Here are some questions you can ask your preschooler about our day:
What color are the tiny things and the play dough?
How do you turn your project upside down? And why do you do that?
What did you find in your Cheeto bag?
Could you drink your grape juice?
Oh boy, what did Ms Kristin call your Show and Tell thing?
Tuesday: Happy April Fool’s Day!
WELCOME TO APRIL: It’s no joke, all the monthly things have changed from green to purple! Even our Alphabet Friend, Violet, will turn violet, a shade of purple, this week!
APRIL FOOL’S DAY PROJECT: We worked on a couple of volcano projects, one being a silly V volcano project that is best understood with this poem while turning the project around: You might think it’s just a V from our alphabet tune, but really it’s a volcano about to go BOOM!
APRIL FOOL’S DAY SNACK: It looked like we were going to have Cheetos and grape juice for snack but then it turned out to be grape jello and carrots in the Cheetos bags! (Don’t worry, the Cheetos were saved in a different bag so we ended up having both)
APRIL FOOL’S DAY STORY: We read Silly Sally… a funny book perfect for today.
APRIL FOOL’S DAY SHOW AND TELL: Ms Kristin called the Show and Tell things by the wrong name…then everyone said, “April Fool’s!” It was very funny.
MORE PICTURES FROM OUR DAY:
COPING SKILL OF THE WEEK: Our Coping Skill is Voo: making the vooooo sound on an extended exhale is proven to help activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), promoting relaxation and reducing stress by stimulating the vagus nerve.
For U Week children have been going under the tables, adding arrows pointing up on Uppy our Alphabet Friend, doing underwater puzzles, coloring unicorns and playing on U shaped balance boards. Today we read about our friend Peter from The Snowy Day again. In today’s book, A Letter to Amy, it is spring and Peter’s letter goes up in the sky during a rainstorm…uh ho! We figured out how old Peter was and compared it to our ages too.
Our Coping Skill is Looking Up: “…looking up and out not only lets the brain improvise and play, but it improves our capacity to maintain a focused state of mind with less effort so we actually get sharper at our thinking.” What do you see and how do you feel when you look up for 5 seconds?
Thursday: U is for Up
Questions you can ask your preschooler:
What did you jump up to push today?
What shape did you draw in your journal?
Uh ho…what happened to Peter’s letter?
What did you point your arrow at?
UP ARROWS: Today we colored arrows to use during Circle Time and as a tool for nonverbal communication to show what we want or what we are looking at. During Circle Time we used our paper arrows to point at each other’s Show and Tell things!
JUMPING UP: With all of our umbrella work, we brought Mama Cloud back in the classroom for us to jump up and push.
LOOKING UP: We worked in our journals making arrows pointing up and talking about what we see when we look up at our classroom ceiling. Uppy has his eyes and smile and was there to watch!
Today was also the last preschool day of March so we spent time with the green things that will be different the next time we come!
New things in the classroom for U Week: the tables are rearranged and children are invited to go under them to play and work. We have underwater puzzles, underwater animals in the water tables, unicorn coloring work and 4 U shaped balance boards. We’re adding arrows (all pointing up) to our new Alphabet Friend, Uppy. When we find an arrow that isn’t pointing up, we can say another U word “uh ho!” and fix it.
Our Coping Skill is Looking Up: “…looking up and out not only lets the brain improvise and play, but it improves our capacity to maintain a focused state of mind with less effort so we actually get sharper at our thinking.” What do you see and how do you feel when you look up for 5 seconds?
Wednesday: U is for under
Questions you can ask your preschooler:
Uh ho…where did all of the chairs go?
Who is under the mushroom on your project?
Where did you eat snack? (Hint: it’s very unusual!)
What did Ms Kristin do with the Show and Tell things?
Today when children arrived, there were chairs at Circle Time…how interesting! They could walk on them and then we used them for a Circle Time game…read on to find out why.
We revisited our book about animals taking shelter from the rain under a mushroom in Mushroom in the Rain and made paper mushrooms for our whole class to fit under!
At Snack Time we got small and could eat under a table (handy since all the chairs were gone!).
During Circle Time we played a Chair Game with our Show and Tell things. Ms Kristin successfully fit all of our Show and Tell things under the chair! Children then waited for their name to be written to collect their things. Way to go, kids!
