Off we go into outer space!

We started out our Wednesday by presenting the star of the week poster.  Each week a different child gets to be the star of the week, so check your backpacks each week to see if your child gets to be the star of the week that week and help your child draw, add photos and create decorations to it as well!

After the terrific presentation by our Star of the Week, we shared with the children that we would be traveling to outer space!  These might have been two short days but they were filled with ideas about plants, stars and more!  We began our spelling/pre-reading and math exercises by asking the children to count out enough squares that would represent the letters of their names.  So if a child's name was Kris, she would count out four letters, etc.  Then, they needed to find a triangle to use as the top of the rocket.  Each child then glued down the squares and triangle then wrote his/her name down the rocket.  Some even asked for help to draw stars in the sky to show their rocket flying into space.

After building rockets using the letters of our names, we used iPads to go into space and look at constellations and follow the stars in a 'connect the dots' type of way to build the shapes that equal constellations.  There are many apps out there no matter your device at home that can do this with your child.  Feel free to play in the app store and find what you might enjoy playing at home!

Next we made spaceships! Using a paper bowl, clear plastic cup, large pompom, googley eyes, markers, and glue, you can easily make these at home with your child! First you will glue googley eyes to the large pompom. Next, glue will be put on the bowl to attach the pompom, and around the plastic cup to attach it to the bowl. Lastly, the spaceship can be decorated however you want. 

While our space ships were drying, we pretended we were in out space and got some wiggles out by going on a 'moon rock' hunt.  Teachers created 'moon rocks' out of foil and they scattered them about the room then asked the children to find them and place their collection in the middle of the room to see how many they each were able to contribute.

We watched as teachers later created a solar system using a jar, water, vegetable oil, cotton balls, water color paint and a little sparkle to build a solar system in the jar and talked about what we could imagine would be in space based on what the jar looked like.

In our space travels on Friday we matched some planets and stars together by color sorting things into piles by category for a little mathematical exercise.  Games like this are easy to do with any objects you have at home and sorting (or seriation) of any object to classify items is a great way to lay the ground work for math skills.

While some children worked at the tables for math, others stayed at the circle to put a fun twist on our class favorite tune, "The Cool Bear Hunt."  Instead of going on a bear hunt, we changed thing to go on an Alien hunt in space!

We read a few books about out space, solar systems and what astronauts do as a career.  If you don't have the Dr. Seuss Space story we found it on an app too through the i-Tunes store.  Feel free to search for that if you are an Apple user.

During free play some children were found to be doing puzzles and playing in the kitchen area however others were seen building rocket ships with out magnetic shapes and designing other space houses on their own!  It was so great to see them applying things we have been discussing in class this week.

With this corn syrup, water, and black food coloring mixture, the kids were able to create their own outer space they could condense into a water bottle. They added glitter and beads to stimulate the planets and stars in our solar system.  The teachers then used a hot glue gun to seal the lids of the water bottles closed.  

We have had a good week learning about space like planets, stars and suns.  We we move in to our last full week of November we will be covering weather and seasons as it is the time of year for those things to be changing.  Look for a few fun Thanksgiving projects to come home as we will have the week of Thanksgiving off.

What's Coming Up?

Be sure if you are a current preschooler you send your spring tuition check in to school with your child in the coming week.  This is the only way to hold your morning spot for next semester.  Don't forget our morning times extend in the spring and preschool will run for about 2 hours and 45 minutes.  That tuition amount is $200.  If you are planning on moving to the afternoon session, the tuition is still only $150.  If you know of anyone looking for preschool starting in February, please forward this blog or our website link on to them for more information as we still have a few spaces open in the afternoon group.