Spring Celebrations!

With the first day of spring tomorrow, I thought today would be a good day to talk about plants and growing things.

Plant Observations - Our bulb after just one week has lovely roots and is greening up at the top!

Growing - We planted grass seed to see if we could grow our own plants.  We also talked about what a plant needs to grow:  water, sun and some love.

Flower Model - The kiddos created their own model (eyeing the felt board) of a growing flower.  They told me the parts and I labeled them.

Preschoolers - 

Youngsters -

Outdoor Plant Observing - We took a moment at the end of our outdoor play to look around for growing plants.  We saw buds on our big shade tree, bulb flowers opening, grass turning green, and some plants greening up.

Happy First Day of Spring!

Today we went with the springy topic of eggs and what cute critters hatch from them.

Circle Time - Oviparous Animals - An animal which lays eggs.  We sorted our plastic animals into two categories:  oviparous  and mammal.  Snakes, spiders, lizards, frogs, sharks, fish, birds, insects ....

Cute Chicks - The kiddos cut a circle out of craft foam and then decorated it as a chick.  Then we made large eggs for the chicks to crack out of.

 Bird Nest - We chatted a bit about where various oviparous animals would lay their eggs and what kind of nests or safe areas they would want to create.  Then we created a nest for bird eggs.  We talked about what a nest is generally made of (sticks, grasses, string, feather bits etc.)

 

We trimmed the top off a lunch sack, then rolled and scrunched it down until it looked nest like.  Then we added various bits of soft stuff to keep our eggs comfy.
You can also see our fabulous, cute chicks we tucked inside our eggs.

 I found these chicks on sale at Hobby Lobby.

 

Egg Exploration - For our science bit today we cracked open a couple of eggs and investigated them inside and out.

We talked about the parts of an egg and how they help the animal growing inside it.
shell - protection
yoke - food source
albumen - (clear stuff) cushioning
air sac - where the animal breaths it's air (end of the egg, look for a membrane covering an air pocket)
stringy white bit - that is the dna material that becomes the animal when fertilized by the dad (we didn't get this far in our discussion, but I thought you might like to know.)

 

Sidewalk Chalk - With warmer weather comes fabulous chalk drawings.  Here is a great shark one of my kiddos created.

Spring - Flowers

For our last day learning about spring, we studied flowers!   Here are a few of the activities I did with my fours.

In circle time we talked about the parts of the flower.  The roots seemed to be a new idea.  So we talked about their job, which is to suck up water and nutrients from the soil.  We also talked about what a plant needs to live.  The kiddos got sun and water then one of them shouted:  "Love!  They need love!"  So you can see below, that they added those things to the white board.

Using the above white board, my fours created their own flowers with all of the parts.  I pulled out a variety of craft items for them to use, hoping to get different textures.

 

We also made flower necklaces.  Using cupcake liners again, we laced the flowers and a bit of straw onto yarn.

The kiddos also got to take home a pansy to plant in their garden at home.

Spring - Worms

To continue our spring theme, we learned a bit about worms.

We of course made the traditional chocolate pudding and gummy worm snack...

 I had both regular gummy worms and sour gummy worms for the kiddos to try.  I was surprised that they liked the sour ones just as well.

  

 I also cooked a pot of spaghetti noodles for the kiddos to play with.  My fours pressed them gently onto brown paper and drew tunnels around them.  My threes just played and munched (below).

 

 A fabulous book to share:

 

Spring - Learning Station - Eating Worms

For our learning station today, I had the kiddos use a clothes pin (bird beak) to "eat" as many worms (pipe cleaners) as they could get.  This was great for their fine motor skills and they enjoyed trying to gather as many worms as they could before the timer went off.

Spring - Birds - Nature walk & nests

Because Thursday is the first day of spring, we are learning about springy things this week.  We started off with birds.

In circle time I asked the kiddos, my fours, what they know about birds.  I prompted them on a few bits, but here is what we came up with.

We also talked about what birds use to make their nests, then we took a walk to gather those nature bits.  The kiddos were most excited about the copious pine cones, but they got a few other small bits in their bags too.

 This is a fabulous nest left over from last year that we spotted in a neighbor's tree.  It was great to actually find a real one!

 When we got back to the preschool we dumped out our nature bags and looked at what we collected (mostly pine cones), then using a lunch sack (cut the top half off and roll down a bit) we made nests. We used pom poms as eggs.

For our snack we made edible nests (chow mein noodles, choc chips, peanut butter, marshmallows).  We filled them with jelly bean eggs and a peep bird.  One of my fours does not like chocolate, so he nested his eggs in his hand.  Ha ha!

 

Books: