Our Cool Preschool

What is Our Cool Preschool?

noreply@blogger.com (Martha) — Sun, 27 May 2012 10:27:00 +0000

Who are we?
We are a group of moms who work together to provide excellent preschool education for our own children, in our own homes. This began in 2002, and has grown stronger each year. There is no tuition, and usually no purchased curriculum. Expenses include a few shared supplies (for a Circle Time chart and basic reusable craft supplies).

What do we teach?

We are organized into small groups with a group leader, and set a calendar for the year. Each group meets to determine their own meeting times, curriculum and structure. Each mom teaches (hosts) one week at a time, then the rest rotate. So the average mom teaches one week in every 5 weeks. Each preschool gathering includes Circle Time, a lesson for that day, and play time. In Circle Time, children sit on mats and have rotating assignments to help with weather, calendar, counting, letters/word sounds, and singing. This provides a common classroom environment and structure to each gathering.

Lessons are usually based on the following:

1) A fabulous curriculum available here:___.

2) Focus on one letter of the alphabet per week, focus all lesson ideas around that letter (some begin with the letters beginning the children’s names)

3) Parents divide into their own areas of strengths and always teach that subject at their home (e.g. literacy, science, health, music, art, and social studies—including holidays and personal safety)

How are groups divided?

The following are the age divisions for the groups (children’s ages in September)

2-year-old play group—

4 children per group
1 day per week (sometimes 2 days per week 2^nd half of the year); 2 hours long (e.g. Tues/Thurs 9:30-11:30)

3-year-old preschool—

4-6 children per group
2 days per week; 2 1/5 hours long (e.g. Tues/Thurs 9:30-12)
Includes lunch or snack

4-year-old preschool (Pre-K group)—

6-8 children per group
2-3 days per week (Usually Tues/Thurs with a Friday activity day or fieldtrip)
3 hours (e.g. 9:30-12:30)

What else should I know?

We are not trained or equipped to work with children with behavioral or learning disabilities.
We do not support stepping in and out of a group. We take our job of educating our children seriously. Joining a group is a year-long commitment. If a host teacher has a conflict (or sick child), she asks another mom in the group to teach for her, or host a playgroup. This ensures parents and children can rely on this preschool like any other.
We divide the teaching fairly. Each mom teaches the same number of rotations. If a mom is expecting, she can calendar in extra rotations before having her baby. Obviously, unforeseen problems can arise, and we try to support each other. But we need to plan to be self-sufficient from the outset.

How do I join?

Contact Martha if you are interested in joining a group (marthaethington@hotmail.com). Groups are assigned immediately after Labor Day, when most people have moved and had a chance to settle into school districts. Group leaders hold a meeting the first week of school to discuss details/calendaring, and preschool usually begins the second week of school.

Grandmas and grandpas and respect

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:10:00 +0000

Our last circle time until Kindergarten! I tried to sneak in a little place value with our last focus number, 11.

We read a couple of cute books about grandmas and grandpas and other older people. This book was a story about a little boy who goes to visit his grandma and great-grandma every Sunday. In the book, the grandma would tie the great grandma to a chair so she could sit up and visit with the little boy. Ellie asked if this story was fiction or non-fiction, and I was even surprised to discover that it was based on a true story. In the story, both the grandma and great-grandma died, and we talked about where their spirits went since the book didn't cover that.

So, I tied them to their chairs while I read the story. Here's Gavin, with his tongue flopped out, looking very old. We talked about how our muscles are still very young and strong, but often-times, older people like grandmas and grandpas don't have such strong muscles.

We also looked at pictures of technology from the 1950's when most of their grandparents were about their age. We learned that there were no personal computers, Ipods, CD players, microwaves, or (gasp) movies in cars. We learned that if their grandma or grandpa had a television as a young child, it would have been black/white.

We also read this book, a story about a little boy who lived next door to an old folks' home.

We shared sad (like when your daddy leaves for the Philippines), warm (like when your mommy holds you), silly (like when you sister makes you laugh), and beach memories with each other, like the old lady and little boy in the book did.

We took a field trip to go visit our grandmas and grandpas. First, Gavin practiced reading our names and seat assignments. He was the ticket-hander-outer-guy:

We practiced matching our tickets to the seat numbers/letters. It took a long time to board the whole plane actually, especially when those already seated got up to help others find their correct seat:

There was a flight attendant. She handed out snacks, and when you were hungry and wanted more, she offered you a napkin. Sounds like Southwest, huh?

But we made it. We went to Texas, Washington, Minnesota (I think), Utah, Massachusetts, California, and Italy (I think someone was confused). Here's Simone, telling about her grandma. We practiced being very respectful, looking with our eyes, listening with our ears, and controlling our hands and voices while others were talking.

We made butterfly magnets. We colored coffee filters,

sprayed them with water to blur the colors,

then added antennae. We were going to give them to residents at the assisted living center, but now you can either send them to your own grandma or grandpa, or add them to the rest of your refrigerator art collection. Or keep them for yourselves, like Ellie wants to do.

While our butterfly wings dried, we worked on dot-to-dot books. "Easy peezy, lemon squeazy!" That's what Gavin says when he thinks something's easy, and he's proud of himself for doing it. The last couple *challenge* pages were a bit trickier, though. Gavin could still do them, and finished Haven's for her.

The kids played so nicely together. It was a really good last day of school. They shared the legos, even the Lego girl dresses:

They hammered and hammered:

Then, they worked together hammering some more:

But Maylie was the most serious about it; she used every second of her free time, working on this. I think we have a future architect/construction manager gal here:

Fun friends, fun teachers, fun year. Thanks, guys!

