Learning Station - Up Words with Names & Words

Learning Station - Up Word Names -

Today my threes created their names with an "Up Words" board.  I found this game out our local Goodwill store for $1.50 - Sweeeet!

Once finished, a couple of the kiddos went on to tile the whole board with letters (one of them was dutifully naming each letter as he placed it on the board) and then they also stacked the letters as high as they could go before they all tumbled down.

The Great Outdoors! - Cupcake Wrapper Owl

 Another idea I saw on Pinterest.  Really quick and simple, my four year old girls loved them, we just ran out of time in class to really go to town.  The girls made their own back drop and decided if they wanted to draw on the eyes and beaks or to cut and paste.

Here is the blog I found it on.

The Great Outdoors! - Fuzzy Owls

I've been dying to make these ever since I saw them on Pinterest...

My fours had fun with this today.  Basically you just shove cotton in and around a pine cone, then add eyes and a beak.

 

 

Here is the idea from pinterest, from this blog.

Learning Station - Counting Beans

 I wrote numbers on Easter egg jellybeans and put the corresponding dots on the back.  The kiddos counted out the correct number of beans to go inside each one.  It was interesting to me that some kiddos worked in numerical order, carefully searching for each number and other kiddos just worked through the pile of egg jellybeans.

The Great Outdoors! - Oven S'mores!

Hey!  That rhymes!

After the kiddos "toasted" marshmallows around their safe, tp log fires, (see post) they wanted to have melty s'mores!  so we did! 

The kiddos layered their graham crackers with yummy goodness and I popped them in the oven under the broiler for just a minute or so.  Don't take your eyes off them, because they go from light brown to dark brown really fast!  But they were yummy!

The Great Outdoors! - Hand Crank Flashlights

When my hubby pulled out the pup tent, he also pulled out a couple of hand crank flashlights for the kiddos to play with this week.  (Thanks Babe!)

The kiddos had a blast with them.  One of the kiddos decided it would be a great way to sing the alphabet.  So instead of using our classroom pointer, we used the flashlight.  It worked great!  Next time I think we'll turn off the lights and close the curtains so it's darker.

The Great Outdoors! - S'more Mix

S'more Mix!  Easy-peasy and yummy!

milk chocolate chips
mini marshmallows
teddy grahams  (You could also use Golden Grahams)

The kiddos scooped a 1/2 cup of each and shook them up in their baggie.

I saw this idea on this blog.

The Great Outdoors! - Tp Campfires

Tp Campfires and S'mores (of sorts) -  Oh what yummy fun!   I filled the kiddos up on marshmallows today!

First the kiddos made their fabulous tp campfires.  We painted our tp rolls with brown and gray paint yesterday.  I hot glued the tp rolls in a fire shape on a paper plate.  The kiddos added the flames.

Here is my goofy looking campfire made with paper towel rolls.  We're going to sit around this as a class tomorrow.  Perhaps tell a few stories, sing a song or two.  "Roast" some s'mores.  I think I'll have my hubby set up our little pup tent in the preschool.

 After the kiddos finished their fire, they got to "roast" a marshmallow or two (or three or four).  Here is the set up.

 

I saw this idea originally on this blog.
 

The Great Outdoors! - Firefly Jars

This week I thought we'd celebrate the coming of summer.  So we're learning through nature and camping and wildlife, I'm calling it our:  Great Outdoors week.  It should be fun!  Here is the pup tent I had my hubby set up and our tp campfire!

Fireflies in a jar! - I talked with the kiddos about fireflies.  What they look like, how they light up on a hot, humid summer evening, and how we don't have any here in Utah.  (But my family is heading home to Kansas this summer - so we're hoping to see several!)

The kiddos painted dots (fireflies) on the inside of their jars with glow-in-the-dark paint.  Then they drew fireflies on the outside of the jar with sharpies (sorta).

I found the original idea on this blog.

I had the kiddos practice drawing their fireflies on a piece of paper first.  Then they used the leftover paint on them....

 Here is one of my four's jar.  He didn't quite do the dots of paint to create the fireflies, but that's ok.  I think the one he drew is super cute!  Once the kiddos had their jars complete, they took them into the closet to see them glow.  They were super excited that they did.

Favorite Books - Pete the Cat

For today's favorite book we did "Pete the Cat".  This is a great story about a cat who loves his white shoes, but he steps in a few things that changes their color (strawberries, blueberries, mud...)  - but he doesn't get upset, he just continues on.  The kiddos love it!


