Spring is here!

Spring is in the air and as we hope we keep seeing the temperatures rise we listened to another Star of the Week presentation and then got our groove on as we danced for more warm weather.  

We made the sounds of spring showers with rhythm sticks at circle time and then planted our names in tulips to practice putting the letters of our names in order. 

For a fun math activity this week we learned about rainbows and how common they are to find after it rains. 

 The children were given a bunch of rainbow halves with dots in one cloud and numerals in other clouds.  The children had to match the rainbows up by reading the numerals and then finding the other half of the rainbow by counting the dots that the numerals represent.

To make sure we understood items related to spring time and what we might not only use in the spring but also wear in the spring, we took some time to sort objects related to all seasons and place them on images that represented each season.  Then we did puzzles where the image of the season would be matched up with the appropriate wardrobe needed for that type of weather.

You can talk about spring and not mention eggs so we did a [wooden] egg and spoon race.  We also did an "egg toss" with rings over pegs attached to colored eggs.  The children rotated between these timeless games to get some movement for the day.

We also did more spelling practice with our names as we later wrote the letters of our names on petals and clued them to a flower.  Again, this was a terrific way to help preschoolers apply pre-reading skills to write their names.

In the morning we have a lot of preschoolers going on to kindergarten so we are working on helping them write more letters and practice letter sounds.  We did a butterfly sheet where the children either tried to write the color word on the adjoining wing or they would sound out the color word and color the wing to match.  

Then, we made rainbows.  We love our shaving cream experiments so the teachers and children used shaving cream and long containers to spread out water color paint to make a rainbow in the water.

Bugs start to come out this time of year and we became overcome with ladybugs this week when we played more number recognition and learned about amounts numbers represent by placing spots on the ladybugs according to which number was on each ladybug.

We did a variety of station activities this week as well and at one of our stations we played a few iPad games about planting flowers and what we need to get plants to grow.  If you are ever looking for new games to download think about what events or seasons are currently happening around you and search for them.  It really helps bring relevance to the real world for the kids.

We did more bug activities with caterpillars this week too for math as the children read the number by the caterpillar's head and then had to place that many fingerprints next to that caterpillar to make long and short creatures.

At another station we danced on the rainbow!  Teachers took some bubble wrap and secured it around a paper rainbow they created and allowed the children to take turns popping the bubbles with their hands and feet as they moved from color to color up and down the rainbow.

Friday the morning preschoolers colored eggs in assembly line fashion.  We used whisks in order to move the eggs safely in and out of the colored water which is a great trick to do at home this weekend if your family is planning on coloring eggs at home.

The afternoon preschoolers worked on science of their own on Friday as they built up rain storms in jars and were able to tell the teachers how to create this favored experiment.  We are pretty sure if you asked them to explain how to do it at home they could help you do it too.

We matched up eggs in baskets on Friday as the children looked for capital and lower case letters written on the outside of the eggs.  If you have a permanent marker at home we recommend you put those eggs to good use this weekend and play this game at home.  Remember that a capitol R does not look like the lower case r so letters like this are tricky to learn.

We worked on making umbrellas for all the spring rain we are getting this time of year and then made little lambs with our fingers.  Some of the children told us about the lambs they have seen with white heads and legs so they painted them white to match the wool (vocabulary word of the day) and others left the heads and legs black.  We love to see the various forms of art that come out of this type of process art.

After working on our lambs we sorted various flowers and other spring time objects into piles by type and color and also created various patterns with these images as well.

The morning preschoolers used their fingerprints for flower petals instead of sheep wool.  We have a new area we hang artwork in preschool so these have been up for a few days but are now in cubbies to go home on Monday for all of the refrigerators out there!

We had some silly science fun this week when we learned about static electricity too.  the children learned that if they rub a balloon on their clothes, hair or even our tables it creates enough static electricity to attract tissue paper wings we created for butterflies.  

We were able to 'make the butterfly wings move' by waving the static filled balloons over them.

Then we 'planted' flowers for some fine motor fun with colanders and pipe cleaners and fake flowers.  A lot of fun was had arranging them in a lovely presentation.

After we planted some flowers we watched some open in water to show the children how important water is to take care of flowers.  All you need to do is cut a flower shape out of paper and then then fold the petals in on each other to the middle [loosely] and then set it in a bowl with water and as the paper absorbs the water the petals start to open.

We ended the week by going to the gym to run around and stretch out, jump and throw and kick.  Hopefully the children slept well this week from all the exercise!

After coming in from running around we decorated a few eggs using cotton balls we pinched with clothes pins to make dots and stripes on our paper eggs.  After hanging these in the room we have them ready to go home on Monday.  

We do however still have some have hand drawings of flowers for spring time from the morning and afternoons hanging in the classroom.  After our outdoors theme for next week we will send them home.  We just want to enjoy their artwork on display at school a little longer.                                                      

What's Coming Up?

This coming week we get a full three days back!  We will be talking about the outdoors which will encompass camping, bugs, space, gardening and maybe a few animals too!

Next weekend is also the Palatine High School Variety Show, we highly recommend you check it out as it is always a loud and fun way to have some good family time.  See the PHS website for more details.