Flags

noreply@blogger.com (Lara) — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:54:00 +0000

Today was my last day of teaching preschool....EVER! Not that I'm excited or anything, just possibly a little trunky. So trunky, in fact, that I got to the end of preschool today and realized that we never even did circle time.

(Don't worry I've already awarded myself the Spacey Teacher Award of the day, so you don't need to nominate me again).

So what did we do all day if we didn't have circle time?

First we went outside and practiced looking all patriotic and cute....

As you can see....

it wasn't hard for them....

looking patriotic....

or cute....

They were all eager models...

with eager smiles...

After wearing out our smiling muscles we came back in and started working on our Flag Booklets. It was crazy and I didn't take a single picture of the process, but they spent their time...

Making and decorating their booklet covers (oodles of cheap stickers were used in the process)....

Affixed flag stickers from different countries around the world...

I had done this page in advance with the velcroed flag...

This page was to help us remember that we live in a free country...

This page reminds us that we should take off our hats when we sing the Star Spangled Banner or say the Pledge of Allegiance. They thought the movable hat was kind of cool....

This page was time consuming for them. They each traced their hand and cut it out. I then laminated it and attached some Velcro to it, so they could stick it to the heart on the page. We talked a lot about how we should put our right hands over our hearts to show respect for the flag. Figuring out which one of their hands was the right one was a fun challenge too. :)

This is where all the posing and looking cute at the beginning came in handy. They each glued their cute patriotic picture down to this page with the Pledge of Allegiance.

This page was to remind us that we should never let the flag touch the ground. Once again, they really liked the movable flag and pole.

This page showed them that there is a proper way to fold a flag. We talked about how flags are rectangle shaped, but when we fold them they should end up looking like a triangle.

And here was where I just threw in as many of the cute pictures as possible....

And afterward we ate lunch, then listened to the Star Spangled Banner and practiced our flag etiquette (taking off our hats and placing our right hands over our hearts). Everyone went home with 2 flags and a reminder that they shouldn't let them stay on the ground.

Although I may have sent them off from their second to last day of preschool with a poor reminder of structure, it was a fun day and we all learned a lot together!

V is for Volcano

noreply@blogger.com (alexandra) — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:57:00 +0000

The volcano topic is so much fun to teach. We discussed why we have volcanos and where you can find them, focusing on the fact that there aren't ANY that are close to where we live. I had thought that emphasizing the fact that we don't live near any active volcanos was rather funny when I read it in Lara's description for this theme, but let me tell you that I noticed some of the kids' eyes getting pretty big as I talked about how volcanos erupt. So in the end I talked about how volcanos are one way that new islands, like Hawaii, are made. They seemed to like that.

I also had a piece of volcanic rock from Mt. Vesuvius that I passed around so the kids could see how bits of lava that shoot out from a volcanic eruption form porous rocks.

After circle time all the kids got to make their own little volcanos. Each child got to pick several dinosaur pieces (again, no real people or towns in this diorama!). We used an 8 ounce water bottle as our volcano and plaster of Paris to hold it in place.

Just a note if you want to do this project in the future, please note that when the box says that the stuff dries quickly, they are not joking! I originally tried to make a bucket full of it only to have it become unmanageable very quickly. So I ended up sending the kids off to play while I regrouped. I mixed individual batches, called one kid back at a time, and poured and molded the plaster of Paris up around their bottles, letting them put in the trees, rocks, and dinosaurs as they wanted. It was much easier this way. In the end, I only ended up losing three containers and one wooden spoon - ha!

I then showed the kids "The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top." It talks about how an island is formed from an underwater volcano. The kids were entranced!

We then went outside where we made a volcano "erupt" using baking soda and water in a small water bottle. Their volcano masterpieces weren't dry enough yet so I just put some baking soda and loosely capped them. You can add your own vinegar and let them erupt at home over the next day or two. Just make sure you do it outside in case the lava overflows!

We ended up running out of time, so our worksheets were sent home as homework.

I also forgot to let the kids watch this video of a volcano erupting. Here's the link in case you want to show it to them: wide shot of erupting volcano / lake in foreground.

I also sent home some dinosaur fossils and stickers that I bought back at the beginning of the year from Oriental Trading, but that I'd forgotten I had back when I did the unit on dinosaurs and fossils. (Just so you don't get confused as to what the theme was for this time!) I think it was Simone who asked why they were all picking out dinosaur fossils when that wasn't the theme. Too cute!

Oh, another funny side note. When we were putting together the volcanoes, the kids noticed that the plaster of Paris got pretty hot once it was mixed. It was so funny hearing them (particularly the boys) talk about how hot it was and that it was so hot that if they touched it too long it would kill them. Ha! It could have made a good lesson on exothermic reactions, but I thought that might be a bit too advanced for them at this point. Maybe next year in kindergarten!

Telling time

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:04:00 +0000

What fun we had today! Our new friend, Berkeley, fit right in.

First, we talked about clocks. We practiced sitting like kindergartners and raising our hands to say something we noticed about the clock. We noticed the decorations, the broken parts, the numbers, the hands, and Berkeley noticed the clock wasn't working. They were pretty excited to reach in, pull out a time, and make that time on the clock.

We read The Grouchy Ladybug. They've all heard that before, but it's one of those you can always hear again.

For those of you moms, like me, who say "one more minute!" and then talk for 5, 10, 20 more minutes, you're in trouble! We learned how long a minute is, and it's short!

Here we are, writing our names. Most of us can write our names about 2 times in a minute.

