Happy Chinese New Year!

Learning Station - Lego Color Sort - I set up a Lego color sort for the kiddos this morning.  They did a great job at sorting, but then it became fun to toss them in the wrong color bucket and hear Ms. Sara say "Silly Makenzie!  That goes in the yellow bucket"  giggle giggle giggle....

Chinese New Year Dragon - These dragons turned out so cool!  The kiddos enjoyed painting them and adding glitter too. The blue thing below is a paper crimper.

 I printed the dragon off of this fabulous blog.

 

Here they are painted...

A week on Chinese New Year - 2014 Year of the horse

This week we are excited to be learning about Chinese New Year.  2014 is going to be the year of the horse.

Book -
 

Footprint Horse - First I traced each kiddo's shoe to create their horse's head.  The the kiddos cut it out and created a neck for their horse.  They got to choose googley eyes or they could draw their eyes on.  We also have some fabulous fluffy brown yarn for the horse's hair.  I let the kiddos create....

This is my 3 year old class (below) I did more helping with these guys.

We looked at pictures of horses to give us the idea of what out could look like.

Cool Bits of Chinese Culture - The kiddos got a fan, a take out box, chopsticks and a horse.

Snack - The kiddos loved the fortune cookies today.  Perhaps tomorrow we'll have noodles or rice so they can give their chopsticks a try...  Hmmm.

Tp Horses - I had all the stuff to make these horses spread out on the table and I was working out the best way to create them when the kiddos came over and jumped right in.  Ha!  The horses quickly became their personal creations.  I love that!  They rode them all over the preschool until it was time to go home!

Chinese Drums - I love these drums, sorry if they drive you batty at home.  I love the sound they produce.  These are teacher intensive (gluing the plates together and tying the string and beads) but they are fun.  We didn't have time to do glitter on them, but that always makes them fancier.

 
Tp Lanterns - We painted our tp tubes on Monday.  Today the kiddos added tissue paper streamers and glitter.  There are slits along the sides of the tp rolls, it's just hard to see them.

Snack - As promised, we had noodles today so that the kiddos could try using chopsticks.  They managed really pretty well.

Fire Breathing Dragons - To close out our week on Chinese New Year we had to create a dragon!  Rooooar!  This is my favorite dragon idea I've found.  Just a tp roll, black beans for nostrils, pom poms and googley eyes and tissue paper fire.

 Circle Time - Today I pulled out the magnetic letter lids, I gave the kiddos hints about a letter, then they had to find it and "grab" it with their magnetic wand.  We have nearly finished the alphabet in our weekly work.  It's exciting to see them remembering and making connections.  We couldn't just use our magnetic wands for the alphabet, we decided to use our smarts and find other things that are magnetic through out the preschool.

 

Tracks - We were excited to find deer tracks in the snow.  At first we wondered if the deer had come to play in the snow cave.  Then we decided that couldn't be, because there weren't any tracks going to the cave.  So next we decided to follow the tracks to see where they did go.  They came from the backyard!

Paper Fans - Nice and simple, but oh so fun!

Learning Station - Egg Carton Number Shake

The kiddos matched numbered stickers to the numbers I wrote in the bottom of the egg carton cups.  Then they threw a pom pom in and gave the carton a good shake.  The number the pom pom landed in was the number they got to use to stack a Lego tower.  I didn't put the numbers in order so that made the kiddos think a bit.  It also gave us a chance to chat about what each number was.  They are getting better and better at recognizing the numbers.

 

I found this idea on this blog.

Learning Station - Bingo Letters

We did our learning station all together today.  I pulled a letter out of the bag, called it and the kiddos covered it.  I didn't need to do any helping.  If a kiddo was missing a letter, the others kindly pointed it out to them.  They worked great together.

I got the idea for alphabet bingo on this blog.

Learning Station - Dominoes & Phase 10

More with counting and number recognition. The kiddos each did wonderfully at counting out the dots on the dominoes and matching them with the correct number.  Yahoo!

 Here's one of the kiddos counting each dot....

Mom's Morning Out - Toddlers - Superheroes

The Stirrer Shove - I pulled out coffee stirrers and my colander.   The kiddos got to poke the stirrers through the holes.  They were all enjoying it and working together:  two of them poking the stirrers in and another pushing them all the way through.  Then one kiddo grabbed a hand full and said, "Bunch!".  The boys thought that was grand and followed suit and it all went down hill from there.  Ha!

Superhero Week - The older kiddos did superhero helpers all week, so of course I had to make capes and masks for the little guys too!  These kiddos loved the bridge over hot lava (board) just as much as the older kids.

 

Cut-able Foods - Always a favorite

Super Helper Hero Week

Our Snowman Experiment - Week 2 - Well, then end of last week I put our outdoor snowman in the snow.  This morning he looked about the same as he did last week.  I made this comment to one of the kiddos.  She rightly told me, it's "because it's so cold outside."  Ha!

Circle Time - We chatted about our theme this week.  We talked about superheroes:  that they help people and capture bad guys!  We talked about how we would capture bad guys in preschool (no killing).  Here are a few of the ideas we came up with:  we could turn them into doughnuts, catch them in a trap, put them in jail, tie them up, freeze them with our controller, shoot macaroni and cheese at them, stick them in glue....

Super Helper Hero Gear - Here is the gear that helped us fight bad guys today.  All of their gear will stay at the preschool until Thursday. 

Our Map - This map shows the city we're protecting as well as the prison where all the bad guys go.  I found this scrapbook paper on super clearance and thought it would be fabulous for this activity.

Hero Masks & Capes - This year because I have more kiddos, I went with a much easier and faster cape design than I did last year.  First I found the idea for a t-shirt cape on this blog.  Second I pleaded with parents and friends to give me their old t-shirts.  Then, I cut the t-shirts and letters for the kiddo's names.   And finally, I hot glued the letters to the back of the capes. 

The masks I simply cut out of felt and hot glued elastic.  The kiddos enjoyed decorating their masks with felt and craft foam bits.
 

Controller Box - I made these last year, they were such a hit I had to make them again this year.  I used a jello box and covered it with duct tape and stuck a straw to the back.  Then I cut shapes out of craft foam and felt for the kiddos to decorate with as well as pulling out my button box.

Robin's (as in Batman & Robin) motorcycle - One of the kiddos created this today.  See his map propped up on the front of the cycle?  And the markers below are the engine, they have to be carefully arranged in order for the cycle to run.

Super Hero Cuffs - Today the kiddos added cuffs to their costume.  Some kiddos added buttons and shapes, so they had extra powers.

Rescue - After snack we discovered that the villianous bad guy, "Baddy", had captured our friend the frog.  We had to get him back!  

First we had to cross a rickety bridge over hot lava!  

Next we had to carefully climb over an extremely sticky web.  Then we had to leap over a cavernous pit.  Finally we could get to frog and release him, but then we had to turn around and do it all over again to get back out!

 

Superheroes at play -

Frost - Our bush had some fabulous spikey frost on it.  Unfortunately my camera couldn't focus on it.  But it looked really thorny, a kiddo gave it a touch to see if it would poke him, but it didn't, it just melted.

Power Rings - The kiddos picked out buttons to create rings.  I strung pipe cleaners through and twisted them into the right size.  The rings turned out pretty cute!

 
Hero People - I found these people shapes for the kiddos to create their own mini heroes to play with.  I was impressed with how they decorated their heroes.