S is for Seasons and Spring!

Today we talked about all four seasons, but especially SPRING! 

We started with some math, sorting flowers and making some pretty posy patterns.

The kids also practicted their handwriting by tracing the name of each season on a worksheet (more with that later!)

During calendar we read a poem called "The Months," by Sara Coleridge.

January brings the snow,

Makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,

Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes loud and shrill,

Stirs the dancing dafodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,

Scatters daisies at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,

Skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,

Fills the children's hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn;

Then the harvest home is born.

Warm September brings the fruit;

Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasant;

Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast,

When the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,

Blazing fires and Christmas treat.

For storytime, we read Owen's most beloved books, a present from his first Christmas.  The quartet are by Gerda Muller, and are sold on Amazon as one book called The Circle of Seasons.  They don't have any words, but each depict scenes from a child's life during each season.  Really cute!

We then played a matching game (from ayearoffhe.blogspot.com) to see if the kids could match some seasonal items with the appropriate time of the year!

After snack time, these Spring-time sleuths headed outdoors to search for signs of Spring!  We wore rainboots (very Spring-ish), saw lots of little green buds on the trees (also Spring-ish), and splashed in lots of puddles (totally Spring-ish!)

After our outdoor adventure, we came inside to finish the worksheet we started earlier.  We started with four bare trees and had to add items to each tree to make it seasonally appropriate...

SPRING: Pink tissue-paper blossoms

SUMMER: Green finger-print leaves

AUTUMN: Orange, yellow, red, and brown construction paper leaves

WINTER: Cotton balls

Lastly, we planted some flower seeds to celebrate Spring.  

All in all, we had a lovely Spring morning, learning about (you guessed it) Spring!

“W” is for Water! (Water Cycle Day!)

Preschool today was so much fun!  Following Miss Kathryn’s lesson on clouds, today we talked about the water cycle!  I was a little nervous about whether or not they would be able to grasp it (with the big words and all) but they really surprised me!  First we worked on handwriting as we practiced the letter “w”.

Then it was circle time in the “dining room”. After opening with a prayer and reviewing the rules, our scripture spotlight was about Jesus walking on water.  Next up was our calendar, and then Joseph reported on the weather.  For rhyme time we learned,

It's raining, it's pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed and he
Bumped his head
And he couldn't get up in the morning.

Then, rather than go right into show and tell, I showed them a cup of water and I asked them how old they thought the water was. There were some funny answers. I explained that this water has been around since Adam and Eve…since the earth was formed! I told them that the earth uses the same water over and over again, which is called the “water cycle”.  We practiced saying 3 big words: Evaporation, Condensation and Precipitation, as I tried to tell them what they were.  Then we read Drop Goes Plop, which is a cute story about the water cycle. After that, with Max in his yellow shirt, Delainey changed into a white shirt and Joseph into a blue shirt, (to represent the sun, clouds, and rain) they acted out the cycle.  They had a lot of fun with this and I really think the roll playing helped them to remember what takes place. 

(Joseph was making a snort/snoring sound, and they were all cracking up! we all took turns doing it…silly!)

After our dramatization, we went into the living room for singing time. We sang “Rain, rain go away!” and inserted each child’s name into the line, “Come again another day! Little (Joseph/Max/Delainey) wants to play! We also sang “If all the raindrops…” from music makers.  Finally, we learned “The Water Cycle Song” to the tune of “the itsy bitsy spider”:

You know the water cycle

Makes water move around!

Evaporation lifts water off the ground,

Condensation forms drops into a cloud,

And precipitation makes them fall back down!

This was a tough song so we made up hand motions, and sang it many times in different ways—slowly, quietly, loudly, quickly.

Following singing time we went into the kitchen for our science experiment. They lined up 3 stools in the middle of the kitchen facing the stove. I gave each of them a cotton ball to inspect. They all agreed it was dry, and not in the least bit wet. Then, using tongs, I held the cotton ball (our cloud) over a pot of boiling water (and we pretended the surface light overhead was the sun) and watched as the steam rose into the “cloud”.  As we were waiting I asked them what was happening and they were right on point! Finally I let them feel the cotton ball (it was a little hot, but not burn-hot) to see that it was wet. Delainey and Joseph both agreed that it was wet from all the steam that got cold again, it turned back into water…but Max didn’t think it was wet. So I held it up and squeezed it out (ok, that was a little hot! use gloves next time!) and a bunch of water fell onto the floor. Max laughed and conceded that the cotton ball cloud had indeed collected the steam and then “rained” the water….just like a real cloud! This was a fun activity.  I loved looking at their eager little eyes as we talked about the cycle and watched the cotton ball absorb the steam.

Finally it was SNACK TIME!  We had clementines (the sun), blue jello (rain) and white popcorn (clouds).

(Max decided to make his “sun” into orange juice…haha.)

After snacks we  gathered for story time #2 and read The Magic School Bus visits the Waterworks…I was a little nervous about this book because I loved these books—in elementary school. But they were all very attentive and enjoyed seeing the kids shrink down to the size of water droplets. At some point someone said, “but…only water goes down the drains. Not people…right?” : ) After that we worked on a Water Cycle Puzzle that I had made for them, and then we made rain sticks!  They each decorated a piece of paper with their own artistic rendering of the water cycle, and then we taped that around their paper towel rolls, added the aluminum foil and lentil beans, and taped up the sides…wa la! After this it was playtime, the goodbye song, and stamps all around.

(Rain, Cloud, Sun)

What a fun day at preschool!  I mentally compared them today with our first day that I taught preschool, and WOW. They have really grown up,  in so many ways! They did such a great job today…yay for the water cycle!

C is for Cloud

During the month of March we are learning all about weather, beginning with clouds.  This was a really fun lesson to plan.

Joseph, Max, and Delainey have their preschool routine down!  They know exactly what to do when they arrive and what comes next.  We started the morning off with handwriting practice.  We then moved into circle time where we learned about the great storm and flood that Noah and his family endured.  We learned a rhyme about raindrops and sang a few songs about weather.  

For show and tell I asked Max to bring something that he would wear on a sunny day, and he chose to bring basketball shorts.  Joseph was instructed to bring something that he would wear on a windy day, and he chose a coat.  Delainey was supposed to bring something that she could wear on a rainy day, and she brought a raincoat.  What smart little children.  We talked about how it is important to dress for the weather.

Next we moved into the first part of our lesson on clouds.  We talked a bit about the water cycle and evaporation.  I had the children rub hand sanitizer in between their hands and shake them.  This object lesson helped the children learn about evaporation.

Then we talked about what clouds are made of.  I had the children blow their warm breath on a cold spoon.  A tiny cloud appeared. We talked about how the tiny cloud on the spoon is like the clouds in the sky, formed when warm, moist air and cool air come together.  

We also made a batch of ice cold lemonade to illustrate the same concept of combining warm air and cold air to create water vapor.  Then we drank the lemonade with snack.  The kiddos were thrilled about this!

Next we did a little science experiment.  We made a cloud in a bottle using warm water, matches, and pressure.  We all had fun with this.

After our science experiment we talked about the different types of clouds using our cloud finder  We went outside to see what kind of clouds were in the sky.  Unfortunately there was not a cloud in the sky.  

Each of the children got to take home their own cloud finder and use it to observe the clouds, and record data on their cloud observation chart.  

During the last part of our lesson I read "The Little Cloud" by Eric Carle.  It talks about how clouds can look like different shapes, like sheep and airplanes.  After the story Joseph, Max, and Delainey got to make their own cloud shapes using cotton balls and glue.  Then they had to tell me what kind of cloud they made, with the help of our cloud finder.  Delainey made a cumulus cloud, Max made a cirrus cloud, and Joseph made a stratocumulus cloud.  

We had lots planned for preschool this week, and we managed to squeeze it all in.  Our little scholars seemed to understand what clouds are made of, but it will take a little more time to understand how they are formed.  I think they will also enjoy making cloud observations each day.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Suess!

To celebrate the birthday of Theodor Geisel (aka DR. SEUSS) we met up at the Main Branch of the Durham Public Library for a fun-filled Read Across America acitivty.

The hour was packed with Dr. Seuss activities!  Two librarians acted out Green Eggs and Ham and read a few more Dr. Seuss favorites.  The kids sang songs and played intruments, played a Dr. Seuss character matching game, made Cat in the Hat masks, and even got some birthday cake!  

(Guess the cake wasn't enough for these two!)

You could tell the librarians a) really like their job, and b) put a lot of time into this event...there were even little Thing One and Thing Two nametags for each child.  Cute!

Thanks for meeting us so far from home.  We had a blast celebrating with you!