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!

Field Trip to the Pond!

In preparation for our field trip to the pond, we talked a lot about pond animals, in particular, about mallard ducks.  We learned why the mama mallard ducks are brown and not colorful like the dads--so they can stay camouflaged when they are sitting on their eggs in the nest.  I love how much these kids love the idea of camouflage!  We learned how they tip headfirst in the water to find food in the water and that their feathers are waterproof so they can just shake off the water when they get wet.  

These happy kids obviously were thrilled to make their own mallard duck puppets this week!

Acting out the song "5 Little Ducks Went Out To Play" was enjoyed by all the kids this week!  They loved taking turns being the mama duck, the daddy duck, and the little ducks who waddled back and forth in the song!

We had such a wonderful time at the pond!  The kids were so excited to feed the ducks and were intrigued by the variety of ducks we got to see there!  They especially loved spotting the mallard ducks!

The children loved being at the pond together feeding the ducks and seeing the things we'd learned about in class!  I loved when one of the children kept saying, "I happy!".  In her broken English, she was expressing just how happy she was to be on our field trip!

This pond had some big fish that we got to see as well as the ducks!  If you look closely, you can see the big black fish!

We were so glad the weather was nice for our field trip!  We enjoyed reading a story together at the pond about Mr. and Mrs. Mallard duck as they try to find the best place to build a nest and raise their ducklings.  The book is "Make Way for Ducklings" by Robert McCloskey.  It is a darling Caldecott Medal book!

Having fun playing together and climbing in the trees by the pond.

We love going on field trips!!  Thank you to all the parents who helped drive and keep a watchful eye on all the children during our field trip!  As always, it was so nice to have your help and to enjoy the field trip with you!  You are very appreciated!

Ocean Animals!

This week we got to touch and hold a number of different objects from the ocean.  The kids loved seeing the various sizes and shapes of seashells, listening to see if they could hear the ocean in them too!  We also had a sea star, crab pincer, barnacles, and sand dollars that they got to handle and feel.  I love hands-on learning!  It was a fun way to experience a little bit of the ocean right at our school!

I love how these darling children wanted each other to experience the sounds of seashells together!

Since we have been learning about so many different animals that live all over the world, we did a lot of sorting this week between land animals and ocean animals.  Our puppets made for a perfect way to sort animals!

As part of our sorting activity, the kids took turns making their land animal or ocean animal puppets move, dance, swim, or fly around the rug!

After talking about many different ocean animals, we used our foam ocean animal shapes to help us review some of the animals we'd learned about this week. 

We noticed our animal shapes were all mixed up in our container and couldn't tell which one had more or less.  So, for one of our projects, we sorted the animals according to animal type...

 

  and then counted and graphed them to find out which group had the most and which had the least and if any had the same amount.  Math can be a lot of fun!

 For one of our take-home projects, the kids got to choose animal pictures to glue on their papers according to whether they live on the land or in the ocean.  After learning about so many animals over the past couple of months, it was fun to see which animals the kids remembered learning about and which they liked best.

We also learned about the letter "R" this week.  I am always amazed at how much children absorb and learn.  Through continued exposure to letters, shapes, colors, and numbers, children pick up so much!  Remember to point these things out every day as you are with your children at home, running errands, and playing together to reinforce what we learn at pre-school!  I love being able to teach these sweet children!