Today we enjoyed our monthly field trip—this time to the strawberry patch! The weather has taken an unexpected chilly turn and today was a bit windy and cold. Nevertheless, the sun was shining so we met up at 11 am at Page Farms and started picking. After strawberries we headed to the picnic tables for lunch and playtime. I had made a little work packet with handwriting and math, having to do with strawberries, but it was so windy we weren’t able to do that. Still, the children had fun, we were able to experience strawberry plants up-close, and as Max exclaimed at the end, “This field trip was much better than I thought it would be!” : )
(they were being so silly that morning!)
On Tuesday in preschool we learned all about plants! This was a good follow-up to the lesson on Spring the children had two weeks ago. After signing in, they practiced their handwriting and the letter P, and then worked on cutting. Max finished cutting all of his pieces out first so he jumped in and helped Joseph and Delainey catch up so we could stick to our schedule. After these activities we transitioned into circle time. For our scripture spotlight, Joseph helped us learn about the story in the Bible where Daniel refuses to eat the king’s meat and wine, and instead consumed plants and water. In the end he and his friends were much healthier and stronger than the king’s men. We then talked about how good plants and grains are for our bodies, etc.
This discussion led to show & tell where Max showed a pine cone, Joseph a carrot, and Delainey a flower. After talking about what they had, how it felt, what color it was, what it’s purpose was, etc. I told them that each of these things were plants. We talked about what it meant to be a plant, and what plants do for us. Their responses (After some hints) were, we eat them, we wear them, and we build stuff with them. Plants sure are important! We also talked about what plants need to grow.
For singing time we sang the following songs:
Little Seed (Tune: I'm A Little Teapot)
I'm a little seed
In the dark, dark ground.
Out comes the warm sun,
Yellow and round.
Down comes the rain,
Wet and slow.
Up comes the little seed,
Grow, grow, grow!
PRETTY FLOWERS (Tune: "Jingle Bells")
Pretty flowers, pretty flowers,
Growing everywhere.
Here are some pretty flowers
For your coat or hair.
Pretty flowers, pretty flowers,
Gold and pink and blue.
Red and yellow, orange and purple,
I picked them just for you!
Farmer Plants the Seeds (Sung to: "The Farmer In The Dell" )
The farmer plants the seeds
The farmer plants the seeds
Hi, Ho and Cherry O
The farmer plants the seeds
Other verses:
The rain begins to fall....
The sun begins to shine....
The plants begin to grow....
The buds all open up....
The flowers smile at me....
They especially loved the first one, “I’m a Little Seed”. They were so cute doing the motions!
For snack time we ate bananas, cuties & kiwis—all plants!
For story time we read an adorable book I borrowed from my neighbor called Grow, flower grow! It is a funny story about a girl who tryes to get her plant to grow by feeding it pizza, hamburgers, etc. Frustrated that it won’t grow, she throws it outside. Outside it gets sunlight and rain and begins to grow. It was perfect for reinforcing the things a plant needs to thrive, and Delainey, Joseph and Max were cracking up the whole time.
Following story time we discussed the parts of a flower, and I gave them a puzzle for them to figure out. This also helped them to recognize the words of the pictures, and they figured out which word said what, by looking at the first letter and sounding them out.
Max finished his puzzle quickly so I told him to try and do it one more time after mixing up the pieces and this was the look I got. : )
Next we moved to the table to do some more cutting practice and some sorting for math. Joseph is pretty good with scissors so I gave him the hardest page of cutting lines. Delainey has been working at home on cutting for the last week, and I was so excited to see her hold the scissors correctly and really stay close to the lines! After cutting they worked on sorting pictures of vegetables, and then gluing them into a designated place on a picture of a garden.
After that, we ventured outside, each with a bag in hand, to identify and collect five different types of plants. (Joseph had to leave early because he was going to the beach! Lucky!) But Max and Delainey (and Sallie) did great on the plant walk.
Finally we played outside a bit, sang the goodbye song, and hands were stamped. It was a great day of learning about plants!
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!
