Outer Space

This week was all about Outer Space.  We spent a lot of time learning the names of the planets and what order they are in the solar system.  There favorite planets are definitely Jupiter and Saturn :)  On Monday we spent a lot of time ordering the planets in art and coloring them the appropriate colors.  We also read a planet book about the order of the planets in space.

On Tuesday we talked a lot about the Earth.  We discussed what the blue and green represent on the Earth (water and land).  We made Earths in art by adding green land pieces to our blue circle and drawing stars with white chalk.

On Thursday we made moons in art.  We FINGERPAINTED and the kids loved it!!!  We also sprayed on diluted white paint to make it look like the sky!:)  We talked about when we see the moon and sun in the sky!  We worked on number order from 1-15 by making a rocket ship and also worked on preprinting different types of lines with expo markers!



In our writing center we wrote and brainstormed what we would do if we were astronauts.  It's hard to see but this student wrote "go to the min (moon)"...

This little one said that she would eat cheese on the moon and spin around in her

spaceship with Mr. Jason and Miss Danielle!! :)



Also in our writing center we practiced spelling our names by making rocket ships.  You can see them on the door to our classroom.  The kiddos had to count how many letters they had in their name, glue down that many squares and write one letter on each square.  They turned out super cute! :)

On Friday we read Aliens Love Underpants and talked all about underpants which was the highlight of their week :)  We decorated alien underpants and talked about what is our favorite kind of underpants.  Surprisingly most of the kiddos liked rainbow underpants, even the boys!  They were super silly!  On Friday we also worked on different skills in our writing/reading center such as matching shapes, completing alien patterns and writing words/sentences.



We had two fun sensory tubs this week.  This was our black bean, star and astronaut figurine outer space tub.  We also had moon sand and moon dough in our other tub.  Our third tub went outside with us most days and was filled with birdseed.  We will be changing that this week and hopefully the weather is a little nice so we can continue to go outside!  

 The neatest part of the week was our Living in Rhythm program on Friday.  This man came and taught the kiddos tribal songs, dance and let them play drums.  The kids (and teachers), especially Miss Cindy, had a lot of fun!  We learned about different types of nature instruments from leaves, seashells, guords and more!

We are gearing up for Earth Week this week!

Visit the Alcoa Eagle Cam Site at http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_davenport/en/info_page/eaglecam.asp...

we have been watching the eagles grow up ande now they are getting big!

:) Danielle

Weather Week

This week was all about Weather!!  On Monday we talked about the sun.  We made our own suns out of circles and triangles and than told our teachers what we know about the sun!  We worked on beginning sounds and matched the clothing picture to the appropriate weather we would wear it in!

 Of course we had to talk a little about snow.  The students made their own snowmen with white circles, a carrot nose, buttons and then drew eyes, a mouth and arms.  We then used our popcorn painting bags to make it snow! 

We also worked on the letter /S/ for snow and snowman in our alphabet center!

Another art project we did this week was talk about wind and make kites!  We used out dot markers which the kids always LOVE because they get to bang as much as they want.  We added bows to make them fly!

Wednesday we talked about couds. We made clouds in art with different textures such as felt, newspaper, wax paper, construction paper, etc.  They turned out really cute.  Below are our clouds that Mr. Jason made us.  Each cloud is a different type! 

A new feature in our classroom that I added in the last week is our Nature Table.  It is in the science center and houses all kinds of things from a real turtle shell to seashells, pinecones and birds nests.  The students LOVE to explore with their magnifying glasses and it is neat to see them really enjoy the outdoors.

This week we also made rainy day portraits in which they had to draw themselves and add the raincoat, boots, hat and umbrella.  Some also drew raindrops and they had to write/dictate what they like to do in the rain.  The example below is one of our older kiddos who wrote "I like to jump in mude (muddy) pudls (puddles) in the rain".

On Friday we talked about wind.  I "borrowed" Mr. Mike's fan and we gathered objects around the room and HYPOTHESIZED! about which objects would blow or not blow.  We determined that the objects that did NOT blow in the wind were too heavy.  We used blocks, balloons, a feather, tissue, paint brush, styrofoam ball, a hat, pen, pencil, a picture, tray and a beach ball amoung other things.  After we experimented with the fan we decided to try to make our own wind!!!...We used straws and watered down paint to blow the paint around the paper.  It turned out really neat!

 We also had a fun day outside!  We played with chalk and drew lots of hearts...correction: Miss Danielle drew everyone hearts and then they worked on drawing hearts themselves! :)

Mr. Jason did bubbles and we explored with birdseed in our sensory tub!  We had a great week and can't wait for OUTER SPACE week!!! :)

Have a great weekend

:) Danielle

Superhero Week

We had a pretty quiet week down in pre-k...a lot of our friends stayed home with moms and dads because CW had off.  Monday got off to a crazy start because right after soccer the EASTER BUNNY (Mr. Jason) CAME TO VISIT!

  He did a great job!  Most of the kids were really happy to see him.  We only had one scared one...the toddlers and babies weren't too fond of him, but I'd be scared of a big giant bunny too!

...the boses and Mr. Mike with the Easter Bunny!

I didn't get the chance to take many pictures but this was one of our activities from Monday.  We sorted robots by sizes; small, medium and large after we cut them out.  Most of our robot activities were courtesy of www.1plus1plus1equals1.net  They have the neatest preschool packs that we use all the time! :)  We also traced and wrote our color words and labeld the beginning sound of our robot colors: /o/ for orange!

Our dramatic play area was also a big hit but all of the pictures I have of it in use have the kid's playing in it.  For the privacy of the kids, I'll just post those in the clasroom on our picture wall!

Thank you Aidyn for letting us borrow your books! :)

I always get pretty jazzed up about the holidays, especially now since I have a little one.  Since I'm a teacher I absolutely HAVE to go overboard (don't tell my husband)!...After searching Pinterest for what seemed like hours...literally...for a cute teacher Easter gift, I saw this idea...

Basically, you fill Easter Eggs with different types of candy and put the eggs everywhere in the classroom.  I think the original idea is to do it to your neighbors, but it was so cute and Travis' teachers loved loved loved it!...plus they got a lot of candy :)

Hung from the ceiling...



On the changing table...

Happy Easter :)

Danielle