Continuing letter reviewing, and Earth day

This week they loved working with chocolate powder, and glue to experience a feeling of gooey dirt. Earth Day as well as our continued interest in gardening, was just right to start the week with a little sensory feeling.













During circle time we exchanged our views on the planet Earth, confessed why we love it so much :) and discussed various things to protect our environment. Ideas regarding keeping it clean, recycling things, came up. Soon we got involved in doing many Earth day projects.

Our most favorite one was making the grass personalities! We made them reusing recycled materials like nylon stockings and yogurt cups (thanks to teacher Janet for the stockings and thank you to parents and other school staff for saving yogurt cups).

Adding grass seeds on the bottom and then filling it to the brim with soil...






Adding eyes...



Rolling for water...



We also made our own Earth from blue and green Play-dough and discovered that blue stands for water and green for land...
It was wonderful to see them make it in their own varied styles!

J talking about his little world!



J admiring his planet Earth!



B, W, and P working hard to make the world like a ball :)









C using the bottom of the bowl to make a 2 dimensional planet...






We also did some related coloring...






Our cooking project was making our own edible Earth using plain rice cakes, grapes, blueberry jam, and cream cheese.
















Finally, our lovely display...friends loved to go and see it again and again and check if their work was properly kept...












Reviewing and writing letters....

Picking letters randomly from the bowl and placing them on the matching letter. This activity helped us use our long term memories to recall and guess the letters we had been practicing....









Writing station was where they really felt competent as they nailed letters one by one...















We also worked to put together a classroom picture frame from a recycled cake box cover. We used letter pieces in shape of puzzles and connected the letters of our name. This helped us with letter recognition as well as our name spellings.













Other highlights of the week...
It's summer and kids are getting in the mood to camp outside!



Other reviewing alphabet activities...






J sharing about spring time and honeybees...



See you'll around!

Hugs,
Rashida.

Easter fun, and reviewing letters week.

The Friday before Easter was a long-awaited day as the children and teachers looked forward to the egg hunt. We began the week by making eggs at the children's request. They said, "We have to decorate our own eggs, Teacher Rashida!"









Other Easter-related activities...

Egg prints using plastic eggs...






Practicing writing letters of our names...writing each letter in each egg and also counting the number of letters in their names...






Decorating and personalizing or egg hunt collection bags...



Decorating hard boiled eggs...
First we made dye water...one dye pill looked brown but when we put it in water we discovered that it was actually blue. It happened the same way with a dark yellow pill turning bright orange in water. Most of us were astonished!









Next we chose our preferred colors and dyed the eggs...







Waiting for eggs to dry...







The final step...Decorating them!!!



Adding our finished eggs to the basket!



After decorating the eggs, we went on the egg hunt...yeahhhh!!!!!

We decided to work together with toddler partners. Here we are waiting to pair up...



Lining up to head for the hunt!



Spying for eggs all around!



Checking out the hard-earned treasures inside the eggs :)



That week they continued to show tremendous interest in gardening and planting. Some friends shared stories of working with mom and dads during the weekend in the yard, helping in different ways. We also added our sprouted peas and some extra pea seeds to the barrels in the Purple Room yard.













They enthusiastically lined up with buckets, reminding the teachers about the need to water and nurture the pea sprouts :)



Our week O was the last letter that we covered to complete our alphabet. Yay, we finished all 26 with so much fun and excitement! The children are so proud to have the alphabet train complete. Our children didn't miss a beat when it came to letters. Their interest and enthusiasm were visible right from day one when we began introducing letters. I have to tell you, their letter recognition and vocabulary has grown tremendously with the letter of the week! I hope the preschool monthly newsletters have kept you updated with what letter was covered which week. Not only recognition, but even writing letters has improved. They talk a about the position of lines and curves and letter collages, helped them to start forming print concepts in a fun and hands-on way.

Reviewing alphabet activities....












We got newly hatched silkworms and we are seeing them grow each day. They feed on mulberry leaves and are super duper hungry! Truly, they eat a lot and we saw how the leaves turn like lace where the worms nibble on them. You are free to bring small mulberry leaves and feed them together as a family!









Other highlights of the week:

Math counting...



Writing with white crayon on white paper, not being able to see what they wrote until abrakadabra! , they could see what they drew or wrote when they used a sponge brush filled with water colors over their writing :)






Building race tracks all week long...



P and L discovered a cool spot to park the balls :)



L and W found different shades and textures of sand in the sandbox...



Another cool picture that I would like to share. They were very interactive and involved! Some real serious conversation here :) Just love it!




Hugs,
Rashida