Pete the Cat Puppets -   The kiddos got to decide what their Pete steps in that changes his shoe color.  Here's a page from the book where he steps "in a large pile of strawberries!"


Here are my three's Pete puppets.  These kiddos decided Pete stepped in a large pile of grapes (left) and in a rainbow (right).  Below are the four's puppets.  Their Petes all stepped in strawberries.

 Snack - Yummy snack!  Strawberries, blueberries, mud (chocolate pudding) and water (all the things he stepped in!)

Learning Station - Don't Break the Ice with words, letters, and names.

Learning Station - "Don't Break The Ice" with words, letters and their names.  I wasn't sure how this would go, but the kiddos did great with it!  Using masking tape, I put words or letters on each block of ice.  The kiddos chose a card from the stack, then looked for the matching piece of ice and then hammered it out!


 This set up was for my fours:

 This is my set up for my threes:

Favorite Books - The Ghost's Dinner

Today we enjoyed "The Ghost's Dinner"  by Jacques Duquennoy  -  This has been a class favorite all year long!



Art Project - In our book, "Ghost's Dinner", Henry hosts a dinner party for his friends, as they eat, they change colors.  So for our project today, the kiddos colored their ghost different colors based on foods or drinks.

Special Ghost Dessert Recipe - After all of Henry's guests eat dinner, he brings out his dessert and he calls it his "special ghost dessert recipe" because as the ghosts eat it, they become invisible!  As we ate our dessert - we also became invisible!   Our ghost dessert was just pistachio pudding, cool whip and marshmallows.  It was yummy!

There are so many wonderful things you could do with this book.  Perhaps next year I will do the book for a week around Halloween time.  Hmmm.

Favorite Books - Elephant and Piggie

I have been toying with the idea of doing a whole week on one of the kiddo's favorite books from preschool - but which one?  Then inspiration hit ... AHA!  I'll do a different book each day!

Today we enjoyed Elephant and Piggie books.  These are the best!  I LOVE this author!  I currently only have 3 of his E and P books, but I'll be getting more for the preschool!




For our Elephant and Piggie day we made these puppets so the kiddos could act out the stories.  The kiddos LOVE to take turns reading for the characters of these books.

We painted 2 regular sized paper plates gray for Elephant and 2 small paper plates for Piggie.  Here is how I cut the second paper plate to create Elephant's ears and trunk.

 Elephant's trunk is curled up and Piggie's nose is glued over his smile, but you get the idea.

We also made tp roll Elephant and Piggies...

When we were painting for the paper plate project above we also painted tp rolls.  I had the kiddos paint an extra small paper plate gray.  We used it to cut out the ears and trunk. 

 

 Really simple, but cute and quick and easy to put together.

Recipe - Piggie Pancakes - Elephant and Piggie

This is the homemade pancake recipe that I grew up with.  Today for snack we made piggie pancakes in honor of Elephant and Piggie!

To make them piggie pancakes, we added pink food coloring and chocolate chips.  Enjoy!

Scratch Pancakes

In a small bowl stir together:
2 cups flour
3 TBS sugar
5 tsp. baking powder

In a separate bowl, whisk:
2 eggs

Add to the egg bowl and stir:
1 tsp. salt
2 cups milk
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir in dry ingredients, you may have to whisk it to get rid of the lumps.

Cook on a griddle at about 275 degrees.

Learning Station - Number Rocks

 Learning Station - Number Rocks - My fabulous neighbor shared some wonderful landscaping rocks and I had to use them for something!  So they became our number rocks!  I washed them, then wrote with sharpie the numbers 1 to 20.  Then I mixed them in a bowl and had the kiddos put them in order.

One of my higher fours, I set to work adding the number rocks using a white board. 

One of my other fours has had trouble with counting the teens.  I showed him how to cover the one at the front of the teen number to help him realize it was the same counting pattern, just with a one in front.

 

Dinosaurs - Volcano!

For the final bit of our dinosaur week we created volcanoes.

Now, this one is blue because I was all out of brown paper - ha!

I just helped the kiddos create a cone, then they glued tissue paper strips coming out of the top.

I should have also done the baking soda and vinegar volcano experiment, but I didn't even think of it until class was over.  Dratters!

These were cute and quick though.

Learning Station - Pattern Making

For our learning station today the kiddos created their own patterns with shapes.

I punched the shapes from scrapbooking scraps.  We worked on patterns with shapes, but we also could have easily done patterns with colors as well.