Preschool Theme: Monsters


Circle Time. We had a fun array of books to read today. We read Where the Wild Things Are during circle time along with our other normal activities.


Art Time. Monsters. The kids made monsters out of gloves using fabric paint, googly eyes, yarn (for hair), pipe cleaners, and glitter puff paint. They loved making it and are having fun wearing them. I got this from the Family Fun Magazine (my all time favorite).


Academic Time. Click on the image below to print the W water page the kids traced. I wrote their names at the top so they could trace them too.


Math Time. We made monsters with different amounts of body parts-2 noses, 6 ears, 5 eyes, 4 arms etc.


Snack and a Story. We had Watermelon with Waffles to celebrate letter W. We read another monster book afterward.

Music time. Go here to see the video the kids watched and sang along. They looooved it and asked me to play it again and again. there are some great songs at supersimplesongs.com. I put "She's a monster by Neo" while we all danced and acted like monsters.


Science Experiment. We looked at all our eggs that we had put in various liquids last week. Don't read any further if you don't want to know the results (I didn't know and I'm glad I didn't-it made it more fun). I was just excited as the kids and would note the difference every day. The little scientists took copious notes. The egg in vinegar soaked in the liquid and got big and squishy and we popped it (yes, popped the egg) and it squirted out. Halley kept saying-"it's peeing". There were big reactions with the other eggs too. We put them in root beer, red dye, lemon juice, vinegar, and milk.



Game. Monster. Different kids took turns being the "monster" as the others races back and forth to the "safe" couches. Physical Fitness. We all jumped rope. Donny was an expert.

Homefun: The kids need a little help holding their scissors (we've done a couple scissor activities) so I found a monster for them to cut out and bring back next week. Click here to print out a cut monster cut out activity.



Grant: Grant said about the blueberry waffles, "I like blueberries" and Apollo followed up with "I like the Boom Boom Pow"; He was so concerned that Halley hadn't come with him this morning and asked her why she didn't come; He is always cracking jokes and has the funniest things to say-I need a pen and paper just to follow him around because I wish I could remember them all to have for the blogs.

Jonathan: He loves to play and loves to be outside-he had so much fun running around with the jump ropes and kept asking me to grab on and chase him-I got a little workout; he was so happy to celebrate his birthday with his friends last week and someone (I can't remember who) asked when we were going to have cupcakes today. The kids favorite thing to do today was to ask to smell the eggs then say act disgusted.

Nicole: She walked by Apollo and gave him a hug and said, "Love you"-she is always very loving to everyone; Nicole asked where Annie was today (always so thoughtful) and I said she is not old enough for preschool. Apollo replied "She can't remember the tings (that's how he says things)"; We sang a song "Go Away Scary Monster, Go Away" so as the women came to pick up the kids she would sing that to them-funny".

Halley: She had fun pretending to be a monster; Halley looooved playing our monster game at the end of preschool-she had fun being chased but also did great as the monster trying to get everyone else; she likes everything we do in preschool and is such a gets into each activity (she's not always a fan of my snacks...not even of watermelon but loved the blueberry waffles); always funny and always fun to have.

Donny: He was an awesome jump-roper!! He is athletically talented. He showed Apollo how to do it. I said around...down...jump. He was copied exactly what I said and picked it up right away. He likes anything related to sports or physical fitness and is good at it; Donny was very helpful today and picked up all the pens without even being asked.

Apollo: He is verybig on detail and his Ws looked amazing today. He and Donny took their monster gloves to scare Katie when we went to pick up Annie-they were so excited; He had a lot of fun during all the songs today and really enjoyed dancing, singing, and doing the hand motions today; he asked for our "Beaver Time" song first thing after Hokey Pokey this morning.

Preschool Theme: Farm Animals

Happy Birthday, Jonathan.





Circle Time. The kids showed off their names they traced. All so very proud.

Art Time. Traced farm animals. I bought these for preschool. The kids practiced tracing and we talked about which animals we see at a farm and which we see at the zoo.

Pig Nose.
Materials needed: Yarn, egg carton, black marker, pink paint

Directions: Cut the egg carton bottoms (the part the eggs sit in) into its twelve sections. Let the children paint it and put the nostrils on it. Next attach string to both sides (staple or punch holes and tie) and the kids have cute pig noses.

Academic Time. Celebrate letter V. We practiced drawing letter Vs on dry erase boards (I got the ones with lines on them). For a change, we went outside on a bench.
Math Time. Click here to print out this fishbowl.








