Dinosaur Week!

Dinosaur week was fantastic! Dinosaurs are so intriguing to learn about and the kids were fascinated each day! We learned the letter "F" when we talked about fossils and the letter "T" with T-Rex and Triceratops. The 2-day a week classes learned "D" for "Dinosaurs," of course! 

We played with dinosaurs at centers and put together dinosaur puzzles! The magnetic letters and numbers were also loads of fun! The kids identified those they knew, we worked on recognizing new letters, and they spelled out their names. 

The field trip to the BYU Paleontology Museum was really neat! The kids loved seeing all the fossils in real life! They were amazed at how big some of the dinosaurs were! It was a lot of fun! With such pleasant weather, we couldn't resist the chance to sit on the grass and read a dinosaur story! 

After seeing fossilized dinosaur eggs in a nest at the museum, it was pretty fun to eat our own dinosaur nests and eggs! 

All 5 of our caterpillars have now finished their transformation into full-grown butterflies! The kids have been fascinated with this whole process and it has been amazing to watch! We let one go during class and we'll let the rest go this coming week!

Making playdoh was a super activity! Cooking is such a great experience for preschoolers! 

Later we got to use our playdoh to make dinosaur footprints and impressions of dinosaurs. Some even buried their dinosaurs and pretended to be paleontologists who dug out the bones!

Making fossils with noodles!

Sesamestreet.org has a wonderful interactive game called "Dig For Dinosaurs." In addition to learning more about fossils and paleontologists, this game is great for strengthening eye-hand coordination! 

This group of boys loves the puppet theater! So, we incorporated dinosaurs into our plays!

Checking in with Snow Brownie. 

Singing the ABCs as a class! The kids do a great job being class helpers!

What great boys and girls we have in our classes! They are so precious! 

In honor of Independence Day, next week we'll learn about the USA! It's the perfect week to learn the letters "U", "S", and "A" and the colors red, white and blue!

Pet Week!

 Pet week was super!  We learned about lots of different kinds of pets, what they eat, what kind of house they need, what they like to play with, etc.  We learned the most about dogs, cats, and rabbits!  It was fun to hear what kind of pets our students have at home and how they help take care of them.

 

We made our own pet rocks at the beginning of the week so each child could have their own pet to take home!  The kids loved using their fine motor skills to paint and their imagination in deciding how to paint their individual pet! We added eyes and a fuzzy tail too!

 

 Stringing beads was a great center for fine motor skills as well as math practice with making patterns.

 The kids always seem to enjoy when we get to have kitchen and house as a center!  They played so well together as we took care of babies and made sure everyone had some yummy food!  This is a great center for developing those crucial social skills like sharing and using words to let others know what you would like.

With pet week we had to have a pet store!  We worked on sharing and taking turns with favorite animals as well as practicing buying and selling things!

 The 3-day a week class learned about dogs one day!  We made dog houses for a pet dog and drew other things a dog would need like food, toys, trees for shade, etc.  They did a great job!

 Every day we learn a new letter and get to practice writing the capital and lower case letters!  I love how the kids are always eager to have a turn at this! The 3-day a week classes learned the letters "P", "D", and "R" while the 2-day a week classes learned "P" and "R".  Please take some time to review these letters and their sounds with your child!  That will help reinforce what we've learned at school!

 Our new class pet!

 Music and movement was so enjoyable as the kids pretended to be "bunnies in the burrow"! 

"Bunnies in the burrow fast asleep, bunnies in the burrow fast asleep.  (Quietly)

Bunnies in the burrow! (Excitedly)

If you are wise, you will open up your eyes and hop away, hop away, hop, hop, hop!"

(The bunnies hopped away until a predator was coming and they quickly hopped back to the safety of their burrow!)

 One of our student's mom brought in some of their pet rabbits!  That was an awesome experience!

 Outside play time is always a fun time to get to strengthen large motor skills as well as social skills!  It was nice to have sunshine again this week!

We learned about the color brown with "Brown Rabbit's Shape Book" by Alan Baker.

Next week is Dinosaur week!  We're looking forward to learning all about dinosaurs and fossils as well as our field trip to the dinosaur museum! 

Summer Preschool--the fun has begun!

We had such a fun week as we learned about INSECTS! We talked about ants, bees, caterpillars, and butterflies!  We even got some real caterpillars in our classroom so we can watch them over the next couple of weeks to see how they will change into butterflies!  It's quite amazing!

 At the beginning of the week we sorted insects and learned that insects have 6 legs!
After sorting insects, we went to the sensory table to find as many insects as we could!

 The kids really enjoyed centers this week!  Some of the things we did this week were playing kitchen and house, building with blocks, playing with cars, and shape puzzles.  When we learned about bees on Wednesday, the kids loved using the yellow hexagons to make honeycomb cells for the bees!

 Mother Goose was a very special visitor one day this week!  She brought along a special picnic of nursery rhymes to enjoy!

 Drinking nectar from a "proboscis" like a butterfly was pretty neat! 

Busily working on making letter "C" caterpillars!  Some were fuzzy and all were very colorful!

 Making butterflies out of the letter "B"!

We learned the letters "I", "B", and "C" this week as well as the number 6.  The children practiced writing the letters on our white board and we learned the letters' sounds.  Reviewing these with your child this weekend will help them retain what we've studied at school and help them to lock those into their long-term memory as they get ready to read!  

Next week is all about PETS!  If you would like to bring in your family pet, let me know so we can coordinate a time!  Seeing the real thing is always more exciting than just pictures!
Our letters for next week are "D", "R", and "P". 

It has been such a joy to teach your children!  They are so wonderful and are learning so quickly!