One week to go!

We now only have one more week left of preschool this semester so the teachers are ending fall semester 2014 in a big way! Not only are we seeing wonderful Star of the Week presentations, we have had a terrific time exploring the world.  If your preschooler has not been Star of the Week yet this year, do not worry. We will pick up where we left off in the spring semester starting in February (Monday, February 2 to be exact.)

After hearing our last Star of the Week presentation of 2014, we talked about traveling around the world. This week we really looked at all of the places and people who live around the world. We talked about how we can fly in airplanes and we even talked about rocket ships as we took a trip into outer space. 

The first stop we made this week was to Hawaii to learn to dance the Hula and other moves that would be typical for a luau.  The children were quick learners and got the moves down that represent the ocean waves.

Different jobs people have around the world was covered when we talked about veterinarians. The children were able to give stitches to cats and dogs by weaving string through pictures of cats or dogs. 

This is a great fine motor activity and children really do a terrific job paying attention and focusing on getting the yarn through holes around the page. All you need is a picture, a hole punch and a little bit of string and you can work on this with your child over winter break as well.

For a pre-reading activity this week when we were talking about veterinarians,the children were given pictures of rabbits with various letters on them. The children had to place a Band-Aid on the various letters of the rabbit and rewrite the letter on the Band-Aid to practice their writing skills while helping the rabbit "feel better".

Our next step was to go to Italy and learn about pizza. The children talked about all the different types of pizza they like and which toppings they enjoyed on their pizza. Then they were able to become little pizza chefs and create a pizza of their own design at the tables with their friends using paper shapes and pom pons.

We talked about the ingredients in a pizza and how someone needs to create a crust, sauce, cheese, and then toppings. Some children used sauce while others didn't and some used cheese while others only wanted to add pepperoni.  It was a lot of fun to see their creativity.

After we went to Italy, we then went over to Russia where we talked about the amount of snow that exists in that country. The children were able to work on their math at the tables together with a little bit of snowman math.  Each snowman had a different number written on his hat so the children had to find the correct number of buttons or sequins and attach them to the snowman. 

For example, if a snowman's hat had a 2 written on it, the child would have to place 2 buttons on the snowman. Some children understood the concepts that 10 is a bigger number and knew that 10 would mean "a lot". In those instances a few of our preschoolers put "a lot" of sequins on their snowman instead of just 10. 

As stated before, we not only went around the world we went into outer space! When we were talking about flying to outer space we talked about how we were going to ride in a rocket ship. The preschoolers had to create a rocket ship out of various shapes. (The main ones being triangles and rectangles.) 

They looked at the example given by the teacher and needed to re-create it by placing the triangles in the correct spots on the rectangle. Later, we had a rocket ship countdown and we blasted off into space. We looked at different pictures from outer space and learned about satellites and planets and moons.

After going to Russia to work on our snowman math we also melted down some pine trees. A teacher froze baking soda paste she made by mixing baking soda and water together with a little bit of green food coloring and after they were frozen, we put them in a bowl and squirted vinegar on them.  The children are learning when you mix vinegar and baking soda together, you get bubbles. As the trees started to melt, we found ornaments (sequins) inside.  What a fun surprise!

Continuing around the world visiting countries with snow, we built snowmen out of toothpicks and marshmallows. The preschoolers had a terrific time showing their creativity by placing toothpicks in the snowmen to not only hold them together but be arms, legs and some even had spikes! 

We provided pipe cleaners to create eyes and a carrot nose and some children also wanted to give their snowman buttons.  The best part about this activity was that when the marshmallows get nice and stale they will have a snowman that will last the entire season of winter!

We later visited Antarctica and talked about the arctic as well as the animals who might live there. As the children looked at Arctic wolves and polar bears and reindeer, we talked about their camouflage against the snow.  

We also talked about how some of those animal stay warm and what things we use as humans to keep warm in the snow when we play outside. One of the items the children recommended were mittens and we agreed. The children then were all given a mitten and painted their hands to be 'placed inside' the mitten. These items are hanging up in our room for the holiday party on Friday, December 19.

