We LOVE our school!

This week in preschool we focused on the happy holiday filled with love, Valentine's Day!  The children started out the week with some candy heart pattern math.  The teachers gave each child a slip of paper with a few colored candy hearts.  The children then had to decide on the pattern that was given and then fill up their strip of paper with the pattern that completed the series.  

Some patterns were that of two colors, some that of three, etc.  If you have any left over treats at home from this holiday you might want to go ahead and play this game with them.

 Next we worked on spelling at the front of the room by assembling a heart that had been broken for Pirate Pete.  Each strip of this broken heart had been cut to let us see only one letter in Pirate Pete's name.  The children then took turns coming up to the board to assemble the heart 'puzzle' thus helping the children spell the word Pete.

Once we modeled this activity at the front of the room we headed to the tables where the children fund pieces of broken hearts with the letters of their name on them and assembled their own heart puzzle.

 We searched for and sorted different colored hearts by looking all over the room for what we could find and then put them into designated hula hoops to count the totals later to see which we found the most of and which hearts had the least amount.

 We read books about hearts and Valentine's and then reminded the children about catapult's from a lesson a few weeks ago and launched candy hearts all over the room!  We worked again during this stem activity to see how to shoot the hearts high and low, far and short.

 After we launched the hearts across the room we measured their distance by preschooler steps.  The children would walk heel to toe across the room from their catapult to their heart.  Then, we logged the amount of preschooler steps on a graph using tally marks at the board to see who's heart went the furthest.

 We took some time to work out our fingers with stickers and made Valentine's Day headbands.  Many of the preschoolers ended up wearing their headbands the rest of the day.

Later we sorted through bowls of black beans to find tiny hearts using tweezers and fingers.  The children love the textures these beans create and have all been moved into our sensory bin for free play now too.

 On Wednesday we talked about ways to show each other kindness at Valentine's Day and every day as well as how we show our family we care about them.  We talked about high fives and hugs and making cards and hope some of the love we showed each other this week continues throughout the year.

We decorated our bags early in the day Wednesday so they would be dry and ready for our Valentine exchange before heading home.  Some children drew pictures and others chose to glue items all over their bags.

 To pass the time until our Valentine exchange we worked on some heart math by matching the amount of dots on one half of a heart to the correct number that represented that amount.  

Puzzles like this are easy to make at home because you can help your child self-correct by drawing out the pattern and then cutting the two parts in different patterns.  Separating one pair with a zig zag cut while the other with a curved cut.

We learned about density with various liquids and how the things the liquids are made up of change whether or not items like hearts were able to sink or float.

We like to separate the children into smaller groups for science so the children are not only able to 'see' more but also able to participate in the experiment. 

Before getting ready to pass out our Valentine's we sang some terrific songs about the holiday and friendship.

Then before heading home we made one final Valentine's Day project.  We used Valentine's Day colors to add hand prints to hearts and worked on cutting them out in order to let them dry and bring them home soon. 

 Once we finished our painting of hearts for the holiday we sat at the rug and learned the process for our Valentine exchange. 

We focus on the exchange process of Valentines for the children in our preschool program.  The children learned how to pass out Valentines to their friends and the joy of giving in order to learn what to expect as they move into elementary school.

 What's Coming Up?
After President's Day we will have a two day preschool week this coming week as we learn about camping and insects.  

If you are looking for a night out filled with music, check out the PHS Orchestra concert on Thursday, February 28th.