We can stand on one foot for a minute and only fall over a couple times.

But, Ellie says she's an expert at standing on one foot because she took ballet.

And we can hop on one foot 53 times in one minute. Berkeley's and Rachel's tongues help them balance, I think. :)

Candy clocks: First we traced the numbers,

then we used licorice to tell the time.

We worked on a couple nursery rhyme pages that mention time. Gavin tried so hard to read all the words!

We read What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?, and decided that WE would be smart enough to decline a party invitation from a wolf who was licking his lips!

Then we played *Mr. Wolf, Mr. Wolf, what time is it?*

SAFE!

Butterflies-- May 6th

noreply@blogger.com (Esseltine Family) — Thu, 13 May 2010 03:45:00 +0000

We made the different stages of the butterfly cycle. We made leaves, caterpillers, chrysalis and butterflies. Super fun :)

'painting' the leaves with glue

Coloring the butterfly

'wrapping' the chrysalis

The finished product.

Putting the cycle of the butterfly in order.

Hard Work: Little Red Hen

noreply@blogger.com (Lara) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:48:00 +0000

I was a little nervous about teaching preschool kids the value of hard work, but it definitely ended up being a fun day, and they may have actually learned something in the process. First we started off by reading this book:

This is a funny, kid-friendly book about Bear and Bunny, who both decide to grow tomatoes. Bunny is lazy and doesn't do anything to take care of them, while Bear works hard and does his best to help them grow. Of course, in the end Bear has a bumper crop of tomatoes and Bunny isn't quite sure what happened to his. It was a perfect way to introduce the concept.

Next we did a hands-on activity with cans (from the FHE lesson attached at the end of this blogpost). We (the kids and I) thought of lots of different chores that need to be done in a house. Then we took turns taping little labels listing the chores onto cans of food, like this:

After all the cans were labeled we put them all into a laundry basket. The kids took turns trying to lift the heavy basket and carry it across the room. While the kids were strong enough to lift it....barely...we all agreed that it was too heavy to carry for very long. We related this to how a mom would feel when she doesn't have any help with all those things to do. It's possible, but it makes her really tired and makes it so she doesn't have enough time to do fun things with the kids.

Then we tried distributing the cans to each person. We all decided that it was MUCH easier to lift our two cans (chores) than it was to try to hold all of them at the same time. We then related it to how we can help our mommies and daddies by all doing our part to help.

It's a cool object lesson, but I think a couple of the kids took it a little too literally, in that they thought we were actually talking about carrying cans, rather than helping with chores. Oh well, maybe they'll help you carry in a few bags of groceries next time. :)

Next we read the story of the Little Red Hen (also included in the lesson below) with the flannel board figures. The kids had fun holding up their characters and saying, "Not I," whenever I said their name.

Then we re-enacted the Little Red Hen (without the refusals to help) and made our own bread, starting with grinding our own wheat by hand.

Then we headed into the kitchen where all the kids took turn adding their own ingredients to the bread.

Then they kneaded it and formed it into shapes (I had made some bread dough earlier that had already risen, so they could get straight to the forming).

Then we put them all into our cute little loaf pans.

...and let them raise.

And while the bread was rising (and baking), we did a little sequencing activity. First we glued the numbers on in order, then we glued the different scenes from the Little Red Hen on in the right order as well. I felt like it was a very good activity for them.

By the time we finished with the sequencing activity, our bread was coming out of the oven.

Some of the kids started nibbling right away, others just wanted to hold it, and still others were adamant that they save theirs for later.

After lunch, we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful day!

Here is the lesson where I got several of the ideas from. It's easiest to download the file as a PDF (you'll need a free account with Scribd) before printing.
"Work: I Can Do My Part" FHE Lesson

It was another fun day of preschool. It's hard to believe this year is almost done!

Plants and Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Esseltine Family) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:52:00 +0000

Today the kids got to plant petunias. First they had to put dirt in the bottom of their pot. Next they made a hole for the plant. They put the plant in and then put more dirt around it and patted the dirt down. At the end, they had to water their flowers. The were told to water their flower every day and put it in a sunny place. Is this happening? :)

Making the hole for the flower.

Watering the plants

We made pretend flowers to go with our real flowers.

The finished product.

Tadpoles and Frogs

noreply@blogger.com (Esseltine Family) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:40:00 +0000

The kids loved playing with the 'life cycle' Tadpole/Frog set. Hands-down, their favorite was the tadpole.

Leap Frog Here, the kids were working on their 'F' mini-books and Gavin held up his picture of the frog in front of the tadpoles and told them 'This is what you're going to look like when you grow up". Too cute!!! :)

Our real, live tadpoles.

Did you know that tadpoles like boiled lettuce? It's true. All the kids got a chance to feed the tadpoles. The tadpoles went crazy-- it was so fun to watch.

We also made frog visors. Some of the kids took more creative license than others...

A Lesson on Farms

noreply@blogger.com (Jana) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:57:00 +0000

With only 4 boys, I actually had time to take pictures today!! I had a lot of fun teaching this lesson. Growing up among farms in Idaho, I felt completely qualified to depart my farmer knowledge upon the children today.

We started off by reading this fabulous book. We discussed what foods certain animals ate, as well as what each animal does on the farm.

The boys had fun making corrals, fences and farm houses for their animals out of Lincoln logs. I pulled out my little people barn and farm animals for pretend play. After proclaiming them to be baby toys, the boys then played with them for 30 minutes.

Everett loved hanging out with all the boys!

