On Tuesday we welcomed February with new pink things in the room and new books on the shelf. Pablo is our new Alphabet Friend and he’ll turn pink this week! In honor of P week, there is a P shaped balance beam path to walk on, enough pillows for everyone, pink play dough and heart cutters, pink water play table, pink scoops and treasures to find in the cloud dough, pretend pizza in the Family Corner and puzzles galore!

We added pink and white yarn to the project corner and it was a popular spot!

Our Coping Skill is Pillow Time. It can be helpful for figuring out what our bodies need in a certain moment by picking up a pillow…notice does it feel good on your belly or to squeeze or to hold? During Circle Time we talked about pillows we have at home…read more below.

Our Clean Up Song this week is our preschool love song, Skinnamarink. We have some sweet actions we like to do as well as hit that high note on “mooooon” while we clean. 

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Conversation Starter: Snack Time

This week is our Valentine Party Week where our projects, books and snacks are all coordinated. Thank you so much to the families that signed up to bring special party foods all week. Today we had traditional Valentine colors of red, pink and white foods!

Morning class: Thank you to Max for bringing bagels with pink strawberry cream cheese, Andrew for bringing white vanilla Greek yogurt and Theo for bringing red strawberries!

Afternoon class: Thank you to Scarlet for bringing white donuts, Zander for bringing red Doritos and Cade for bringing pink sugar cookies that he made! We had stores for everything!

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Conversation Starter: Story Time

What did we throw in the classroom after reading our book?  

Paper planes shaped like hearts! 

In our book, Little Mouse’s Big Valentine, Little Mouse made a huge paper heart valentine and ended up riding it like an airplane before landing in a huge leaf pile (where he met a friend)…the most exciting part of the book. 

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Conversation Starter: Project Time

What did you put on your Valentine Bag? 

The children had a wide array of stickers, tape, markers and crayons to make their bags their own!  In keeping with our tradition of celebrating Valentine’s Day, we all have a Valentine Bag and began decorating them today. Some children took their valentines home today and some will get them the next time they come. 

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Conversation Starter: Circle Time

What did you say about your pillow?  With our Coping Skill be about using pillows, we started an All School Chart entitled, Pillow Talk (lol). We’ll add to it all week to give every child a chance to tell us about a pillow they like to use or something they like to use instead of a pillow (that’s a thing, you know! A rolled up towel, a bunched up blanket or piece of clothing).  

On Thursday our very orange Alphabet Friend Omar got his eyes and name tag and helped find orange things all over with the other Alphabet Friends. We are exploring the difference between ovals and circles and noticing similarities between zeros and the letter O. We have an O shaped balance beam in our Big Body corner and rainbow puzzles that can turn into O shapes. We have a Golden Letter friend, Owen who comes every afternoon! Today is the last day of January in the classroom so we had one more time with the Tiny Things and January books.

We worked in our journals today making owl eyes and drawing owls. We also have a sticker of the owl babies from our book!

We had some word play where the children made up 3 letter words for teachers to sound out…a lot of silliness ensued!

Today was the last day for our Clean Up Song, Over in the Meadow. In addition to over, we explored other prepositions (describing spatial relationships, indicating the position of something relative to another object) during our play this week too like under, through, next to, between, etc.

Conversation Starter: Snack Time

What did Omar love about our snack today?

Morning class: The orange carrots, the orange oranges and the O shaped Cheerios!

Afternoon class: The o shaped donuts from Annie! We also had O shaped cereal he was excited about! Thank you Annie!

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Conversation Starter: Story Time

What happened when Little Blue and Little Yellow hugged their parents?

They turned green!

 Little Blue and Little Yellow is a story about two color blobs who mix and change color which causes a lot of confusion for their parents. One element of this story is that in the beginning Little Blue breaks the family plan and leaves his house even though his mama told him to stay home. I use this as a teachable moment to follow the plans at school and home. 

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Conversation Starter: Project Time

Did you mix any colors?

