March is off to a great start! From rainbow art, to counting gold coins.. St. Patrick’s Day lessons are in full swing!
We had a blast this week celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday! Each day we chose one of his books to focus our lessons and snacks around. These books included: Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax, Wacky Wednesday, Hop on Pop, and The Cat in the Hat.
Monday: Horton Hears a Who
We made our own snack to represent the clover Horton carries!
Tuesday: The Lorax
We planted green bean seeds in our Lorax cups!
Fine motor truffula trees
Truffula seeds (aka Trix cereal) for snack!
Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday
The kids and teachers dressed “wacky” for the day, even the classroom was “wacky”!
Coloring under the tables… How wacky!
“Wacking” specific letters with a fly swatter!
Wacky Wednesday snack: jell-o that appears to be red koolaid! We tricked them all!
Thursday: Hop on Pop
We practiced our rhyming skills by hopping on words that rhymed and trying to pop the bubble wrap!
Popcorn snack!
Friday: Cat in the Hat
Dr. Seuss sensory tubs!
The PM Preschool class had fun gearing up for Valentines Day this year! Our lessons were themed specifically for this special holiday!
The kids used their fine motor skills to tear up pieces of paper and glue them into the hearts for this Valentines Day craft, “I love you to pieces”.
Pancakes for snack in our pajamas for letter “P” week! What a fun day!
Making Valentine bracelets and working those fine motor skills!
Building letters with candy hearts (yes we were able to eat a few)!
Valentines Day “sense of hearing” lesson. The children closed their eyes and shook one egg at a time. They had to make their best predictions of what was inside!
Math and fine motor collide in the next number ordering activity!
We have stayed busy in the PM Preschool room this winter! From acting out winter literature, to learning about arctic animals… the kids are having a blast and of course, learning a lot!
Arctic animal bingo!
We focused in on the penguin for our science day! The kids learned that penguins have a layer of blubber to keep them warm. To help them understand this concept, we did an experiment to show the kids what blubber feels like for the penguins! We had two ice cold bowls of water. One bowl had a bag of coconut oil in it, to act as the blubber. They put one hand in each bowl and decided that the bowl with pretend blubber kept them warmer!
We then put a block between our legs so we could waddle like penguins!
We counted goldfish into the penguins belly’s!
5 Little Snowmen Readers Theatre!
Building shapes and open ended creations with toothpicks and marshmallows.
Letter building with “O” shaped cereal
Getting ready to count and build our towers
Getting our bodies involved on a cold winter day, with a gross motor shape hunt!
Melted snowman art!
Counting out “snowballs” with tongs for a fine motor addition!
Hand Strength and cutting practice
Leading up to our class Thanksgiving feast, we talked all about how the first Thanksgiving came about!
We discussed that the Pilgrims came to America on the Mayflower and met the Indians who taught them how to hunt and farm in the Spring time. At the end of their harvest they had a feast to celebrate their hard work and new found friendship. We brought this all back to the student’s own lives and how it connected to their Thanksgiving today. As a class, we decided that the holiday was based around appreciation and being thankful for what we have 🙂 We made a list of what we were most thankful for on the board following this exercise.
To help us better understand the story of Thanksgiving, we retold it together as we created a symbolic necklace. Each colored bead on the string symbolized a part of the story. The kids had fun making the necklaces and it helped them to remember the story in a unique way! We sent a key home to parents so they could talk about the Thanksgiving necklaces outside of the classroom.
Just like the Pilgrims and Indians, we prepped our food for our feast!
And then we got to enjoy it together!!
We had a blast with our November farm theme in Preschool/Preschool Prep! Below the students are washing the “mud” (brown paint) off of the pigs to reveal a letter to identify!
The Preschool class acted out the story “I Spy on the Farm”. It was a fun and interactive way to retell the story step by step.
After reading “Chicka Chika Boom Boom”, we collected leaves outside that had letters on them and we created our own fall version of the alphabet tree!
Practicing our cutting skills by giving the trolls a haircut!
Matching letters to the correct beginning sounds
Measuring with nonstandard objects
Fine motor fun!
Counting our way through Preschool!
The farm theme has provided some fun center options and activities in the toddler room.
The toddler sensory bin filled with corn kernels and farm animals.
A horse barn has provided a fun place for imaginary play.
We used our sense of hearing to listen to the farm animal sounds!
We have practiced fine motor skills while lacing farm animals!
Fun farm animal magnets were mixed with letters to provide discussion.
Another sensory activity included washing big and little farm animals.
We sorted farm animals by size (big and little) and by color.
Then we acted out our book of the month, I Spy On the Farm, with face puppets.
The Creative Tots Halloween Party was a blast! A special snack, crafts, and games made our classroom celebration lots of fun!
We practiced the fine motor skill of scooping to make a ghost to take home.
We played a ghost game of throwing the ghost into a basket.
Our bat hat craft was a big hit amongst the toddlers! The children added eyes and fangs. They had fun checking themselves out in the mirror.
There were some fun costumes this year too! Lions, and pandas, and donuts…oh my!
Class pictures are always a fun challenge!
Everyone received a fun yummy treat to take home. Trick or treat!
Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate… We have had so much fun with this little song. We did an art project with pumpkin stickers, read several book versions, put 5 pumpkins on the magnet board, and acted the song out. We also made yummy pumpkin muffins, decorated mini pumpkins with washi tape, and played hot pumpkin (a version of hot potato). Our sensory bin for the month has been pumpkin seeds with scoops and tins to “make pumpkin pie”. We also plan to use all of our senses to explore the outside and inside of a pumpkin! Happy orange October!
Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
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