Day Sky Night Sky

Day Sky Night Sky Week is here! We began our study our solar system this week, and the children have embraced the science and art and games and books enthusiastically!

Our art projects included constructing our own solar systems that included a moon, planet earth, stars, and sun. The children enjoy labelling the planets that are hanging in the room, as well as exploring the pictures at the science table. We glued and glittered crescent moon shapes, and enjoyed painting at the easel.

Our songs reflect our knowledge of orbits, the sun, planet earth, and space travel.

The biggest news in the classroom, as you might know, is the construction of a "rocket ship" using our imagination. We had a brainstorm session (everyone's ideas had value and needed to be listened to) and decided on colors (purple, gold, sparkly, diamonds) and how many children could fit inside (all of us). Hearts were a favorite decoration idea, as well. The ship will have a name, and a lot of pictures that represent the children (their ideas).. What an exciting time to be a preschooler! We are impressed with the knowledge of the children, as well as their enthusiasm in working together to make this rocket ship.

We made a polymer, "gak" , together, and found it has many properties, stretching, breaking, sticking together, crumbling apart.

We had a guest reader, Karen, who shared the book The Little House (it has the phases of the moon in it!)

Middle School students have been helping out during our P.E. time, and last week they constructed an obstacle course for us.

We went around and around the gym, following directions and moving through hopping, rolling, throwing, and kicking. fun!

We'll continue with our theme next week, and include some talk about space travel.

Words we've heard:

"you have to be there at 6-8-8"

"you're our first guest, so you get to eat under the table!"

some vocabulary words that your child might define for you:

orbit, gravity, meteor, comet, and a question they can answer,"What is the only star that we can see in the daytime?"

Until next time,

Michele

TEDDY BEAR WEEK!

Teddy Bear week gives us a chance to share toys from home, talk about something that we love, and write and cook a bit. We made "teddy bear" biscuits and constructed sandwiches for our picnice.

The children made posters of their toys, tracing them and talking about their histories. We measured our bears against the door, where we had earlier measured ourselves.

We found out that if we filled up a square with unifix cubes we could make "100"!

Words We've Heard:

"No, no, you have to be TOTO."

"All right, all right, I'll be TOTO. Just for today."

"You can be the wicked witch, Michele"

Until Next Time,

Michele

Winter Fun!

We worked together to make a "snow bear" on Friday. "Frosty the Snowbear" looked into our window with a happy smile!

Doctor Week II

Doctor Week continued with an exploration of our body systems and "what's inside" questions. The children enjoyed nonfiction books about their muscles, bones, and circulatory system, as well as songs about going to the doctor and growing. We measured ourselves, and made paintings that looked like x-rays. The children wrote their "band-aid" stories and a book about what they looked like inside.

Doctor Week

Doctor Week has begun! The children interact with real life Doctor's office props as they explore taking care of eachother and the work that Doctors and Nurses do. They enjoy filling out "medical histories" for their patients, and giving plenty of shots.

Our art work has focused on our five senses, sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell, as we looked at the rainbows that sunshine formed, tasted salt and sugar, touched and made fingerprint art, and played games with listening to sounds. The children enjoyed a game of touching objects through a scarf and guessing what they were.

We are earning about our body systems through books and songs, and have talked about our digestive system, our circulatory system, and our lungs. The children exercised in the gym and felt their heart rate speed up!

Words we've heard:

"This is a mask! Nope, she doesn't have a breathe problem!"

"Put your operating mask on"

"Actually, I'm Dr. Baby Dolphin"

"Look how many notes I got from the tooth fairy! Actually, I'm the tooth fairy!"

"Can you help me fix my bear?"

Until Next Time,

Michele

Fun with Pasta!

We're back in full swing! Pasta Week was a popular week of art projects, eating, and playing.

We made bracelets with colored pasta, glued pasta alphabets, and painted with "pasta colors".....

We were given some wonderful costumes for our dress up corner, and the magic continues......

Magnets were very interesting to the children. They even spun them with a little experimentation.

We spent time outside, moving snow about. The children piled the snow to make "fires" and "food"....!

Until Next Time,

Michele

Just Before the Break!

We had a busy week enjoying the snow and ice both inside and out!

We enjoyed sharing prizes from the pinata ...what bounty!!

The children experimented with large ice blocks, adding color and salt to just see what would happen.

There were many thoughts of kindness, friendship, and the warmth of the season this week!

Words We've Heard:

"let's pretend, you'll have a tummy ache at 1:20."

"there is a hungry wolf coming to town. Do you want to be the hungry wolf?"

"forty-eight-five, time to play soccer"

Until Next Time,
Michele