Taking inspiration from today’s book, we painted color blobs and experimented with color mixing. This is a prime example of “process art:” engaging and exploring with art for the creative process and the joy of creating rather than getting an end product. Unlike traditional art projects where the goal is to create a perfect frame-worthy masterpiece, process art emphasizes exploration, experimentation, and expression.

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Conversation Starter: Circle Time

What did you do when Ms Kristin held up the letter O? Opened our mouths and made the short-o sound! 

Not only are we doing an O thing, our mouths can make oval O shapes! In addition to recognizing the O letter, children are invited to call out any other letters they recognize. My goal is for this to be a low pressure way for children to use their voice, make guesses, follow their impulses and learn from each other. Enjoy the audio!

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Remember: no preschool next week

On Wednesday we celebrated Kansas Day-which is today, January 29! We made a special Kansas Day project and learned things about the state we live in. We played with owl babies (bits of cotton poked in the pinecones) and found O shapes all over. With kinetic sand we are exploring the difference between ovals and circles and noticing similarities between zeros and the letter O. We have an O shaped balance beam in our Big Body corner and rainbow puzzles that can turn into O shapes. We have a Golden Letter friend, Owen who comes every afternoon!

Our Alphabet Friend Omar is very orange with different shades of orange paint (mixed by the children) and today we added orange oil scent.

The morning class finished painting him so they helped wash the brushes and paint cups with Grandma Bonnie. The afternoon class added the oil right before clean up time once the paint dried.

Both classes put our Alphabet Friends in alphabetical order today! Incredible!

For Outside Time today the teachers were the horses and the children got to ride in our wagons, pretending they were covered wagons (just like in our book!).

Our Clean Up Song this week is Over in the Meadow. In addition to over, we’re exploring other prepositions (describing spatial relationships, indicating the position of something relative to another object) during our play this week too like under, through, next to, between, etc. Sometimes we get on the table to “clean” it.

Conversation Starter: Snack Time

Morning class: What did you put on your straw today? O shaped cereal! We also had a preschool snack of oranges and cheese.

Afternoon class: What food did Owen bring that he loves? French fried onions! He also brought orange juice, Oreos and orange cheese. Thank you, Owen!

Here is a movie of both snack times:

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Conversation Starter: Story Time

Why did Laura feel scared?

Pa left on the wagon to go collect logs for their cabin and she was in the wide open prairie. 

A Little Prairie House is a picture book version from the Little House on the Prairie series. We learn about the process the family went to from living in their covered wagon to building their log cabin. 

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Conversation Starter: Project Time

What do you see when you open the door in your log cabin?

Ourselves! After gluing logs to our paper houses, we added a door so pictures of us could peek out. 

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Conversation Starter: Circle Time

Why did you cross things off of the paper? During Circle Time we each had a paper with pictures: we crossed out the things that require electricity and circled (with the letter O!) things that do not require electricity. Back when Laura and Mary arrived in Kansas, they had no electricity in their homes.  You can look around your home and notice all the things that do and do not require electricity.

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Remember: no preschool next week

On Tuesday we started our owl projects (read more below) and found O shapes all over. Our Alphabet Friend Omar is turning orange with paint, marker and paper…the other Alphabet Friends are all waiting nearby. With our kinetic sand and journal work we are exploring the difference between ovals and circles and noticing similarities between zeros and the letter O. We have an O shaped balance beam in our Big Body corner and rainbow puzzles that can turn into O shapes. We have a Golden Letter friend, Owen who comes every afternoon! Our cardboard house moved to the doorway of Ms Kristin’s office which means that when you are in the house you are in her office! Oh what fun!

Our Clean Up Song this week is Over the in the Meadow. In addition to over, we’re exploring other prepositions (describing spatial relationships, indicating the position of something relative to another object) during our play this week too like under, through, next to, between, etc.

Conversation Starter: Snack Time

Morning class: What special drink did you have today? Orange juice from Ruthie! Ruthie also brought black olives and oatmeal cookies that she helped make. Thank you, Ruthie!

