Monday, May 18, 2009

Graduation

This year I planned a small graduation ceremony to honor all my students but mainly Kylie, Toddy and Chase who were graduating from Learning Adventure Preschool! We had the get-together at Heritage Hills community pool. Joanne helped me decorate the pavilion so nice. We grilled hot dogs and everyone brought yummy food to share. The children enjoyed swimming...until the storm came. And it rained and rained and thundered! We thought it would pass and then it just got worse....but the show must go on!!
We did our little program and had a blast.
Here is the whole group.
I didn't get a shot of all 3 graduates together....but these 2 pictures are show them all!
I had many moments on Friday where I was so sad that this year has come to an end! The parents gave me a wonderful scrapbook of the year. This is something I will cherish forever. I look forward to the years ahead but this group will always hold a special place in my heart. These children gave me so much confidence. They were always so excited to come to school and I loved seeing their smiling faces each morning. How lucky I have been!!
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Field Day!




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Chase giving the chicken limbo a try! How low can you go?
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Face painting!!
Everyone gave it a try....the green noses was pretty! Of course the children loved painting our faces as well....I had green hands even!
Savanna's clients-Addy and Camryn
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There were even water balloons! This was the children's favorite!!
Kylie was going after her mom while Savanna and I were having a battle at the end of the driveway!
The boys won this round of tug-of-war.
This Kool-aid stand was a hit with Isabel and Toddy. The enjoyed taking orders and passing out snacks!
Not sure why Trent is making that face! He is cute even when he frowns!
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Saturday, May 2, 2009

Fox's Pizza!




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The children LOVED going to Fox's Pizza! They went back into the kitchen, walked into the refridgerator, played with some pizza dough and then got to make their very own personal pan pizza! They could choose from all the toppings....but for some reason they all wanted pepperoni! ha:) It was very hard to get good pictures of them creating their pizzas but here is what I have! It was so much fun and we hope to make this a tradition with Learning Adventures!!
The owners were so impressed with their pizza-making skills that some were offered jobs right on the spot!
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x, y, and z!

Here are just a few pictures of our activities during these last few weeks of school!

The children enjoyed creating these pictures using different sizes and textures of yarn.

We also talked about the sun during our /y/ week. After looking at different pictures of the sun on the internet the children painted their own suns by mixing yellow and red.
During the /x/ week we played the game "X marks the spot". We took turns hiding the red x somewhere in the room. The person hiding it would give direction on where to find the x (around the yellow table, to the left of the trash can, under the chair,etc. ) One book we enjoyed that week was "How I Became a Pirate". In this story the main character helps pirates hide their treasure in his backyard. He drew a map for the pirates so they could find it again. We imagined that we had treasure also in our backyard and the children drew a treasure map complete with the "x" to mark the spot! The children also helped write and illustrate a class book "The Fox Has Six ___?".
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The children had fun creating these zebra headbands and playing a zebra friend game.
To end our study of all our zoo friends the children created a zoo. I pulled out some animal pictures from National Geographic magazines for them to cut out and glue on a large banner. Some even drew water or cages around their animals.

We also created personal pizza's that the children cut into 4ths to make a puzzle. This activity was to prepare us for our fieldtrip to Fox's Pizza!

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Water and Wheels!

This week we studied the sound of Willie Weasel. We focused our activities around wheels and water. I wanted to teach the children a little about the water cycle. First we made clouds and then did an experiment showing how clouds let out the rain. Each child had a tray of water and a dry cotton ball. They dipped their cotton ball in the water until it was full of water. When they lifted it up, it "rained".
We also briefly talked about evaporation....which I just explained as how water disappeared into the clouds. I also heated up a bowl of water in the microwave and let the children feel the heat coming off the water. Then we covered the bowl with plastic wrap and noticed the steam collecting on the wrap and then the beads of water will drip down in the bowl just like rain!
Here are our clouds, raindrops and water chart.
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Here we made a word web for wheels and cut out pictures from newspaper ads that had wheels.
The children loved sorting the vehicles by the number of wheels.
We also did some water-color painting. Chase and I created secret messages with a white crayon...the water-color paint would make the secret word/picture magically appear! Addy and Kylie are creating masterpieces with their water-color.
We also painted with different size/texture wheels. The designs were really cool!
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learning objectives: begins to perform simple investigations; compares objects and identifies similarities and differences; begins to observe changes in weather

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Vegetables!

For our /v/ week we learned all about vegetables! We used the book Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens as the basis of our study for the week. It is a great book about a lazy bear and a hard-working rabbit.
I brought a variety of fresh vegetables that we used for different activities from counting and painting!
After exploring the vegetables, we cut them apart and used them for painting.
The previous week we talked about what is underground and discussed different plant roots. I planted a few pea seeds previously that we dug up to see how the roots were growing. Then the children all picked a vegetable seed to plant in their own pot.
We also created this vegetable mural. Each child was to make a root vegetable and one that grows above ground like the ones Rabbit planted for Bear. We had potatoes, carrots, radishes, and even a head of lettuce! We looked at pictures of the internet of the roots and tops of the vegetable they chos; then I gave them some options on how they could create their vegetable. I am always amazed at their creativity and indivuality! I had a few ideas on how to make the corn roots but what they chose looked way better than my ideas....and I love how it was their own!
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learning objectives: observes changes in weather; begins to recognize that living things have similar needs for water, food and ait; begins to perform simple investigations; uses various materials to create artwork;

Monday, March 23, 2009

Spring

We had a great week learning about Spring....but I could not find all my pictures so I will just explain most of the activities!!
I found a great song/poem that we recited each day. It had 3 verses that talked about how we know it's Spring by what we see, hear and feel. Each day we would focus on a particular verse and take a walk outside to discover what that verse described. Then the children drew a picture of their findings in their Spring Journal . Some of the pictures they drew were flowers, bees and leaves for what they could see; birds and bees for what they could hear; rain and sunshine for what they could feel.
This was followed by another activity-a craft- that went along with the verse of the song. For what we could see the children made flowers using coffee filters and water color paint. For what we could hear the children made birdfeeders out of cereal and pipe cleaners to feed the birds! For what we could feel we made the wind socks...that is what Trent is playing with in the picture above.
Another activity we did for "what we can feel" was to make wind painting using paint and a hairdryer. At first I diluted the paint a little and we discovered that it was too thick to move with the "wind". Together we discovered how thin the paint needed to be for it to move in the wind and how fast it would move.
We also experimented with different objects blowing in the wind. It was such a fun week and I sure wish I had more pictures to show for it!!
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