We then headed outside to "Plant some crops". We planted strawberries, romaine lettuce, peas and carrots. They got to pick weeds, prepare the soil, plant the crops and water them.

Seth found a carrot growing down into the soil. They all wanted to get a picture with it! They were all being very silly.

Next we went inside and practiced our coloring skills as we colored the barn red. We learned that Octagons had 8 sides.

To finish off, we played the cow jumping game and duck hunt on the Wii. Both skills that real farmers need to have :) It was a fun day!

Learning About Farms

noreply@blogger.com (Lara) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:26:00 +0000

Today we got a little more serious during circle time and practiced our "kindergarten behavior" by trying to sit still on our mats and raise our hands when we had something to say. It was definitely a challenge for them (some more than others), but was good practice for their kindergarten debuts in a few months.

We had fun learning about farms today. We found some cut-out animals and people from a farm in our counting box (which apparently has been lost) and then made sure that we sang B-I-N-G-O and Old MacDonald during singing time. The kids each held up their animal (or person) during Old MacDonald.

We had fun with the letter, "F" and thought of lots of great words that began with "F". Then we let everyone say what their name would be if it began with "F". Favin and Faylie thought that was particularly funny. Then we read a couple of silly books about life on a farm.

"A Guest is a Guest" is a silly book about the Beanbucket family that lets the animals take over their house, while they timidly proclaim, "A guest is a guest, and we must show them our best." Eventually they reclaim their house and live as a happy farm family. I made sure the kids knew that this was a fiction book.

"When the Rooster Crowed" was a little more realistic than " A Guest is a Guest", but still ranked pretty high on the silliness level as the farmer would not get out of bed until all the animals and his wife called for him at the same time.

Next time I would probably just read one of the silly books and then this one. This one was great and featured actual photos of all the animals and shared interesting facts about each one. It's still very simplistic and perfect for this age level, but the kids were getting pretty restless by the time I got to it.

Next we decided to try some of our own farm work and went to milk a cow. I poked tiny holes into the bottom of each finger of a cheap rubber glove, filled it with water, tied the top close and had it poke out of the shoebox (with the cow picture attached) and let the kids "milk the cows" into a bucket.

It was a little bit messy, but very worth it. The kids thought it was super cool doing their own farm work like that. (I couldn't get a good picture of them in action, since I had to hold the cow (and "udder") into place with one hand so it wouldn't fall. I later figured out a way to attach the glove to the shoebox better with a little packing tape, but that discovery came a little too late for good pictures).

Then the kids eagerly went to work at making their own farms. They cut out animals and glued them onto their barns.

That cutting practice is so good for their development and most of them thoroughly enjoyed the free reign with scissors and glue.

Then they did this great matching worksheet from Enchanted Learning where they matched the animal up with the product they give.

It was a bit cold and wet outside, but it didn't stop us from going outside to pretend to be farm animals. The kids had great fun galloping like horses, waddling and quacking like ducks, crawling and barking like dogs....

and mostly just running around and chasing each other!

All in all, I thought it was a fun and successful day at preschool. I can't believe the year is almost done!

Rain, Clouds, and Weather, Oh My!

noreply@blogger.com (Deanne) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:53:00 +0000

Today the boys were very busy...not just with preschool projects, but with each other. They had lots of fun making each other laugh and playing with each other. I managed to get a few pictures today, but not many because they were so rambunctious (must be spring fever?).

We started off with circle time and read "It Looked Like Spilt Milk", where the clouds looked like birds, birthday cakes, squirrels, and much more.

We made our own spilt milk pictures using folded construction paper and white paint.

The boys could see all sorts of things in their pictures - spiders, sharks, butterflies, and a beetle just to name a few.

We talked about how the wind can move the clouds in the sky. Then we used straws to blow cotton balls around the house. This entertained the boys for a few minutes. =)

We also made windsocks that we can hang at home and watch the wind blow around.

We read a book about rain. We colored pictures and sprayed them with water to see how they changed when it "rained" on them.

The last thing we did was make weather charts we can hang at home. The boys drew 4 types of weather on a divided circle - sunny, snow, rain, windy/cloudy. The drawings were great to see and some of the boys chose to draw the same type of weather more than once.

Rainbows Galore

noreply@blogger.com (Deanne) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:31:00 +0000

Since Tuesday was guaranteed to be a sunny and warm day, we talked about rainbows.

First we read a couple books and talked about what colors are in a rainbow and when we can see a rainbow.

We used fruit loops and cotton balls to make our own rainbows. The kids had fun eating the leftovers of a color once they had enough pasted on the paper.

(Hmm, notice Seth's mouth is full of something? =)

We made rainbow necklaces. The boys were feeling creative, so they didn't stick to just the rainbow pattern, but had lots of fun choosing different colors and patterns.

Time for a treat - yummy rainbow cupcakes! Mmmmm!

Then we took turns coloring water with food coloring and arranged the cups in the order of the rainbow.

We also had fun making our own rainbows with little prisms. I hung them on strings so we could dangle them in the light, but the boys quickly turned them into necklaces.

We enjoyed lots of play time and activities outside on this gorgeous day!

Musical Instrument Demonstration

noreply@blogger.com (Lara) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:47:00 +0000

Many thanks to Deanne's neighbor who was kind enough to give us an up close demonstration of lots of woodwind instruments. The kids were enraptured by his presentation.

Which included a short description of each instrument and him letting us all hear what they each sounded like...

The kids were surprisingly good for the whole thing....

But excitedly headed back over to Truman's house afterward...

So they could make their own little instruments out of plastic Easter eggs filled with beans, rice, or lentils. The adults used strips of packing tape to seal them together to prevent spillage.

