimming as they liked.

at the end we layered circles like the face/eyes of the caterpillar and added those.

i can’t think of this story without hearing a group of children saying, “…a boooooooooooootiful butterfly.”

v is for very favorite food

as part of our learning from the very hungry caterpillar, children were invited to bring their favorite foods for us to taste at snack time.

our snack routine is the same every day. we find out who brought the snack (a fruit or vegetable…sometimes they bring more than that, otherwise we have crackers/pretzes/animal crackers at school), we sing thank you to them, we sing our thank you song, then we find preschoolers to lead us to the 2 sinks. after washing hands the preschoolers walk across the room to the teacher kitchen to pick up their tray (which holds their cup of water and snack). then they get the practice of walking back to a snack table. i love watching the independence bloom!

but this week after hand washing they got to sit right down and we served snack “like a restaurant.” our rules are very clear that you don’t have to finish everything and there is always more of something! we also explain that their brains will grow and change and someday they might like a food they used to not! we encourage licking a new food, smelling it, feeling it, etc.

i never thought i would eat chives and a cupcake in the same meal.

a is for april fool’s

oh, it was a silly few days (we had to give every class a chance, not just those who actually attended on april 1!)

april fool's preschool style by you.

the teachers looked silly (oh, why didn’t i get a photo of ms. viliya in her pajamas?).

there was bologna and peas waiting at the play-doh table (funny).

the letter of the week turned back to A (funny).

april fool's preschool style by you.

the calendar and the music said it was christmas again (funny).

the paint was edible (but i didn’t tell them that at first. instead i pretended the only funny thing was that we were going to finger paint. then i suddenly licked the paint! oh, wide eyes).

there were fake moustaches (funny)…really these are just strips of fake fur with a roll of masking tape.

but the best joke of all was the coffee cream in the cleaned out glue container (funny!!!).

april fool's preschool style by you.

a.w.e.s.o.m.e.

s is for snake

this was not in my lesson plans, but when we trimmed some of the puddle projects to make flowers, we were left with the outer ring. upon seeing one of them, one little friend piped up, “oh! i want a snake!”

you got it!

i think we also mastered the concept of saturation: that when no more paint water will stay on the paper and it simply runs off, the paper is saturated.

i offered a rope of twisted paper (i think these are used for some kind of craft?). this allowed children to put a lot of colored water on before it got saturated! it also allowed everyone at the table to work on the same project at the same time!