Life Cycles, Community Helpers, Oviparous Animals, Choice Time, Warm Weather, Letters V & W!

Due to the MiAEYC Early Childhood Conference followed by spring break (which I spent in Georgia), I was unable to blog for the week prior to spring break. This blog post will be all about what we've been up to for the past two weeks of school.

March 31 - April 2

· We read and looked at books about the life
cycles of various animals. 

· We did things a little differently at preschool this week. We’ve had a lot of visitors in our classroom and our school and they have been bringing in lessons, books, and activities to do with the kiddos.

· Each morning our Color Me Healthy Nutritionist Debbie has been coming into our classroom. Each day she brought a different activity about eating healthy, staying active, and read us a story. She also brought several new foods for us to try including: edamame soy beans, blackberries, and spaghetti squash.

· On Monday we had a visit from a real veterinarian. He talked to our kiddos about their pets and how to stay safe around animals. He talked about how he helps sick animals feel better. He gave each kiddo a goodie bag. 

Listening to hearts beat.

· On Tuesday we had a visit from a state police trooper and his partner, police dog Jax. He talked to the kiddos about what police officers do and how they help keep us safe. He talked about what Jax’s job is and how Jax can find us if we get lost using his nose. He read us a story and gave each kiddo a coloring book. Then we went outside to see his police car. Each kiddo got a chance to sit in the car and use the siren and speaker. They loved it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 · On Wednesday we had a visit from a dentist. They talked to the kiddos about keeping their teeth clean by brushing and flossing. They gave us a healthy snack, showed us x-rays of teeth, and gave us a bag of goodies.

 

 

•  Choice Time:

Mr. Chris (our custodian/security guard) came in to play for a little while.

•  Outside Time (with no SNOW!):

 

 

· Our letter of the week this week was V.

· Some of our activities include:

· Practicing saying the sound the letter makes.

· Seeing who has the letter in their name.

· Using white boards to practice writing the letter at large group.

· Searching the room for things that start with the letter of the week and feeding them to the “letter monster”.

· Making our alphabet book page for each letter at small group.

· Identifying the letter in the dry erase board sentence.

 

Spring Break

•  The kiddos were excited to share stories about their spring break and to hear stories about the teachers' spring break.  
• Here are a few of my pictures from my trip to Georgia.

The touch tank at the Atlanta Zoo

My newest cousin Sam and I at the Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park.

At the top of Stone Mountain.

At the World of Coca Cola where we got to try flavors of soda from all over the world.

April 14 - 17

· We read books about Easter and Oviparous Animals (animals that lay eggs).

· At Large Group:

· We read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick and fed “Granny” all the pieces to the story.

 · We read The Easter Chick and talked about oviparous animals. 

· At Small Group:

· We used our play dough mats to form letters and numbers. 

· After talking about animals that come from an egg, we created egg and oviparous animal art work.

· We painted with corn syrup paint. When it dries it leaves a beautiful sheen.

 

· At Choice Time:

· Our kiddos were split about our dramatic play area. Half wanted the vet/pet stuff to stay and half wanted the kitchen back. So we compromised and now we have the best of both.

· We put out a lot of new things in the art area and the kiddos went crazy creating very imaginative works of art.

· We hid 84 eggs outside and the kiddos looked for the eggs with their names on them. Each egg had a surprises inside.

• After finding our eggs the Easter bunny came to visit us and brought us a new book for our classroom library and more eggs. We made bunny hats to wear for the day.

 

 

 

 

· As the weather is getting nicer, we bought many new things to play with outside: rocket launchers, bubbles (both regular and artistic colored bubbles), bats and balls, a wagon full of blocks, and we have more things ordered. We are looking forward to using all our new things!

• Choice Time:
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

  · Our letter of the week this week was W.

· Some of our activities include:

· Practicing saying the sound the letter makes.

· Seeing who has the letter in their name.

· Using white boards to practice writing the letter at large group.

· Searching the room for things that start with the letter of the week and feeding them to the “letter monster”.

· Making our alphabet book page for each letter at small group.

· Identifying the letter in the dry erase board sentence.

•   We had a wonderful local Michigan author (and illustrator!) come visit our school for Family Night this week. Her name is Vera Thornton. She writes stories about animals that have wonderful life lessons about things like: not talking to strangers, finding your unique talent, and family loving you no matter what. She read us several of her stories, showed us her original paintings, and even showed us how she paints. She also donated an autographed copy of each of her stories to our school library.