Then the kids painstakingly placed stickers all over them to make them fancy....

Then we played a game where the kids passed around one of the eggs while the music was playing and whoever was holding the egg when the music stopped got to be out and go get a treat. It was great, since no one had to be sad about getting out, since there was a treat awaiting them.

After the treat, they sat down and had a little indoor picnic with their lunches.

Everyone had a wonderful time learning more about musical instruments and getting to spend the time with their preschool friends. Thanks Deanne and Heather for making it happen!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

noreply@blogger.com (Heather) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:42:00 +0000

If the kids didn't have a grasp on the color green before today, they sure do now. Even if you're not Irish (I'm not), the kids think it's so fun to dress up for a theme.

We started out our day talking about St. Patrick's Day and that it started in Ireland. We didn't get into who St. Patrick was - we focused on the purely magical and fun side of the holiday. First, I told them all about leprechauns and how tricky they are, and how they have pots of gold and how they're very difficult to catch. They were focused in rapt attention. Then I introduced them to one that I "caught":

We named him "Larry the Leprechaun". Everybody wanted to hold him. Here's a link to where you can print him off and make your own http://familyfun.go.com/st-patricks-day/st-patricks-day-printables/leprechaun-paper-craft-for-st-patricks-day-704364/

I made him out of printer paper, but I would suggest printing him on cardstock if you want him to survive the day.

Then I showed them how I knew that there was a leprechaun lurking around my house. We went into the bathroom, where I had previously put some green food coloring into the toilet. Well, I hadn't figured into my plans the fact that someone would need to use the bathroom before I got to this point in my lesson, so the water was blue. We had a quick recap on color mixing :) It's those real-life applications that really stick with the kids, right?

Then we went to the fridge so that I could show them the other clue I'd found. They were all excited about the green milk.

Larry wanted us to read a book about Leprechauns, so that we'd understand him better, so we read "Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato" by Tomie DePaola. Then I told them, that since I had captured Larry, he had to give us his treasure. We were going to go on a treasure hunt, but first we needed to make leprechaun hats so that we could trick any other leprechauns into thinking we weren't looking for their gold.

The kids are getting better at cutting things out, but there are still frustrations with cutting outside the lines, etc. Keep practicing!

Here are our little leprechauns ready to go hunt for their treasure. They followed a trail of green confetti and shamrocks (you might want to remind them of that word - they kept asking for me to repeat it throughout the day) out the door and through the yard.

Finally they discovered Larry the Leprechaun's treasure!
He left us some leprechaun gold (my gold glitter spray unexpectedly stopped working, so they didn't turn truly gold - the kids didn't seem to notice).
And, even better, he left us some yummy rainbow cupcakes! The rainbows even had frosting clouds on top!
The kids were very amazed when they bit into the cupcakes - the rainbow colors were so bright!

The day was so nice, we decided to eat them outside. Matthew and Maylie work on getting off the paper.
Rachel looks like she's going to take care of her cupcake in one bite! If you'd like instructions for these cupcakes, go to Familyfun.com: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/taste-a-rainbow-cupcakes-842128/. They were a bit time consuming to make, but the kids sure did think they were different and fun.

We watched a very short music video by "They Might Be Giants", that taught about rainbows and had a leprechaun in it. It's called "Roy G. Biv" (R=red, O=orange, Y=yellow, G=green, B=blue, I=indigo, V=violet).
Then we tried a trick with leprechaun gold, where you're not supposed to be able to drop the coin if you hold your hands in a certain way. Oh, it didn't work! The kids all just pulled their hands apart (you're not supposed to) and dropped the gold and said "That was really easy!" Oh well!
They ended the day by coloring pictures of rainbows and leprechauns and practicing writing their names. They kept asking if leprechauns were real. I didn't want to lie, so I said no, but that it's fun to pretend that they're out there!
So, keep an eye out for the little green guys tomorrow! They might be up to mischief!

Dinos and Fossils

noreply@blogger.com (Deanne) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:36:00 +0000

On Thursday we talked about dinosaurs and fossils. As the boys arrived I had playdoh with mini dino figures out to play with. Allen made a volcano with his playdoh, Berkeley buried his dinos in the playdoh, and the other boys had fun making dino tracks in the playdoh.

The boys were very enthusiastic about this topic, so it was easy to get their attention. In fact, during circle time I couldn't get them to stop looking at all the dinosaur books I had. They loved looking at all the different kinds of pictures.

After circle time we read a couple stories and then did some personal "reading" by looking at a book for 2 min. before having to pass it along to the next person. This was an activity that Andrea did before and it worked really well with the boys. Ten minutes had passed before we even knew it!

We talked about how dinos lived a very long time ago and about the different kinds - big, little, sharp teeth, flat teeth, long necks, short legs, walk on all fours, walk on only 2 legs like us, hatch from eggs and so on.

We made fun dino pictures using foamie stickers. The boys worked on these for a long time.

We also watched some short clips from a Prehistoric Planet DVD from the library. It shows realistic dinosaurs and tells all about them. We watched clips about dinos on land, in the water, and in air. They boys were very into this!

They couldn't make up their minds where to sit and they got the blankets out by themselves. It was cute to watch them. =)
While we were watching the video we couldn't believe that dinos invaded the upstairs. We had to go on a dino hunt and the boys found 2 dinos each that were trying to hide.

We talked about the different dinos they found, their names and characteristics. Each boy picked one dino to show us and tell about. Then we pretended to be that dino.

