Insect Week!

This past week we learned all about INSECTS!!

 It was so fun to have Suzy Safari visit again to teach us more about animals!

Our "Insect World" was a big hit this week!  The children were so excited to dig in and get their hands dirty, literally, in an insect's natural habitat complete with rocks, branches, dirt, pine cones, and wood chips!  They were so creative with how they built the insects' homes as they rearranged the items in the dirt.

We were all thrilled when our real, live caterpillars arrived this week!!!  It has been so fascinating to watch them wriggle around and eat their food.  The kids have all been so amazed by how much they grow from one class to the next.  Next week we are focusing on butterflies--how magical it will be to witness the amazing change of a caterpillar to a butterfly in our own preschool!

We worked on colors and reading simple, repetitive lines with our "Color Bugs" books.  The Pre-K kids learned the sight words "the" and "is" which they practiced reading in these little books.  As you read to them, encourage them find and read these sight words! 

We also used pattern blocks this week to make a variety of different insects including insects the children created on their own!  This was a great way to incorporate shapes and colors and strengthen their pattern recognition and matching skills.

As we wait for everyone to finish up snack, we always have a few minutes to look at books.  This week, we looked at insect books and found some very interesting creatures!

Now that we've spent a week with each letter, we are working on sight words.  As we played sight word BINGO, the Pre-K kids traced each letter in the word to review the letters, familiarize themselves with a few sight words, and to practice writing.

Getting up and moving around and dancing to music is always one of the children's favorite music and movement activities!  It is so important for children to be able to express themselves in a variety of different healthy ways.  I love seeing how much they enjoy this time!

 

 I just want to welcome Miss Emily (not to be confused with Miss Emily who just left for her mission!) as our newest assistant teacher!  She's a current BYU student studying Elementary Education.  She is sharp as a wit, amazing with kids, and a wonderful addition to our preschool! 

Eensy, Weensy Spider!!!

Spider week was last week and we had a lot of webby, spidery fun! 

We learned so much about spiders and loved getting to examine a real specimen up close!

The children absolutely loved playing "Dead or Alive"!  Each child shook and dropped a handful of spiders and then separated the ones that were dead (on their backs) from the ones that were alive (standing on their feet).  The Pre-K kids worked on counting, tallying, and comparing their spider data  and the 3-year-olds worked on sorting and counting their spiders. 

Showing their neighbors and Ms. Ann some cool spider books!  It was fascinating to see how many different spiders there are and to see the different kind of webs they make!

We read Eric Carle's "The Very Busy Spider" and practiced choral reading one portion that repeated often.  The kids were so proud of themselves as they read along!

After reading "The Very Busy Spider," the children became very busy spiders themselves and spun their own webs. 

The webs turned out great, complete with a spider to crawl around it!!

This class really enjoyed creating a class-sized spider web with Miss Anna and pretending to be the spider who caught the bug in the web.

Trying out our new kid-sized cleaning tools at our preschool!!

As you can see...the letter of the week was "V"!

They always thoroughly enjoy practicing writing the letters!  I hope parents are giving them opportunities to practice writing them at home too.

As we were making our "Itsy Bitsy Letter V Books", this boy realized his scraps from cutting were in a "V" shape!  Letters really are all around us!  Be sure to point out letters wherever you are with your child!

While learning about the letter "V", we got to learn about violins!  Here we're enjoying watching and listening to some impressive violin skills!  Music exposure is so important for children to appreciate the beauty of music and the talent involved in creating it.

I absolutely loved that this sweet student shared her blossoming musical talent with her class!  She really did a fantastic job plucking and bowing!  The kids loved seeing a real violin and seeing their classmate's developing talent!

We have deeply enjoyed having Miss Anna and Miss Emily as assistant teachers!  We will all miss them greatly!  Best wishes as they head out to serve missions!

Celebrating Easter!

We had a fabulous week learning about and getting ready for Easter!!  I am so grateful for the true meaning of Easter and truly enjoy the fun side of Easter too!

 To start off the week, we did some jellybean math!  We worked on numeral recognition and writing with our Pre-K kids.

 Then, they added the correct number of jellybeans to each oval and sorted them by color.  They were on fire with their math addition skills too!  Each child was asked individual math questions and they all did a great job!  They are learning so much!

 The 3-year-old classes worked on sorting all their jellybeans and then we talked about which colors had the same amount, which had the least, most, and how many certain colors had.

Math can be so fun and confidence-building! 

  

 

 

The children really enjoyed making their own Easter Bunny bags for our...

EASTER EGG HUNT!!!

When it was too wet to have an egg hunt outside, we had fun finding eggs inside!

Miss Anna led the kids in some fun Easter games and songs for music and movement!

For centers this week, the children were delighted to take turns putting on some little puppet shows!  They all enjoyed watching them too!

Our letter of the week was Q!  After reading "My 'q' Book", we painted our letter Q with Q-tips!

This was not only a fun, new way to paint, but it was great for the kids to practice taking turns.  With this kind of painting, we only had 1 Q-tip for each color so the children shared Q-tips and palettes with a partner.  This would be a fun at-home activity as well!

Playing with shapes and friends during centers this week!




Enjoying "Ring Around the Rosies" for music and movement!  I love seeing their darling smiles!

 
 


Last, but definitely not least, our wonderful Ms. Ann had a birthday this week!  The children all gave her a big birthday hug and sang "Happy Birthday"!  We LOVE Ms. Ann!  She is so loving and patient with the children and is a great listener and story-teller too!