Oh, the places we will go!

After a week off of school we were ready to transport ourselves back to the world of learning and what better unit to start back to school with than transportation!  Oh the places we were able to go!

We used some familiar peeps to create boats and watch what happens when sugar covered marshmallows are placed in water.  The kids added sails of foam with tooth picks to the tops in order to blow them across the water and "sail."  If you have any left over from the holidays, feel free to do this same experiment at home.

We compared the various other types of transportation people use to one another by talking about vehicles that fly as well as roll and float.  Then, we made cars out of paper plates attaching wheels to them and giving them windows as well.

We played a math game that involved rolling or driving cars across a path.  All you need to do this at home is have a dice to roll, a toy vehicle to drive and a piece of paper with boxes on it.  Have your student help you make the board and then race cars together.

We rolled on to our next activity by "driving" scooters around the circle rug for some large motor movement.  There were lots of giggles and children telling each other they would be getting speeding tickets if they weren't careful.

For math time this week we matched amounts of passengers to the number on the bus given to them and then the correct amount of helmets to the numbers on the motorcycles, etc.  Then we built modes of transportation with geometric shapes! 

The afternoon preschoolers built subway tunnels and practiced traffic patterns and learned what happens when too many people try to get through one area at one time!  They agreed they did not like traffic jams! 

They also made hot air balloons out of buttons and had to count how many were on their page and write that number down to incorporate some math into this activity.  We have had a hot air balloon in our room for a while now and they enjoyed recreating it on paper!

Speaking of paper, we practiced our fine motor skills cutting on the lines laid out by dump trucks.  Some of our preschoolers were working so hard on these we ran out of time for them to finish so they brought them home to practice.  Cutting is so important and not typically practiced much at home. Please supervise your child while he/she practices cutting on lines at home.

As a pre-reading activity we are consistently working on spelling names in the correct order.  These rockets are a preview to our space unit coming soon as we talked about how people transport from Earth to outer space and then asked the children to arrange their names in order on their papers.   

The afternoon children did a very similar activity with their names only using trains and their cars to represent a different letter.  The afternoon group is typically younger so we not only had them arrange the letters but practice writing the letters on the train cars as well.  We will continue to do things like this throughout the rest of the year to get ready for kindergarten.

Since many of our preschoolers are going on to kindergarten next year, the morning children worked on math using dominos.  While you might think this is just a matching game as old as time, dominos are often used as a pre-math skill in kindergarten and they will see it in again this year as well as next year as they move on too.  Because so many of our kids are ready for kindergarten this domino parking lot was the favored activity of the day!

However, we had a lot of children take this transportation unit upon themselves to find all of our toy cars and trucks and race them across our circle rug.  We did a lot of driving and cooperative play together during passing periods on this activity as the teachers changed from one period to the next.

We did some acting in the morning this week as well as we flew like air planes, road the rails like trains and drove laundry basket cars around the room.  Check out this quick video post on Instagram to see it in action.

Before heading home, the morning children made boats out of either wooden popsicle sticks, foil or plastic cups then raced them down a ramp into a "pond".  The children were able to choose the materials they wanted to use then decorated their boats, attached sails and then lined up to race!

In the morning and afternoon sessions this week we also had a visit from the school nurse because it is that time of year to get the vision and hearing screenings completed.  If your child was absent, we will do a make up day later next week.  On Monday and Wednesday next week we will also be working on the hearing tests.  These "games" are easy for the children to understand and they all did wonderfully!  As a part of preparing for kindergarten your child will need to have a vision test on file with your eye doctor but this can and has often caught things early for our families over the years and we are happy to help out with providing this service!

The afternoon children did a great job working on their math this week by counting various transportation vehicles and then drawing the number of that amount next to the images.  This is perfect for our kindergarten bound students and it is also great for the younger children who just need the practice counting and learning the sequencial order of numbers.

Our singing voices emerged in the singing of The Wheels on the Bus after we heard a story put together by one of our teachers, Mr. Sebastian.  The children heard a story about a child trying to get to school who was wondering which mode of transportation he wanted to take.  We covered many forms and then the children decided the bus was best which made the transition to the song very simple.

We also acted like scientists in both preschool sessions with this video as we listened to various automobile sounds and tried to guess what vehicle was making each sound before seeing the image.  It's a fun game to play if you want to try it at home; you'll be amazed at how good they are at guessing correctly!

What's Coming Up?

This coming week will be a three day week where we will be talking about seasons with a different focus each day (winter, spring then summer-fall already happened.)