Lucky St. Patrick's Day!

What a LUCKY week we had celebrating St. Patrick's Day!  A little leprechaun left these golden treats for our little preschoolers to enjoy!  Holiday *magic* is so exciting!

This week we learned about Saint Patrick and that he used the clover or shamrock to teach the people in Ireland a long time ago.  We had fun stamping green 3-leaf-clovers and carefully painting their stems.  The kids really enjoyed this project and did a terrific job!

 

 

 These "lucky" necklaces were a fun way to work on patterns.  The older kids made patterns and strung them onto their string.  They are really solidifying the concept of patterns!  Many of them chose to use 3-4 colors in their patterns.  They also practiced writing their names on their lucky shamrock. 

 

 Mother Goose came again this week!  She brought a basket full of eggs filled with songs, rhymes, and finger plays.  As well as a bag of books to share with the children!  We are SO grateful to have such a dynamic story time lady at Treasure Tree!

I love seeing all these kids making the letter of the week with their arms and fingers!

 We also brought out the xylophones to play since we were learning about the letter "X". 

 I also love seeing these children enjoying the Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle books we've been learning about earlier this month.

Carefully balancing little domino bears during centers!  Notice the artists in the background drawing on the whiteboard and the little reader enjoying a book!  Centers is a wonderful time to read or play individually or with friends! 

 As many of the preschoolers are getting ready for kindergarten, some of them have been interested in learning to tie their shoes.  This is a skill that requires patience, diligence, and lots of practice.  It is also very gratifying once it is mastered! : )

Author and Illustrator Eric Carle

I love Eric Carle's works!  I like his stories and I am fascinated by his style of illustrating.  So, I wanted to share this love with my preschoolers!  This week we delighted in his books!

One of the kids' favorites was "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" which Eric Carle illustrated.  We read (sang) the book together and then the children acted it out.  They absolutely loved doing this! 

 

When it was time to look at books after snack, these kids were singing "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" all by themselves!  I love when children fall in love with books!

 With the older kids, we watched a little clip of Eric Carle making his painted papers and carefully cutting them out to make his illustrations.  It is so fascinating to see him create.

Among the Eric Carle books we enjoyed this week was "Walter the Baker."  This is a less common one of his works, but it is so fun for preschoolers.  It's about a baker who has to create a yummy roll "through which the rising sun can shine three times" so he can stay in the beloved kingdom where he lives.  The children were so into this book and were all relieved when he was finally successful.  It turns out that he made a pretzel!  The children really enjoyed pretending to be bakers for project and making tasty breads and pastries, like Walter, but out of play-doh. 

Cinnamon rolls...

Baguettes...

For snack we just had to have PRETZELS!

Another one of the books we enjoyed this week was "The Very Busy Spider."  For project we created a scene from the story when the spider has finished all of her work and sleeps exhausted near her web.  The kids made a  night scene with stars and the sparkly spider's web she had built.

Enjoying more of Eric Carle's books together!

Just in time for Eric Carle week, we learned the letter "E".  Whiteboards are terrific for practicing writing letters...

and their names and then whatever they wanted to draw.

After snack, these boys were so proud of themselves when they showed me they had each found the letter "E" in their books!  Way to go! 

Working on some puzzles during centers.

Playing with our new preschool toy!  It's a great sorter and a fun safari truck with animals!

"Cutting" food to serve-up on the plate.

She's going to be a good little mommy someday!  I love catching these darling little moments!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

For the month of March, we will be learning about a few of my favorite children's books authors.  We started off the month with Dr. Seuss since his birthday is March 2nd!  Dr. Seuss books are always so entertaining to read and also enhance creativity and rhyme recognition.  The children loved painting their own "Cat in the Hat" hat just the way Dr. Seuss created it!  This was a 2-day project for the older kids who got to paint one day and then cut out their own hats the next.  I love their super happy expressions in these pictures! : )  We all enjoyed Dr. Seuss week!

Painting these hats was also a great way to emphasize patterns.





After learning a little bit about Dr. Seuss, we watched the original "Cat in the Hat" movie.  It was very different from "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That" which many of the kids were familiar with.

 We also played memory match with a collection of Dr. Seuss' characters!  They had a great time finding things they recognized from Dr. Seuss' books and movies in all the cards and matching them.  Playing memory match helps to teach children to follow rules, take turns, increase attention, boost their memory, and is a great way to have fun together!

Music time with the instruments!  The kids are picking up on the names of the different instruments and enjoy playing them as a group.  This particular activity helps them listen for the name of their instrument and wait until it's their turn to play along. 

This ABC train/bus track, magnets, and puzzle are all fun ways to reinforce the alphabet and colors!

Playing with blocks can be pretty interesting!  I love seeing the creative ways children choose to build things.

Legos are always a hit whether trying to follow a pattern or just making something up as they go!

Puppet show during centers...what a terrific turn out!

This creation is truly impressive!  It never ceases to amaze me how talented some of these students are!

We also learned the letter "Q" this week.  Every week I write the children's names on the board to see who has the letter of the week in their name.  They could hardly believe that no one had a "q" in their name this week!