Outdoor fun!

The sun is shining and the birds are chirping and it is finally time to get outside and play again!  This week we focused on all things outdoors, so from the weather to games, to activities to animals to bugs to space; anything that is outside.  We started out the week by going fishing and many children ended up fishing during free play all week long too.

Then we went outside to play with paint filled water balloons to make some abstract art as a class.

We also played outside a lot this week from stations with bubbles and trampolines to bug hunts and nature walks.  We were so excited the sun was out each day of preschool so we could enjoy the outdoors again!

Once back inside we did some flower math by matching the correct number of petals to the number written in the center of some flowers.  We try to do as many activities with manipulatives as possible for math.  This is how children learn what the numerals represent; by seeing 3 of something we start to learn what 3 represents. 

The afternoon children are still working on cutting and building those fine motor skills as well.  We worked on cutting our traced hands out of yellow, red and orange paper to make a camp fire out of paper.

The morning preschoolers made their campfires out of red, yellow and orange paint after we checked out a make shift campfire at circle time.

We also had fun pretending to splash in puddles labeled with the numbers 1-20 on them.  The goal if this game was to jump in the puddles in sequential order to work on the number sequence of 1-20.  Most children in kindergarten are expected to know how to correctly count to 20 so the sooner we work on this skill the better to get those tricky numbers like 14, 15 and 16 down in the right order.  So we did this with a little large motor skill fun added in.

We heard some stories this week about camping as well as gardening and other outdoor things including space; about as outdoors as we could go!  The children made caterpillars to go in our gardens out of pom poms and googly eyes on a caterpillar's favorite food; leaves.

We also painted lady bugs and added spots and eyes to them making quite a few crazy creatures after our cute caterpillars.

When we decided to go to space this week we built rocket ships out of the letters in our names practicing the sequential order of the letters when we write names.  Many young children learn the letters in their names but do not understand there is an order to which those letters are supposed to go.  Oftentimes writing them on a paper is not enough since children are then focusing on writing each letter and trying to fit it in order on the page.  Activities that break it down into specific steps help with this concept.  Write one letter per square and then build the rocket in the order the letters are supposed to go in when writing.  This helps teach that order in a slower stepped process.

During our space talks we learned about astronauts and how they work with and study things they find in space. So we gave the children this experience by placing various toys of various textures in boxes with gloves and the children had to reach in and feel the objects while wearing 'space gloves'.

Then we broke up 'space rocks' to reveal mini 'planets' the children were able to take home.  After that we went on a space quest having a rocket relay race!

We worked on our arm muscles this week raising our giant parachute up and down, fast and slow.  We made tents to play in and enjoyed this extra bit of work out.

We settled down and did a few games on iPads this week either building space ships, campfires or planting flowers in gardens.

During free play this week, just like any other week we played anything the children chose. Some played school while others sang their favorite songs with teachers or played dress up and dramatic play.  

Free play is usually done at the end and beginning of each high school class period as teachers are either clean up or setting up activities and coming in and out of the classroom during passing periods.  This is when the children have free choice of activities we have in the room and are able to work on social skills.

We do work on social skills with organized games as well.  We played catch and tag outside this week during large motor skills time and helped facilitate the idea of taking turns and waiting.  It is age appropriate for this to be difficult in 3 year olds and for it to be second nature for 5 year olds.  Most of the time older children enjoy organized games while young children struggle with waiting.  This is why playing games like this helps build these social skills.

To work on letter sounds we talked about the word bunny and what sound the first letter makes.  Then, we talked about how to make a letter B and constructed a bunny out of that letter. 

There are a lot of crafts like this out there to try this summer with your student, check out pinterest for more ideas like this and feel free to follow what we do as well.

We went digging through 'bird nests' to find eggs that needed some matches this week in the afternoon.  The children had to either match up the capitol letter to the lower case letter or they had to match the number to the amount of dots that represented that number on the eggs.  Digging for all the eggs was half the fun!

We headed back outside that afternoon to play some hopscotch.  This is a simple game you can play at home or anyplace you see some open sidewalk.  It not only helps with gross motor development and balance but it can work on building those sequencing skills we mentioned earlier.  

Back inside we traced some paths for bugs to find their leaves or bees to find their flowers first with crayons and then with scissors.  Writing letters and numbers all day can be quite boring so we work on the small motor skills that build up those muscles we use in our hands to write but doing other things like tracing and cutting.  If your child fights you to write, ask them to do things like this instead.

Friday the morning preschool had a special guest!  One of the preschool moms came to give us an out door themed concert!  She sang songs about the moon and flowers and other outdoor topics.  We really appreciated her sharing her talents with the class!

Once she left we made sponge paint butterflies.  We now have a 'art gallery' of sorts in our preschool bathroom where we hang work to dry and then decorate the bathroom at the same time.  You will see these butterflies come home next week.

We have talked about rainbows and other weather related topics the past few weeks so we did a density experiment to review the colors of the rainbow on Friday.  The children did a great job instructing the teacher on the order of the colors of the rainbow as she made one appear in a jar.

We planted grass this week to learn about the order of ingredients needed to plant something in a 'pot'.  If the preschoolers set these cups in a sunny area of the house and water it, the grass should grow in a few days.

We did some free painting this week as well.  Many of the children based their art work on topics we covered in class while a few friends made paintings of each other for one another.  Painting is such a great thing to do that in the summer you can actually buy sidewalk paint or just use washable paint from home and paint outside!  If your house does not do 'messes' or even if you do, painting outside is a great thing to try this summer.

We worked in flour again this week as well which is something anyone can also do to practice making letters and numbers in a way other than boring pencil and paper.  Just like many of our methods in preschool we do this a lot to change up the routine and still work on building life long skills through play.

Friday was a great day to get outdoors one more time and we had a blast not only with the parachute but an obstacle course of sorts too.  We crawled through tunnels and jumped in hula hoops and races scooters all in the name of some healthy fun!  Hopefully our preschoolers are enjoying the sunshine this weekend too!

When we got back inside we took another trip to outer space and threw foil balls (asteroids) at a shaving cream circle (the moon) to make craters!  Everyone giggles as we watched the foil balls stick to the shaving cream; it was great! 

We then headed to the tables to build aliens out of playdoh.  Hopefully the children have played with these more at home too.  They made us laugh at all of their creations as they tried to see who could make the craziest looking alien.

We blasted off into space by singing a rocket ship launch countdown then laid under our tables to count the glow in the dark stars teachers had placed there.

We ended the week with a trip to the sea and learned about jellyfish before making our own creations complete with tentacles!

We saved a bunch of sea creatures and other animals from a frozen glacier by using hot water, salt and 'carving' spoons to dig them out of the frown ice domes.  If you are ever looking for a fun activity at home, take a bowl and fill it with water and various small plastic animal toys.  Then freeze it.  

All you need after that is to dump it out in a bigger bowl or the ground outside and scratch away at it occasionally adding salt and hot water to help loosen the items.  The children were totally engaged for nearly 12 minutes and this is a miracle considering your attention span is your age and more of our activities don't last longer than 3-6 minutes.  They said they were sad it had to end!

Lastly we used the water from our melted glaciers to go fishing for alphabet pingpong balls.  As the children fished them out with nets they read the letters to their teachers.  

What's Coming Up?

This coming week will be all about animals. 

Preschool graduation will be Wednesday, May 17th with invitations coming this week in preschool mail.  The AM preschool session will be from 9:30-10:30 AM and the PM preschool session will be from 12:-15 - 1:15 PM.  Details will be sent home this coming week with more information for families.