Week 22 (March 9, 10, 11)

Finally, we can call it SPRING! There are so many lovely Springtime activities that the preschoolers get to do now that's it's Spring!  We talked about the changing seasons and how the trees are starting to grow leaves again after the winter. I got these little crystal tree growing kits for the preschoolers. They started growing in just an hour. We started them right away when the preschoolers got here on Monday.

After 1 hour:

After 2 hours:

After 3 hours:

This is what they looked like on Tuesday morning. They were extremely fragile, and although we initially had plans to send them home with everyone, they wouldn't have made it.

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, we decided to set a leprechaun trap. On Wednesday, we put out an empty pot (for the gold), and painted rainbows, and put St. Patrick's Day window clings up… They are such talented little artists!

On Thursday we put the pictures into frames and set them up, to lure any wandering leprechauns into the room.  Our table time activity that day was coloring on the big butcher paper that I spread over both of the tables, and while we were playing outside, a leprechaun must have snuck inside, because we found green footprints on the big paper! It was very exciting!

On Friday, we made one last attempt at catching a leprechaun. We went for a nature walk to pick lucky clovers to show the leprechaun that we were really nice, and he should share his gold with us.

And guess what, it worked! We didn't get to see him, but he did leave us his gold and some chocolate coins! It was very exciting! We had to whisper and talk quietly so we would scare him away, just in case he was somewhere in the room still. The preschoolers loved it. Parents, if you don't want to keep this up, you can tell them leprechauns only come to preschool. :)

We also played lots of games! Connect 4 and Cooties were the favorites.

The Color Clix, as always, were a hit. They are so creative with them!

The super heroes are always a favorite too. These kids play so nicely with each other!

Playing in the tents inside while it rained us out of our normal outside time was fun. We went camping and roasted (pretend) marshmallows, and went fishing, and built fires, and sang songs. It was a very fun couple of camping days!

We also FINISHED our letters! Practice at home the different letter sounds. Your preschoolers are very smart and would love to show off their skills!

Week 21 (March 2, 3, 4)

Games were a major focus, both during fee choice play time and during small group time. The preschoolers are loving turn taking and trying out new fun games. Thank goodness I have about a million kid games. 

During their one-on-one time with me we got to focus a lot on math concepts. One-to-one correspondence, counting, identifying numbers, and greater than and less than were all introduced in these games.

Since Wednesday was Dr. Seuss' Birthday, we celebrated by reading all the books we had of his, and making cute fox puppets for his "Fox in Socks" book.

We've also been talking more and more about different kinds of animals. The preschoolers are like little sponges, just thirsty for information!

Table time was focused on Play-Doh and making animal creations. They love being free to create things from their imaginations.

Color Clix remain a class favorite. They are always bummed when I rotate those toys out.

We danced to a silly song by Eric Herman on YouTube called "Ants In Your Pants". Preschoolers dancing is possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. They are totally uninhibited and happy when we dance.

We've also been talking a bit about science, which the kids are getting really excited about. They like to know how things work and why they do what they do. We talked about what might happen if we mixed baking soda and vinegar together. They made their predictions, and then we tried it out. They were SHOCKED to see it explode! So funny!  Preschool is such a wonderful age for discovery!