'Tis the Season for Fun!

Now that winter is upon us we kicked off this week with some mitten math. The children had to find patterns and count various types of mittens with their teachers. This was the first introduction to mitten math and we would be using mittens later on throughout the week as well for other math activities. 

  

After making patterns with mittens, what could be better to make next than a snowman? After children completed their mitten patterns with their teachers they went to the tables to make snowmen out of a combination of baking soda and glue.
After the children created snowman with their teachers, we set them on a tray to dry.  Hopefully the snowman have found a nice place to reside in your home for the winter. 



Later in the week we read the book, Go Dog Go, by Dr. Seuss. The children enjoyed this classic story and then acted out parts of the book. 


In the story, some of the characters go to work and others go to play. Our preschoolers had time to do both this week.  Some crawled through the tunnels and pretended to take the subway to work while others pretended to drive to the grocery store. Some of the children acted out the part of the book when the dogs build and other children acted out the part of the book when they try on funny hats. It is always great when the children can act out parts of books we read in class.  It helps us check their processing of the story as we talk with them about what they are doing and look to see if it relates to the reading.


Later we also talked about how people can get to work as well as other places and the use of maps. After that, if the children were able to go to the tables and draw their very own maps. Once they drew in the roads they put on some smocks and sponge painted houses along the roads of their maps for people to be able to find their way home.
Maps are a terrific way to create discussion with your children about places near home as well as far.  While so many people use technology to find their way around these days, think to the skills we still need to have as we read the map Siri provides on the screen.  We use the words North, South, East and West and understand the concept of a map which is what we worked on with the children this week as we talked about people who make maps.   




Later, one of our teachers talked about the job of a scientist and how much scientists enjoy doing experiments. Then, we did an experiment with gummy worms and a baking soda and vinegar solution. 
After soaking the gummy worms in a baking soda and water solution, we dropped them into a vase filled with vinegar and waited to see if the gummy worms would 'dance'. The reaction between baking soda and vinegar causes bubbles to leave the gummy worms making them bounce up and down in the vase. (Our recommendation is to allow the gummy worms to sit in baking soda solution overnight in order to make sure they're ready to react with vinegar.)



We also heard the fable of the ant and the grasshopper and we talked as a class about the life lessons we learned from the ant about the importance of hard work.

Speaking of hard work, we are well into working on the numbers of the day this week. Each day the children count images on our big screen to figure out the number of the day. After that, we have been asking students who have certain numbers of people living in their households to come to the board to draw that number for the class. As we get closer to number 10 we will come up with other ways to get volunteers to go to the board.

Another job we talked about this week was that of the firefighter. The children had to practice writing 911 as we talked about what number to dial in case of an emergency.  In the spring semester we plan to have our annual guest speakers from the police and fire departments come speak with the children more about fire and safety and stranger danger. 


In talking about 911, we also talked about where smoke likes to stay (up in the air or low on the ground) and then we practiced having the children crawl underneath 'the smoke' by using the parachute.  We pretended the parachute was the smoke and the children had a great time crawling underneath it practicing how to 'stay low and go'. 


We took some time to practice one of our favorite songs, 'Tooty Ta,' by Dr. Jean and then headed into the end of our week. 
We learned about Native Americans and the difference between Native Americans coming from America and an Indians who might live in India and the Americans from the United States of America, so much to learn! 
We looked at the different clothing Native Americans wear then had the children make vests out of paper bags.  We talked about how long ago (before markers and crayons) Native Americans used berries to add color to things. 


The children were given bags of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and were asked to squeeze the bags to crush the berries.  Once everyone's berries were crushed, we poured them into bowls and had the children paint their paper bag vests. 
The children were able to use the different colors from the berries to decorate just like Native Americans did long ago. We can't wait to see the children wear their artwork next week!

After the decorating of paper bag vests, the children went to create another winter clothing item; mittens. This reminded them of the mitten math we started with at the beginning of the week.  This time, the children were given different mitten cut outs and were asked to recognize the number on the mitten.  
They were then given various winter stickers and asked to place the correct number of stickers on the mitten to make sure they understood the corresponding amount with the number written. 


Another fun science activity mixed with art this week was when we placed paper inside a container then added marbles and beads along with a few squirts of paint. 
The children placed the lids on the containers and were able to make beautiful music as they shook the containers decorating their paper. The end result was some pretty crazy art work that will come home next week.

Before heading home, we tested out some fine motor skills with the children as they put marbles on top of Lego Duplo Blocks. This is trickier than you may think.
The children tried placing marbles on the various pegs on the top of the blocks. Often, as a child would try placing one marble on a peg, another would be bumped from it's position.  
If this was a little tough, we flipped the block over to access easier (flatter) holes.  If you have marbles and these blocks at home, give it a try. It takes patience and skill to be able to pick up the marbles and fill an entire Lego Duplo block by without knocking any marbles off.

What's coming up? 

Invitations have gone home for our holiday party on Friday, December 19. Please be sure to RSVP for this party so we can make sure our special guest from the north pole does not forget a gift for anyone.  This will be the last day of fall semester 2014. After December 19, we will see everyone again in February.

Spring registration for the afternoon preschool session is in full swing. Please be sure to spread the word if you know someone interested in our spring preschool session running Monday, Wednesday, Friday from one to 2:30 PM.