Snack and Story. Bears in yogurt.

Music Time. We acted like different animals to the music.


Animals on the Farm (tune of Wheels on the Bus)

The pigs on the farm go oink. . .oink. . .oink
Oink. . .oink. . .oink, oink. . .oink. . .oink
The pigs on the farm go oink. . .oink. . .oink
All night long

The sheep on the farm go bah. . .bah . . Bah
Bah. . Bah . . Bah, bah. . Bah . . Bah
The sheep on the farm go bah. . Bah . . Bah
All night long

The cows on the farm go moo. . .moo. . Moo
Moo. . Moo . Moo, moo. . Moo . Moo
The cows on the farm go moo. . Moo . Moo
All night long

The ducks on the farm go quack. . .quack. . . quack
Quack. . Quack . . quack, quack. . Quack . . quack
The ducks on the farm go quack. . Quack . . quack
All night long

Mary Had a Little Lamb

This is the way we. . .

This is the way we plant the hay
plant the hay, plant the hay
This is the way we plant the hay so early in the morning

This is the way we feed the chickens
Feed the chickens, feed the chickens
This is the way we feed the chickens so early in the morning.

This is the way we chop the wood
chop the wood, chop the wood
This is the way we chop the wood so early in the morning

This is the way we milk the cows
Milk the cows, milk the cows
This is the way we milk the cows so early in the morning

Science Experiment.

What happens to the eggs?

Get several raw eggs and place them into different liquids (we did rootbeer, vinegar, red dyed water, lemon juice, and milk). I wrote down the guesses as to what the kids thought would happen to each egg (we'll take a look at them next week). milk: G-explode, H-crack Root beer: J-explode Lemon Juice: G-explode Vinegar: G-explode Red: Explode, D-turn red



For our second science experiment, we put little capsules in hot water and they grew to be farm animals (thanks Aviana).


Games. I played farm animals sounds (googled to find them) and had the kids guess what they were.

Preschool Theme: Valentine's





Art Time. Mailboxes.The kids brought mailboxes for their Valentine's cards so we decorated them with butterflies, candy hearts, glitter, stamps, stickers, puff paint, colored pens, decorative scissors, and confetti.



Valentine Ornaments. The kids dipped different colors of yarn (about 1 ft each) in a mixture of water and glue. I sprayed Valentine cookie cutters and aluminum foil. They put the cookie cutters on the foil and the string inside them. They didn't come out quite as expected, but still fun. Next time I would use bigger and more simple cookie cutters.


Academic Time. The kids traced the letter U. There was a hum of them saying doooown up dooooown up as they traced their "U"s. On the other side, they circles pictures that started with letter "U".

Snack and a Story. The kids made blueberry muffins.

Music Time. I put a song in each heart for the kids to draw.




Here are the kiddos dancing.

Valentine Exchange.


Loved Donny's card. It was of him looking like he was holding a lollipop (I wasn't fast enough to take a picture before Apollo took his off). Donny colored all of them.



Science Experiment. We played with some sticky goop called Gazzet while we reviewed what we did for the day.

Random Thoughts:

Grant: Grant asked to do the timer for quiet reading time but I told him that he had done it last week and that Apollo had asked last week to do it this time. A lot of kids would be bummed by that-not Grant (an unconquerable spirit) instead he yelled out to Apollo after he finished the timer, "WAY TO GO APOLLO!"; I noticed he encouraged others on and lifted them throughout the class.

Jonathan: During self selected time Halley and Jonathan had so much fun crawling around the room being tigers; he loves to goof and play around and the others kids love to play and goof around with him; he still is always polite and says "excuse me".

Nicole: She tells me almost every week that she loves "Miss Robyn"; she loooves crafting and really liked the Valentine ornaments and could have stayed there all day dipping the yarn in the glue and making shapes.

Halley: I told the kids "Your moms and dad will really like your mailboxes". Halley said (in a low voice mimicking her dad's) "I really like it, but where are all the princesses?" She had covered up her princess box with the decorations she put on.

Donny: he's very well rounded, likes learning, loves his buddies, great disposition, very pleasant and fun to have in class; he saw that kids got to choose hearts during music time if they were dancing or doing what we were doing-he danced his little heart out, he wanted a heart so bad...it was so so cute.

Apollo: He is very detailed about his tracing and worksheets so a lot of times I have to tell him we'll work on things later; he didn't like getting messy with the glue and was glad when he could clean his hands and go on to the next activity; he looks forward to preschool every week.