As a review of our visit to Italy, the children worked with a new app this week: Pizza Maker. This app walks the children through the entire process it takes to make a pizza step-by-step. First they mixed the ingredients for the crust in a bowl. After that, they put the dough into a ball and roll it out. 

Then they add sauce and various ingredients of their choosing to create the perfect pizza. This was a wonderful review and brought up memories and discussions of what they worked on earlier in the week when we made a pizza using paper ingredients.

After making our virtual pizzas, we took a trip to France. The children and teachers talked about the Eiffel Tower and then constructed towers out of marshmallows and toothpicks at the tables with their teachers. The creativity was terrific as some children chose to stick toothpicks all over the marshmallows while others wanted to see how high their tower could go!

We flew back towards the Hawaiian Islands again on Friday and talked about volcanoes. The children then remembered the magical ingredients that make bubbles; vinegar and baking soda and we mixed them together to have our very own volcanoes erupt!  
The teacher used baby food jars and Play-Doh to create the image of a volcano.  You can do this at home even without these things as long as you have a tall glass, vase or water bottle just sprinkle a little baking soda in the bottom and pour in the vinegar then watch it explode!


We brought up another fun science experiment this week when we talked about different chemical changes that happen and one of the ingredients we learned about was bleach. We talked about the power of bleach and how it takes colors away. 
A teacher added some yellow and green food coloring to the water and added the bleach to the liquids.  The children watched as the bleach 'erased' the green food coloring and and eventually made the yellow disappear as well.  We learned the bleach is a chemical we should not touch even if it is clear and looks like something closer to water. We remembered and practice our safety rules to ensure that children work on practicing the same ones at home.
We used the power of technology to allow science experiments with certain chemicals to be seen by all children and yet keep them safe at the same time. We project what is happening in the science experiment on the screen while holding an iPad over the items we are using so the children can see on the screen as if they were standing right next to the chemicals. This has really worked in our favor this year to help the kids feel a part of science experiments that are using chemicals they cannot touch.


We only have one number to go next week and that is number 10. As we worked on numbers 7, 8 and 9 this week the children were able to review numbers we have covered as well as practice writing letters that spelled out each of these numbers. The last full day of preschool we will talk about shapes as we have been reviewing our letters through other activities this week.

As hard as we worked this week, we also had time for play. The children love our Play-Doh station, iPad games, and puppet shows during free play.  It's always fun to watch them create and use their imaginations.
It is during these times when we can see how many of them have improved their skills throughout the semester.  
Since we have had such a young fall preschool, the growth so far this year has been amazing and the teachers cannot wait to show the progress these children have made over the past few months in our program with their case study books that will be sent out in January. We will be sending the electronic version of the books out to you in January and you will get a hard copy of the book at the end of the year for preschool graduation in May.

We practiced going on a bear hunt with the Cool Bear Hunt by Dr. Jean once more and had a blast taking this adventure together. This is definitely one of the class favorites of the year.



Lastly this week, we read the story Corduroy; a classic book all children enjoy. We talked about Corduroy's adventures and remembered the adventures we had this week talking about places around the world and in outer space.  We added the last of our stickers to our Passports and brought them home to show off the terrific international week we had going around the world and into space!

What's Coming Up?

The last day of the fall semester is Friday, December 19th and is also the day of our preschool Holiday Party with a visit from the big man himself.  While Santa never wants to leave anyone out, any child who is in attendance gets a small gift so if you haven't sent in your RSVP, please email us so we can be sure to have enough gifts on hand. 

We will go on winter break at the conclusion of the party and will see everyone again for preschool orientation on Friday, January 30th.  Preschool will start up officially on Monday, February 2nd with our morning session running from 9:30 - 11:55 and afternoon preschool running from 1:00-2:30.  We are still accepting afternoon preschoolers so feel free to pass along our information to access registration forms for afternoon preschools (our morning session is full).

One last blog post for 2014 will be done complete with photos from the party before January first and we hope to sneak another one in before preschool starts.  Information will be sent home via email and the postal service in January with supply lists and details for orientation day too.