Grow Me. Grow You.

Preschool Theme: Winter.

Such a fun day. The kids are becoming such good friends and they are progressing in preschool too. We did a lot of call backs today (great attention getters) and the kids did awesome. When I say ham...you say burger. Ham...burger they all yelled. We did it with hot dogs. When I say go. When I say what? Go! they yell. When I say that word, meet me at the table. They're growing up and it just makes preschool more and more fun.

When I was younger, I loved to babysit. I had the whole babysitting kit. I made fun activities for the kids. No wonder I'm having so much fun with preschool. I asked for some preschool items for Christmas and tried them out in class today. Christmas Presents. I have to share some of my favorite gifts for Christmas...love them!! Heidi (my sister) planned out a whole lesson for me on the letter S. Including a salsa recipe the kids can make, the 5 senses, and scarecrows with each kids name on the bag. How thoughtful is that? Even if you're not a preschool teacher, what a great gift-to put together a rainy day activity kit for kids. Cds. Carleton bought me movement cds. I love them because we can just follow the music and it tells us what to do (eg. walk like an elephant, put the bean bag on your head). He bought me a circle time cd too. I think these are great for any mom wanting to have fun with their kids. One cd is called Action Songs for Preschoolers and the other is called Circle time Activities - Theme-Based and Transition Activities both by Georgiana Stewart. Heidi (my mother-in-law) gave me a fun preschool book. I'm excited to explore it.


Self-Selected Time. The kids were so excited to be together again today and had fun playing together. I picked up a Mexican Wrestling mask in Albuquerque at an outdoor market for Grant because I he loves to dress up in Apollo's so much.

The girls liked playing with the fake fruit you can cut while the boys like the train set Carleton put up.






Circle Time. The kids shared kind deeds they had done one at a time.


Art Time. We made graham cracker houses and decorated them. I think some of the kids were more interested in eating the frosting and candies than building a house:)




Academic Time. Today we celebrated letter P. I printed off this worksheet for the kids (click on the image to print one off for yourself):


Each child made squiggles with glue bottles and covered it with glitter to make a winter scene after tracing the letters. We have gone over numbers 1-10 and now, instead of celebrating a number a week, I do math time with the kids. I made a poster for the kids called How many mittens tall are you? We guessed how many mittens tall everyone would be. The kids counted out loud as we recorded our findings on a graph.




Snack and a Story. I really like these carrot packs. The kids liked them too. We also ate some of the leftover graham crackers.




Music Time. We had a lot of fun trying out my new movement cd. We passed a beanbag around as the music told us to stop, go faster, and go slower. There was a cute song that told the kids to step, run, and then told the kids to dance. This was my favorite time of preschool today. I love to see the kids bopping around having so much fun. They're stretching in this pic.




Science Experiment. We made snow today. I drew a snowman on colored paper today and let the kids color it. The "snow" paint is 1 cup salt, 3/4 cup water, and 1/2 cup flour. After mixing it together, we painted our snow scenes over the snowman. When it dries, it looks very cool-like real snow. What a great activity for kids this time of year-or even cute for on winter cards. I showed the kids some fun YouTube scenes (we don't get snow here in sunny CA) of trains going through snow, a family snowball fight, and someone jumping into a pile of snow.





Games. We played the Dr. Suess game "I Can Do That." They drew cards and had to complete funny challenges. A perfect game for this age of kids. We looked online before buying it and all the reviews were great.





Physical Fitness. All of us took apart a newspaper, crumpled it up, and taped them together. We had a great "snowball" fight outside and at the end, they made baskets in the garbage bag. We really had a blast. I couldn't throw the "snowballs" away quite yet, it will be fun to use again at least once more during another music time.




Here are some thoughts and observations from today:

Grant: I gave him the Mexican wrestling mask. He went back to it later to put it on and told me thank you for getting it for him. He is very sweet to his friends. He likes to wrestle with Jonathan and Apollo. Apollo had a big smile on his face as Grant was wrestling him today. All the other kids jumped in too and were laughing and tumbling around. Nicole had just shared with us how she had made a homeless lady a sandwich as a good deed and Grant was next and told us about the kind of sandwich he likes.

Jonathan: So sweet. He told me today "you have pretty hair." At the end of preschool, I let the kids take a turn doing a trick on the trampoline. Jonathan got on with all his confidence and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen...Jonathan" and gave a little speech; when he saw Grant today out the window he said, "There's my buddy, Grant"; he is very sweet.

Nicole: We went outside today and Nicole had everyone hold hands. She grabbed a couple hands then all the other kids wanted to join in. She told me today "I like you"-made me feel great!; She and Halley always have fun during music time. We had the pom poms out and Nicole and Halley were swishing them in each others' eyes and having so much fun. She loves the "I Can Do That Game" and did a great job. She always has a smile on her face.

Halley: She loooved the wooden fake fruit that was out today but was very concerned when the lemon was missing-she's very organized; her graham cracker house was amazing! she has an eye for beauty and is very creative; I laughed to myself as we were all sharing nice things we did for others. Jackie had left me a little note about how Halley had shared some food with her cousin because she didn't bring a snack. I reminded Halley about the story so she could tell about he kind deed but (I'm laughing right now remembering) her cousin had drank out of her (Halley's) water and Halley was not happy about that; Jonathan had messed up her hair, she said, "Jonathan pulled my pretty hair. My mom did it this morning"; she's so funny because she comes to preschool seemingly so shy but don't let that fool you-she is full of spunk and fun. She told me today, "I'm going to marry Donny". I asked her to wait at least twenty years:)

Donny: He needed some help in the bathroom. He told me "I like going to your bathroom. It looks nice"; the kids were eating bear cracker cookies and he said "those cookies are spicy"; I asked the kids what they got for Christmas and Donny replied "Everything. I got lots of presents"-lucky kid to get everything for Christmas.

Apollo: When we had to cancel preschool last week he was bummed. When he started feeling better he said "I feel better, now the preschool kids can come over"; he had a lot of fun making the house today; he makes preschool so fun because he loves everything we do; I always tell the kids we're going to do a new activity or shout "New Activity" when we move on. The other day at home he said, "Can we do an activity" instead of can we play a game, or just play what ever.