Week 24 (April 6, 7, 8)

The little bunny cups are growing a TON of grass! It was fun to see the kids reactions when they saw how much had grown over the weekend!  We water the grass every day, and some days give it a little trim with scissors, which the kids love.

We learned a cute little butterfly song and made simple butterfly puppets. The kids liked decorating them for table time.

We painted cute spring tulip pictures. I loved how they turned out.

Another fun table time activity was trying out these Hot Wheels color changing cars. So much fun!  Each table had hot water and ice cold water and plenty of cars. They were really excited about this activity!

We've been seeing lots of ladybugs lately, so doing a quick little math exercise using the lady bug spots was a fun one.

We listened to a few songs about butterflies and danced ours around the room while we listened!  The kids get SO into this silly stuff.

I got a new race track for the kids and they loved it. They are always shocked to see new toys come out of the "teacher closet". It's like Mary Poppins bag to them.

Plus lots of puzzles! Table puzzles and floor puzzles were all the rage this week!

I brought out the sand toys again, and they baked some sand cakes in these cute plastic bakery sets.

We move the trampoline around the yard a bit to keep the grass growing underneath it, and whenever it's in the back corner of the yard the tree branches are close enough to TOUCH, so that becomes the game. Can you jump high enough to touch a leaf?

This twisty swing game is becoming a fast favorite of the preschoolers. They love to twist themselves up and then unwind and scream and laugh and talk about how dizzy they are.

Week 23 (March 30, 31 April 1)

Preschool after our long break was SUPER fun. The preschoolers were extra well behaved and had a fun time playing with their friends again!  Abby stuck with this puzzle the entire time, and got it completed with the help of a few friends.

Christian will go through 1/2 of the stack of viewfinder discs in one sitting.  He loves this simple toy.

I don't think Sofia was ready for this picture! She was very deeply enthralled in playing with this Batman toy.

At one point, all 7 of them were playing together with the Imaginext sets.

Jackson got really serious about playing dress up, and after he decided to be a police officer for the day, he wanted to look up some information about police officers in this book.

The weather was really nice on Friday, and the puddles had gone away, so we spent a lot of time outside.  Catching bugs, playing chase, and just relaxing in the lovely Spring air.

We even had a chance to plant more things in the garden. So far so good!  Lullaby also pulled up some of the weeds that always seem to sneak in there.

Our pumpkin seeds are doing well too!

Making bunny nose masks was a cute activity. We learned a new song about bunnies and sang it and jumped around after the masks were finished.

Warren said his bunny was an extra happy bunny, and only made this face along with it...

March was the LAST month for our Book-It calendars. If you haven't already, please send in your child's March calendar so they can get their last pizza ticket and book for the year. Since Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is a pretty common book, I won't write an inscription inside the book this month unless your preschooler tells me they don't have the book at home already. That way, if you do have it already, you can use this one as a gift, or go to the store to exchange it.  I'm really proud of all the time that they've been spending reading and looking at books! Good job everyone!

We planted some grass seeds into cups with bunny faces on the front, so that when it grows, it will look like hair and they can cut it. We watered the grass seeds everyday and set the little cups in the windowsill to get lots of light.  They are going to be surprised when they come on Wednesday and see that they have already started growing!

For small group time, I set up this little word building center. Sounding out words is the next step toward reading. These little letter sheets have some missing letters and the preschoolers sounded them out with me to figure out what was missing. They all did exceedingly well, but of course will benefit from more practice. I'm so excited!

Friday was April 1st, and as you know, that means it's April Fools Day! I set up these cherry tomatoes on cake pop sticks to look like lollipops. When it was snack time I handed them out and said I wanted to take their picture before they took a bite (that way they would all take a bite at the same time). The reaction was hilarious. They were NOT expecting tomatoes! Jared was the least happy about the trick, but was okay once I made it better with real lollipops. :)

Then I gave them real lollipops for the mean trick. :) Lots of the preschoolers ate the tomatoes and asked for more, but it was still shocking when they were thinking it would be a sweet lollipop!