We continued with a story about fossils and where they come from. Then we got to be Paleantologists ourselves and dig some mini dinos out of ice. Our fingers got cold, but eventually we got those dinos out.

We ended with some pages from our workbooks - letters C and D.

It was a fun day and great to see all the boys so enthusiastic about a topic.

Smell and Taste

noreply@blogger.com (Deanne) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:56:00 +0000

I just got around to teaching these topics, since I was originally supposed to teach them the week school was canceled.

We had a lot of fun with smells and tastes on the same day. We started with a review of all our senses and what body parts we use for each sense (with a Mr. Potato Head as our prop).

We had fun using our sniffers for the first half of our class. The kids had opinions about all the different smells - vanilla (yum), cinnamon (yum), mint (yum), orange (okay), soap (okay), perfume (yuck), onions (yuck), vinegar (yuck). Cinnamon was the favorite.

We added pages to our 5 senses books too. We cut out noses and other things with strong scents and pasted them to a page. We also colored a fun picture of a baby with a stinky diaper (thanks Lara) that the kids had fun with.

We used koolaid to make smelly scratch and sniff paints. The boys had fun painting. And Jack knew exactly what he was painting (a big orange and an apple) whereas the other boys weren't as sure, but were just as enthusiastic.

We moved on to the taste testing, which was equally as fun. We tasted sugar (sweet), salt (salty), lemon (sour), and baking chocolate (bitter).

It was funny to watch the boys stick their finger in the chocolate and then all cough, gag, and say ewwww!

Yuck - bitter!

Surprisingly they all liked the lemon and even asked for seconds.

Yum - lemon!

We mixed some flavors - sugar, lemon, water - to make yummy lemonade. The boys drank that down in no time.

We added another page to the 5 senses book telling about the different tasting parts of our tongue along with pictures of foods that we like to eat.

It was Thomas' last day of preschool and we were glad he could make it! He was slightly late, so there aren't many pictures of him but here is one for proof that he was there.

We'll miss having him in our group and wish him the best in France!

Dinos & Fossils

noreply@blogger.com (alexandra) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:50:00 +0000

We started off the day with a dinosaur puppet show. I took a bunch of plastic dinosaurs and plants (they have a kit at Walmart for $3) and used green construction paper as my base. We talked about how the dinosaurs lived a long time ago and set up the scene using the plastic dinos and plants. I then used a sheet of brown construction paper that I crumpled into a ball to talk about the theory of a meteorite hitting the earth. I put black construction paper behind all of the plants and dinos and talked about: how the meteorite kicked up a lot of dirt which made it dark, it was so dark that the plants couldn't get enough sunlight (I took all of the plants out of the scene), and then the plant-eating dinosaurs died off (I took all of the plant eaters out), and finally the meat-eating dinosaurs had nothing to eat so they died off as well (I took the rest of the dinos off). It was a great way to introduce the types of dinosaurs as well.

Everyone thought it was great, and then the girls played dinosaur house with all of the pieces. It was really cute to listen to.

We made our own fossils by pressing some of the plastic dinos (seriously, that $3 at Walmart went a long way!) into some slightly wet sand and then poured plaster of Paris over it. I held onto the dinosaurs for our archeological dig on Thursday.

And after reading a few books about dinosaurs, we cut a large dinosaur print out of newspaper and let the kids stand inside it. We then went outside and measured how tall we were compared to a T Rex (75 feet is a long distance down the sidewalk!).

Today, we discussed fossils and all the different types of fossils one can find such as imprints of dinosaur tracks, bones that have changed to rock, insects encased in fossilized tree sap, frozen fossils of whole mammoths, etc.

I let the kids use play dough to make their own imprint fossils. I had originally planned on letting them make handprint impressions to take home, but those quickly were rolled up into "tacos" or cut into shapes of dogs, etc. so I just let them take home the play dough when they were done. Seriously, much more fun! And I forgot how long kids can spend playing with play dough! I finally had to pry them away from the table with the promise of a snack.

We finished the day by heading outside for our own little archeological expedition. In our case, it was a bagful of sand on a tarp with all of their dino fossils from Tuesday hidden inside. I equipped them with toothbrushes (they were amazed to find out that real archaeologists use toothbrushes!) and we headed outdoors.

Everyone had fun excavating their fossils and a couple stayed and played in the sand afterward.

And then of course there was the requisite jumping on the trampoline. It was so nice to have a sunny, warm week!

Music

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:33:00 +0000

Preschool on Thursday was noisy! And fun! Did I mention noisy?!

To get us in a musical mood, we sang along with these sing-along books:

And we read Max Found Two Sticks, a story about a little boy who found two sticks and used them to beat the rhythm of sounds in his neighborhood.

So we used chopsticks and tried to beat along to the rhythm of my car alarm, an alarm clock, and other rhythms at my house.

We tried to play Name That Tune, but we spent more time talking about how you won't get called on every time your hand is raised (but the teacher still notices you) than we did guessing tunes. Not getting called on is very disappointing.

Dancing: We danced to different types of music (fast, slow, happy, hoppy, sad, marchy, scary) with streamers. Or, in Rachel's case, we wore the streamer like a bride and danced around.

Musical Mats:

Maracas: We really concentrated on making fancy maracas.

Multi-tasking: These girls could do all three! Maracas, streamers, and kazoos.

Magic Shapes: We practiced guessing and cutting magic shapes (fold a paper in half and draw half a shape - bone, house, square, flower, etc like you'd do if you were going to cut out a heart). Here, Simone thinks she has a leaf...

