'Twas the week before winter break...

It was the week before winter break and all through the preschool every child was stirring enjoying the last days of school.

We started out the week talking about teddy bears and asked the children if any of them happened to have one at home. Then, together at the circle we labeled the parts of the teddy bear; his eyes, nose, ears, etc. The children later cut out the words that represented the parts of the bear and (with help from teachers) sounded them out and labeled their very own teddy bear pictures. 

After talking about teddy bears and practicing labeling them with words, we talked about the doctors who take care of animals. The children remembered from last week the word 'veterinarian'. After talking about what things a veterinarian might keep in his/her bag the children went to the tables and created their own 'veterinarian bags.'

Some children added band-aids, Q-Tips, cotton balls and Popsicle sticks for tongue depressors.  It was a lot of fun to see which items the children wanted to use and hear their explanations for why they thought a veterinarian would need them.

Veterinarians often use x-rays to help them fix the animals in their care, so the children practiced making their own x-rays by tracing their hands on paper and using Q-tips to represent their bones.

We looked at X-rays to help understand what is seen in an X-ray and some children guessed correctly at the items the teachers showed them from our real X-ray collection.

We taught the children of fun 'magic trick' they can do at home with white paper, white crayons and watercolor paint. The children were asked to write their name on white paper using a white crayon. 

Then we gave them watercolor paint for them to paint all over their paper. The children giggled with amazement as their name 'mysteriously' appeared on the paper underneath the paint and many asked to make two or added more drawings to their paper before covering it in color.

When it was time for our last day of preschool for fall semester, the children heard a story about snowflakes. They listened as many snowflakes worked together to create a snowman and then went to the tables to create their own snowstorm on paper using pictures of snowflakes and cotton balls.

We worked on a surface tension experiment that is a teacher favorite using milk and red and green water color paint drops.  Place a few drops of water color paint or food coloring in different spots on the milk's surface and then touch the surface with a little bit of liquid soap.  In order for our children to all have a turn, we had them use Q-tips  and allowed them to stir the mixture.  

Initially, the milk will look like this then when touched, the surface tension moves the colors all over the container creating a tie-dye affect.  We called it tie-dye snow.

After making snowflakes and learning a little about surface tension, we asked the children if snow is warm or cold. After deciding snowflakes were cold we talked about a type of candy that leaves a cool feeling in your mouth: candy canes. 

The children then went and watched candy canes foam and dissolve in a solution and also smelled the peppermint and watched the colors disappear as the liquids removed the colored stripes from the candy canes.

We did not just want to make a picture of a snowstorm this week, we wanted to create a 3-D snowstorm the children could bring home. So all the children filled up water bottles and added some cotton balls in order to create a blizzard in a bottle!

This was a terrific fine motor skills activity as the children had to take the cotton balls and place them inside the narrow neck of the water bottle. 

Being the last week of preschool, we finished all of our letters and numbers for the semester. Though we will be working on these items again next semester for review, we took the time to talk about shapes this week as well. The children were able to practice tracing a variety of shapes getting used to calling them by name as well as drawing them.  

After we drew the shapes seperately, we worked on some shape math by talking about ornaments some people place on trees this time of year. The children then went to the tables to practice drawing the shapes on trees as well as counting how many of each of the different shapes were on the tree in front of them. 

The teachers then gave a variety of pom-pom balls to the preschoolers at the tables. The children were asked to use sticks to pick up the pom-pom balls and sort them by color into an ice cube tray. They enjoyed sorting them and finding how many of each color they had as well as comparing the sizes of large, medium and small. Some children realized these were circles while others said they reminded them of the ornaments on the trees they saw during math.

We sang Jingle Bells and practiced keeping the rhythm and beat with our instruments this week! They loved getting the opportunity to play different instruments and find the different sounds they make.

We settled down after a little bit of music time and read, The Very Smiley Snowman. The children did a great job listening to this winter tale on our last day of preschool

The day of our holiday party, we enjoyed, 'Twas the night before Christmas and found a fantastic surprise when Santa himself made an appearance. 

Thank you so much for a fabulous semester once again this year!  The high school students will be returning to school on January 5th to start working hard on assembling the case study books they have been developing this semester with our preschoolers.

Online versions of these books will be sent out to families so they can preview them and hard copies of them will be given out at preschool graduation in May. 

Parents, when you get these books at the end of January, feel free to order them before May or send them on to other family and friends. It has been a fabulous semester and we hope you enjoy this time off.

We will see everyone February 2nd  and January 30th for preschool orientation so the children and parents can meet the new teachers. More details will follow in emails before these dates to let parents know about supply lists, etc.

An email will be going out from Shutterfly with all the pictures Mrs. Stary has taken this semester.  They will be set up according to month and it is free to join Shutterfly and you are welcome to order photos of your child through this secure site once you make an account.

Thanks again, happy holidays and enjoy these photos!