Transporting us around the world!

 The month has been very busy seeing more star of the week presentations as well as learning about the world around us. While we are still spending a lot of time talking about various parts of our environment we also talked about ways we can get around. This includes the various forms of transportation many people use like riding bikes, driving cars, riding in boats, and more. 

 We reviewed the seasons of the year and the preschoolers now are able to name all four. Once we reviewed each one, we talked about the differences between them and the children showed what they remembered by decorating trees in various various colors.  Green fruit loops were placed on the summer tree while blue was placed on winter, red/pink went on the spring tree and yellow and orange went on the tree for the fall.

 Since we are in spring right now, we did talk about our favorite part of a rainy day; which would be rainbows! Children and the teachers discussed the many colors in a rainbow and after the children named them all we dropped each on of the colors on to a 'cloud' to let color from the clouds soak through forming a rainbow in a jar. 

 As the rainbow appeared in our jar, the teachers had a surprise at the tables for the children.  Each container at the tables looked as if it only contained baking soda. However, as the teachers poured vinegar into the small cups, COLOR appeared in the various colors of the rainbow! The children had a great time guessing what color was going to be next as the teacher poured vinegar around the containers.

 

It might have been cloudy and raining outside this week but we chose to take some typical outdoor games and bring them indoors. We played hopscotch and went through hula hoops, then we played a rainbow bean bag toss game where the children had to throw beanbags onto various colors of the rainbow to sort them into the correct piles.

 After discussing the move from spring into summer, we imagined we were on the beach and made sand castles using glue and sand. Then the preschoolers sorted fish into jars as we talked more about the beach and the summer weather we all wish to see more of soon.

 After discussing summer vacations, we discussed how people can get to various locations for vacation in the summer. That led to our next project of creating stoplights. Children were given a pile of various colored paper to sort into three separate piles to create a stoplight using red yellow and green.

 We read a story about a duck who needed to work on his friend's truck then we talked about subway stations and the trains that run underground. During these activities we wre able to pretend to house subway stations in the preschool. The children traveled through the tunnels going from place to place just like a subway train might.  I think they could've done this all day!

 After talking about subway stations, we brought out a new favorite activity: the school bus! Preschoolers take turns being the driver and passengers who get on and off the bus as we add  and subtract the amount of students riding the bus as the driver makes his route. 

 Wednesday was Earth Day so we decided to really look into a lot of things that have to do with taking care of our environment. The preschoolers made an adorable reminder about taking care of the Earth with their, 'Please give a hoot-don't pollute' project. The children learned the word pollution and what that means as well as how they can help prevent pollution by recycling. 

 Earth Day brought a study of various rocks and minerals as the children sorted through labeled and non-labeled rocks and minerals while trying to use their senses as our magnifying glasses to match them up with similar and different types of rocks.

 The children were given a blank neighborhood template to use as they decided where and how they would build homes and place trees in their neighborhoods. The children did a terrific job sorting, organizing and building their houses and making sure we have plenty of trees for everyone in the neighborhood to enjoy on Earth Day.

 Speaking of trees, we reviewed (yet again) the seasons and the difference between winter, spring, summer, and fall. Please do this with your child at home to reiterate we are talking about at school even though if you were to be truthful about seasons in our neck of the woods, we seem to go from cold to hot and not much else, we are still trying to get the significant differences in our seasons down pat with our little ones.

 Earth Day also brought about a sensory table activity. We added various stones and gel beads as well as sea creatures and shells to our sensory bin. The teachers as well as students could not get enough of this area and we ended up using it quite often this week as we looked to see how many beads it would take to sink a boat and sorted water animals as well as the stuff inside the bin. 

 Speaking of the ocean, we read a story about a shark and his friend the fish and the unlikely pair the two friends seemed to be. This day was hilarious because after reading a story about the sharks and fish being friends, we FED fish to some sharks!

 Science in the morning on Wednesday was similar to what we did in the afternoon earlier in the month. We froze some sea animals and plants in a bowl of ice and then used some salt and warm water to help us scrap away the ice and 'free' what was inside.

While talking about ways to get around our neighborhood in the afternoon, our preschoolers practiced tracing numbers one through 10 on race cars while others were processing art as they learned about tracks various types of wheels make on vehicles. The children 'drove' cars through paint to create tracks on a large paper.  Other children were at a third station where they worked on some train puzzles using teacher iPads to match up cars on a train in the correct order.

 After we painted with the cars, the preschoolers put them through our very own bubbling car wash. Using baking soda and vinegar, the preschoolers bubbled and sudsed until all of the cars were clean!

 We practiced spelling various automotive words as well which allowed our preschoolers who can read a way to enhance those skills while our younger students traced the letters.  Many of our teachers have noticed an improvement in our preschoolers writing in these past few months and hope you have seen a difference as well. 

 All of our preschoolers have been working on learning a few of our preschool favorite songs. 'Monkeys in the Alligator' and 'The Cool Bear Hunt' seem to be two of their top favorites! We also do a few songs about the weather and elephants. As graduation gets closer, the children will decide what songs they want to sing and directions for the songs will be sent home for you to practice with them as well.

 On Friday we talked about lions and other animals then the preschoolers created a lion using orange paint but instead of a brush they used forks! You'll notice a great mane on these lions!

 On Wednesday, you will remember we had been talking a lot about salt and ice and how salt works to melt the ice; so we wanted to see what the children remembered about salt and it's effect on ice in this experiment where we lift ice out of a glass of ice water with nothing but a piece of yarn.

   This takes a lot of practice but is a family favorite in my home and does not require many supplies. All you need is a glass with some ice water in it, a piece of yarn and table salt. Place a tablespoon or so of salt onto the string and ice in the cup then count to thirty and slowly lift up on the string and the ice should attach itself to the string because of the salt.

 At school we talk a lot about sharing and taking turns; practices our preschoolers need to learn to function at school. Due to this, we read the story of Rainbow Fish and how in order to make friends, he had to learn to share his very own using sparkly scales.  The preschoolers really seem to take this book and took to heart  this message as they enjoyed showing their teachers how they could share their sparkly gems and foil pieces with one another at the tables as they built their own Rainbow fish.

 The afternoon preschoolers also were talking about transportation and moving from one place to another as we travel around the world. 

We created various forms of transportation using geometric shapes then we made sure we talked about sail boats and how they move in the water then created our own sail boats by tracing our hands then adding white paper sails.

What's Coming Up?

Don't forget tomorrow is picture day!  It will be up to each family if their child dresses up for this occasion or not and if everyone is here, we will end up taking a class photo too. If we are missing anyone, we will wait for a day when all the children are present and the the photo this day instead to ensure all the children are in it.  We will send a copy of the class photo and a 4x6 of the school photo home on graduation day as well.

We will NOT have school this Friday, May 1st, due to a change in the high school schedule.  School will be on Monday and Wednesday only this week.