Peter and the Wolf and Smart Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:25:00 +0000

Once we hit January, and the half-year mark, I started to feel the pain of sending my little one off to Kindergarten. But it still seemed so far away. However, watching these kids on Tuesday (who are ready for Kindergarten!) made September seem right around the corner.

We talked about our names a lot. We discovered that Maylie has the word "May" in her name. And Gavin has the word "in" in his. Gavin wanted to know what each of our names would sound like without the beginning sound. That's a kindergarten skill: breaking words apart. I was so excited!

The kids had no problem looking for two number cubes with dots totalling 9. Wow!

When I started reading Peter and the Wolf, Rachel said, "This book is fiction. I know."

The kids are feeling so independent, serving themselves. Guess who was the only person who spilled while pouring the water? me.

And, it was so exciting to watch the kids trying to make words out of their Cheezits. Several of the kids were making 3 - 5 letter words like box, rat, pant. Maylie found T for Taryn.

Daniel was worried that he couldn't read any words, but when I put N and O in front of him, he could sound out the word "NO". And look! He's raising his hand (not sure why). That'll come in handy next year!

Peter and the Wolf

The topic yesterday was Peter and the Wolf. This was my favorite version of the story:

Last year Lara showed part of a YouTube video of Peter and the Wolf which was really cute, but one little one was way too scared (of even the music) to view it. I put it off, hoping to have time at the end so those who wanted to watch could, and those who didn't could play. But we ran out of time. And I don't know how to include a link. Just look to the right under Peter and the Wolf. She included a link.

Peter and the Wolf puppets:

The kids had a lot of fun coloring finger puppets from Peter and the Wolf. And trying to contain them in their *garden* (recycled boxes with a fold-out door for the gate). The boys thought up ways to make the wolf extra dangerous (Daniel tried to add lightning; Matthew suggested coloring lava around the wolf's mouth, and Gavin wanted both). Even Ellie declared with a smile on her face, "I'm going to make my wolf bad. Really bad." Maylie was the only one who wanted a purple wolf that would be pretty, not scary.

"Grrr"

9 Things from Peter and the Wolf:

Here are Gavin and Maylie, practicing counting and writing their numbers.

Before I layed out the characters and instruments, I asked the kids which characters and instruments were in the story, and collectively, they remembered all of them. So smart!

Opposites Game

Here's Matthew picking a stick from each cup. One cup contained *actions*, the other cup contained opposites.

Here they are, crawling quickly.

And here are the girls, crawling slowly. I'm not sure why none of the boys are in this picture. I think they crawled as slowly as their little boy bodies could possibly handle, but not as slowly as the girls.

And this was the favorite: jumping loudly. I'm sure it was my work-from-home-husband's favorite too :)

Helen Keller

noreply@blogger.com (Esseltine Family) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:26:00 +0000

Today we talked about the number 7. The kids had to count out 7 toothpicks and make the number 7. As it turns out, a 7 CAN go either way... :)

Today we talked about our ears and hearing. We talked about all the wonderful things we can hear-- music, voices, speaking, etc. We sang the songs softer, louder, faster, etc. with our eyes closed so we could appreciate our ears.

We worked on our senses workbook and practiced our writing. For part of our 5 Senses Workbook, we 'wrote' our names in braille. Here the kids are working in teams to make the holes.

We passed around a bowl that has braille on it so the kids could feel what it felt like.

We also read the book The Black Book of Colors. It is a book for children who are blind. It describes what colors 'feel' like.

Valentine's Party

noreply@blogger.com (Deanne) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:49:00 +0000

I was able to take a few pictures at the party. The kids played games, ran around, made valentine bags, exchanged valentine's cards, and made and ate pretzels.

Making pretzels was fun. The kids made all sorts of pretzel shapes - hearts, snakes, and some traditional pretzels too.

Time to exchange valentine's while the pretzels bake. The kids had a learning experience trying to match up the name on the card with the name on the bag.

Yay! The pretzels are done. Let's eat! Most kids enjoyed the pretzels and ALL the moms thought they were wonderful!

Thanks for having all of us over and for the fun time, Mina!

T is for Tasting and Tongues!

noreply@blogger.com (alexandra) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:54:00 +0000

What better theme could you have for preschool than the sense of taste? We had loads of fun today learning about all the different kinds of flavors our tongues can taste.

We sampled the four basic tastes that our taste buds can discern by dipping our fingers into individual Dixie cups.

The kids had a fun time guessing the different flavors:

Bitter

Salty

Sweet

And sour.

We then talked about how the different flavors can be combined to make yummy tasting foods. We used, among other things, cocoa (bitter), sugar (sweet), and salt (salty) to make some hot cocoa. Each of the kids got to add an ingredient, and Gavin got to stir them together. All of the kids thought it tasted great, though Rachel informed me that her mom's is much better. :)

We then worked on our Five Senses books. The kids particularly got a kick out of the stinky baby diapers. Notice how they've all colored individual baby poops on the apparently see through diapers!

What a great group of kids!

Sense of Sight

noreply@blogger.com (Heather) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:43:00 +0000

Today we discussed the sense of sight. But before we got into the nitty-gritty of what eyes do, we did circle time and for one of the songs I had them sing "Do As I'm Doing". I thought it would be a good song to emphasize that they needed to use their eyes to see what to do. Well, it was crazy! The kids were hilarious - they had so much energy! Everyone had to have a turn at picking something to do, of course, and 6 out of the 7 kids picked SPINNING (or a combo with spinning included). They were like tops zipping around the room. I think it got out a few wiggles, so it was a good way to start out the day.

This photo doesn't do their spinning justice - they were really whipping around!

