Our PreSchool Blog

Our little scientists discovered what happens when when you try to mix oil and water.  Using scientific predictions, the boys and girls made a tally chart of who thought the two would mix, and who thought it wouldn’t mix.  We first poured in our water, ten food coloring, glitter and oil.  While the children were shaking the bottles, they thought it was mixing, but found that once it settled, they separated.  To best describe how oil and water separate, we used magnets and their poles (ie, north repels north, south repels south).  Feeling the force field between the two poles gave a more hands on, concrete explanation as to why oil and water don’t mix.  We then went back to our predictions and found that most of the children predicted that the oil and water would not mix.

Love is in the air this week…especially in the form of counting and patterning Hershey Kisses!  Using an ABABAB pattern the children helped create and extend our red-purple-red-purple pattern.  Next, we practiced counting numbers eight through fourteen by picking a number, then counting out the corresponding number of Hershey Kisses.

Touching on social studies, the boys and girls created their very own Australian flag! The blue represents vigilance, truth and loyalty.  The white stands for peace and honesty.  The red stands for bravery and strength.  The boys and girls did an excellent job creating these works of art!

How do you create a memorable experience?  By writing letters and numbers using shaving cream!  The boys and girls had an ooey gooey time using their pre-writing skills to create the letters Y, Z and T, along with numbers 2, 3 and 4.

Happy Valentine’s Day!  These little heart breakers had a love-filled morning with our Valentine activities.  Using our color recognition and sorting skills, the boys and girls sorted their very own box of candy hearts on their candy heart graphs.  Ask your little valentine how all of the hearts were sorted.  The children then had the opportunity to pass out their Valentine’s to each child.  The boys and girls really enjoyed celebrating friendships!

Focusing on the letter Y, the children thought of words that began with that letter, such as yellow, yo-yo, yesterday and yarn.  Using some of our Y words, the children then make their own Y yarn creations.  Writing the Y in glue and the outlining it in yarn is excellent letter formation practice, while working on the letter sound.

We started off our week on a healthy note!  These little chefs really got into the cooking mode while chopping and mixing a delicious Aussie Rice Salad.  It wouldn’t be complete without sampling a little taste of our ingredients along the way.  Using fresh red peppers, onions, cilantro, corn and peas, the children were able to add more or less of what they liked.  This is a recommended recipe to all!

Aussie Rice Salad

-3 cups jasmine rice, cooked

-1/2 cup peas

-1 onion, chopped

-1 small can corn

-1 red pepper, diced

-bacon bits

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon mayonaise

1 tablespoon allspice

1 tablespoon fresh cilantro or coriander

Today the children sharpened their scissor skills while cutting out the waves of the ocean.  These tricky turns helped reinforce how to turn the paper to get into difficult spots.  Holding their hands closer to the portion of the paper that is being cut helps with motor control as well.  Creating their own ocean scene challenged their motor skills!

As we travel through The Great Barrier Reef this month, we will be discovering sea life of all kinds.  Today, the children put their fine motor skills to work while creating starfish and designing their own fish from The Great Barrier Reef.  Fingertips were in full gear while positioning glue and sand just right to make a star.  Next, the boys and girls practiced their pencil grip while uncovering color on their very own scratch fish.

While introducing the letter T, the boys and girls practiced their counting and letter recognition.  We brainstormed words that begin with T: tooth, toe, ten and tire, just to name a few, then the children came up and found a specific number and assigned it to a letter T.  Practicing our double digit letter recognition proved to an excellent exercise!