After looking at photos of owl’s legs, we also pretended to eat owl legs, what were they really? Pretzels!

Afternoon class: What did you put over your eyes to be pretend owl eyes? Oreos from Scarlet! Scarlet also brought honeycomb cereal and oranges. Thank you, Scarlet!

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Conversation Starter: Story Time

What did they baby owls wish for?

That their mother would come back. And she did!

Owl Babies is a sweet book and is a great launching point to conversations about family plans and caregivers: the owl babies are left home alone and I am sure to remind children that human babies and young children will always have someone take care of them (it’s the law!)….owls are not human so their family plan is that it was appropriate to stay home alone.

Questions to ask your child to nurture their sense of safety and being care for: who takes care of you when mom/dad/etc is gone? Who comes pick you up from preschool? Who takes care of you when you are at preschool?

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Conversation Starter: Project Time

What did you poke in the pinecone?

Bits of white cotton! First we pull the cotton balls apart and then we poke them in using pencils to get them stuck in deeply.

We are working to make our pinecones look like the baby owls in the book, Owl Babies. Our big mama owl got moved above the project table to watch us work!

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Conversation Starter: Circle Time

Where did Ms Kristin hide for the game?

On the steps! Today we played a game based on our book, Owl Babies. On one page of the book the owl babies heard things in the dark woods: “…for things moved all around them…” (the children learned to repeat this line and might do it for you at home!). Ms Kristin had things she made noise with and the children guessed what they were.

Ms Kristin had a couple of items that were too tricky to guess (she said she “stumped” the kids) but they guessed most of them just from listening! Way to go!

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Remember: no preschool next week

On Thursday our Alphabet Friend Nellie got her eyes and name tag so she was ready to play in the classroom and hung out on the ceiling over our newspaper house painting table, explored number puzzles, used number blocks and cookie cutters in kinetic sand, made more handprints to work on our Coping Skill of counting while tracing our fingers, continued to find the letters of our names cut out of newspapers to work on spelling and recognizing our names in both upper and lower case. Our Golden Letter teacher and preschool friends, Grandpa Norm and Nessa were back in the morning!

We added paint to our cardboard box house and used it to deliver newspapers (read more below!).

We wrote number shapes in our journals today. The numbers one and zero (and ten) are often easy for preschoolers to make, but they get significantly more difficult! At preschool we are not looking for mastery, we are looking to begin making the shapes that will one day go together in numeral formation.There are a lot of little poems that can be used when writing number shapes. Here is the one we have at our school:

Our Clean Up song this week is A Neighborhood is a Friendly Place by Ms Ella Jenkins. In this song Ms Ella tells a little story and the children are learning to stop and freeze when the music stops…you can try it at home!

A few conversation starters:

Morning class: What did people stick in their mouth to make a funny face? Oranges! Gus brought yummy Cara Cara Navel oranges and Nilla wafers. Thank you, Gus!

Afternoon class: What kind of N chips did we eat? Nacho cheese Doritos! Heath brought them along with navel oranges and nutritious Nature fruit bars. Thank you, Heath!

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What do the numbers mean on your newspaper house?

Our addresses! Today we painted on newspaper cut into a house shape and added our house numbers.

Check at home to see if you can find the same numbers on your house (and if they are different than the project I apologize…I used the information on your child’s enrollment form). This is not something we expect young children to memorize -we are simply planting the seed and making connections between home and school.

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During Story Time we learned about compound words: newspaper and paperboy.

3 Color questions: Today we read The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey (also from our local library) and learned about a big kid who gets up early to roll newspapers and deliver them. During Circle Time we rolled newspapers and practiced throwing them to different “houses” in our classroom.

What color was the delivery boy’s newspaper bag? Red! What color were the rubber bands he used? Green!

What color rubber bands did you use? We had red yellow, blue in different sizes and used our rubber bands to practice delivering newspapers to the porch of our cardboard house.