After we calmed down a bit, we talked about the parts of the eye and looked at some eyes on the internet. We had some good comments about what not to do with your eyes (Gavin - don't blow on cinnamon or it will get in your eye and sting; Don't flash bright lights in your eyes or you'll go blind - I can't remember who said that one). And we talked about what pupils do, how people have different colored eyes (but not purple, red or yellow), how we shouldn't touch our eyes, what eyelids and lashes are for, etc.

We read a good book called "The Look Book", where you see a small part of a picture, and try to guess what it is, and then on the next page you find out what you were looking at. The kids were so excited when they got it right.

Since the preschoolers are always ravenous, even if they got fed a 7 course breakfast 5 minutes before arrival, we worked in a snack. This snack used a number of senses (well, in fact, all of them). The most fun one used, though, was the sense of sight (with taste coming in a very close second - okay, maybe first). Here they are all just staring, sort of bored-like, at the popcorn machine turning it's arms around.
Then, POP! POP, POP, POP! They just laughed and laughed and thought watching the kernels pop was great fun.
There was a lot of shouting at the popcorn popper and squeals of delight.

Here everyone is very busy shoving handfuls of popcorn in their mouths. Ellie looks like she's contemplating the sublime taste of the melted butter on the popcorn, while Matthew just says "give me more!" (he didn't really say that - it just looks like he's enjoying it!). I know I enjoyed the real melted butter on it - I usually just make the microwave stuff which doesn't hold a candle to this.
This wasn't a planned activity, but I handed out wipes so that they could clean up their hands after the popcorn and before we worked on our craft. Well, they spontaneously started washing the table and really getting into it! They were laughing and scrubbing and I finally had to make them stop so we could go on with the activity. I was sorely tempted to have them start in on scrubbing the floor!
We experimented with magnifying glasses, colored glasses, binoculars...

and a microscope. We looked at cheek cells and the kids thought they looked really neat.

Gavin is looking for bargains.

We then did an activity where the kids colored around a picture of themselves that went into a frame. The other side of the frame held a mirror, so they could see themselves in two different ways.
I then got a fun call from my kids' school saying that my oldest child had a stomach ache and I needed to come and pick him up. Lara saved me by popping over and directing the gang in writing exercises while I dashed out for a few minutes. Life is never dull! Thanks Lara!

This is a shot during free play time. Some of the kids were playing "cat and dog". Ellie and Dan are the animals and Maylie and Simone are telling them what to do (roll over, wake up, come back!). It was so funny to watch that I had to take a picture.

This is a Richard Scarry book about cars and trucks. There's this little character called "Goldbug" that you have to find on every page. Here Rachel and Gavin are searching him out.

It was a fun day learning about how important eyes are.

The Father of Our Country - George Washington

noreply@blogger.com (Heather) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:19:00 +0000

When the kids arrived, I had them all gather at the table and start sorting coins. I have a big jar of coins that I dumped in a bowl and had them stack according to size/kind. Then they counted the coins they had in their stacks.

After circle time I asked them if they knew who is the current president of the United States. Several piped up with President Monson!!! At least their Church knowledge is strong :)

After I explained that I was asking about the president of the country or land we live in, they all gave me blank stares. They had no idea (not that I expected them to at this age). So, we went over to the U.S. map and talked about where we live (VA), and how all the states together is called the U.S.A., and that there's a president, named Pres. Obama, over this country. Then we proceeded to talk about the FIRST president - George Washington. They were happy to hear he was from our same state. I realized that I take for granted that they know more than they do (my son definitely included). When I was explaining that Washington was in the Army, none of them knew what the Army was or what it did. Gavin said that his dad is in the Army :)

So, it was a good learning experience for all of us. They were really good and paid close attention. I showed them a number of pictures on the internet of Colonial times and G.W. Crossing the Delaware, etc. After talking about the Colonial days, we thought we'd better have a treat - Corn Cakes!

Everyone got a chance to put in one of the ingredients for the corn cakes, and then mix it in. They're all very good helpers.
Gavin was very dismayed at the egg he cracked on the table by accident. He was trying to open up the crack in the egg, but put a bit too much pressure on the shell and it smashed in his hand - along with the egg. He wasn't too happy about me taking the picture, but he recovered quickly.
More mixing...
It was hard to wait turns, but they all waited very patiently.
I'm not sure how the batter stayed in the bowl when it was Daniel's turn, but it did!

Next we talked about ways we honor G. Washington (we looked up pictures on the internet and in a book called "Our Washington D.C.") - the Washington Monument, which they all recognized, Washington D.C., his picture on the dollar bill and quarter, Mount Rushmore, etc.

Then we all felt the need to wear cool hats like George did when he was in the Army (sort of like the hat in "George Washington Crossing the Delaware").
They started cutting stars - or the circle shape around the star - and it was too frustrating for Dan. He put his head down in defeat. His preconceived picture in his head of how perfect the circle should be didn't match the reality of how well he could cut it.
Busy cutters...
If you don't yet have a three-cornered hat, you should at least have a tiara.
The glitter mess at the end was truly amazing. Who knew two small jars of glitter could spread so fast? The kids still sometimes call them "germs". Everyone did a great job and worked very hard on their hats.

Some of the kids asked Simone how she got her circles so "round". She explained that you have to go very slowly and carefully. Good advice!

The favorite part of the day! They're always chomping at the bit to get to lunch - even after we ate corn cakes with honey butter!

Here are the kids with their George Washington hats...

Maylie wasn't so sure about getting in the shot, so I snapped one as she made a sneaky exit.