New things in the classroom for U Week: the tables are rearranged and children are invited to go under them: they did it by crawling or using scooters!
We have underwater puzzles, underwater animals in the water table, unicorn coloring work and 4 U shaped balance boards. We’ll add arrows (all pointing up) to our new Alphabet Friend, Uppy. When we find an arrow that isn’t pointing up, we can say another U word “uh ho!” and fix it.
Our Coping Skill is Looking Up: “…looking up and out not only lets the brain improvise and play, but it improves our capacity to maintain a focused state of mind with less effort so we actually get sharper at our thinking.” What do you see and how do you feel when you look up for 5 seconds?
Tuesday: U is for Umbrella
Questions you can ask your preschooler:
Where did you eat snack today?
Where did you drip paint? Who hid under a mushroom? Who did not hide under the mushroom? What did you do when you heard thunder?
Today we acted like the rain and dripped paint on paper that had a contact paper umbrella on it. The paint would drip down it like real rain on a real umbrella!
We read about animals taking shelter from the rain under a mushroom that seemed magical in Mushroom in the Rain.
At Snack Time we had little paper umbrellas to make our water cups look fancy or to poke our food with. Children could eat snack at any of the tables today!
During Circle Time we played a game with our Show and Tell things and the thunder tube (it is a percussion instrument-look them up!): when the thunder rumbled we ran under something (table, chair, loft, boat, etc) taking our things with us!
This week we are celebrating the letter T and St Patrick’s Day with Tom Tom the Leprechaun as our theme. This pretend character loves rainbows, the color green, gold and being outside in the trees. How fun that we still have a lot of green around since it is March’s Color of the Month: the playdough and tools are green, the Tub Table has green digging and sculpting tools, and all the Tiny Things. Our new Alphabet Friend is Terry is covered in tape this week! We have a pretend tornado that we can color and paint while it spins from a hook on the ceiling and a two tunnels to crawl through.
The Tub Table has had gold coins in it all week. This afternoon we finally counted that there were indeed 100! But then after making this video, another coin was found so we actually have 101 in there!
Our Coping Skill is Tree time. Spending time outside with trees is known to reduce feelings of stress. By looking at trees we are also using our previous Coping Skills of Exploratory orienting and Far off gaze.
During Clean Up we are listening to Irish jigs…continuing to practice stopping and freezing when the music stops.
On Thursday we took home our leprechaun houses and looked for rainbows. We finished adding leaves to trees in our Journals and talked about the TH sound…perfect for our Golden Letter friend, Theo. Read on to learn more about our day.
Conversation Starter: Party Snack Time
We had our final St Patrick’s Day Tom Tom the Leprechaun Green Rainbow Gold Parties today! Thank you, families!! Grandma Mona brought us a very St Partick’s Day looking cookie box with green and a shamrock…Thin Mints!
Morning class: We had green spinach banana chocolate chip muffins from Max W with edible green grass and rainbow candy from Max and Gus!
Afternoon class: We had party napkins from Owen, green spinach banana chocolate chip muffins from Malcolm with edible green grass, rainbow Rice Krispie Treats from Heath, and gold chocolate coins from Willow. Party time!
Conversation Starter: Story Time
Who made the thunder sound at Story Time?
After reading When the Storm Comes, Ms Kristin demonstrated her thunder tube: an insturment that sounds like real thunder when lightly shaken.
We explored the facts of rainbows: they are formed when sunlight passes through raindrops, they are made up of seven colors, moonbows can happen at night and no one has ever found the end of a rainbow.
We went outside after Snack Time and made our own thunder sounds by smacking pool noodles on the concrete. We called it a party game.
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Conversation Starter: Project Time
What can you see through your tube?
Rainbows! We covered one end with rainbow film and decorated the tubes with tape. When we look at any light through the rainbow film, we see a lot of rainbows! Our tape loving Alphabet Friend Terry was close by for this project.
Conversation Starter: Circle Time
What did we fill up during Show and Tell?
The pretend pot at the end of the rainbow! Even if our things aren’t gold, they are treasures to us!
NO SCHOOL NEXT WEEK : Spring Break!
The afternoon did an extra Spring Break clean up with stacking chairs and a big sweep. Thank you, friends!
P.S. We’ve been working on our sweeping skills and here is proof of how effective their sweeping is: no teachers swept any of this garbage in!
newcreationpreschool.com 