Wednesday, November 26th- (mini) Thanksgiving party!

Mixing the gingerbread dough
Playdough men

rolling out the dough

look at their walls!

Yum!

Today I planned a Thanksgiving class party, but the other half of our party (Anne, Lorien & Vanessa) wasn’t able to attend as they came down with pink eye!
We still had preschool, this time we were joined by Cyrus, Darius’s older brother, as he had the day off of school. After we went through the morning routine, we decided to still have our ‘class party’ by making gingerbread walls to be used to make gingerbread houses tomorrow after Thanksgiving dinner.
The boys had a great time rolling out the dough and cutting the walls- and with the leftovers they were able to make gingerbread men- or in Cyrus’s case a bat! It was a lot like using play dough for them- but it tasted soooo much better!
Afterwards, they continued the fun by playing with play dough & making more gingerbread men!

Monday, November 24th

Look as the north & south poles are attracted to each other:)
Darius is repelling the magnets by placing 2 of the same magnetic poles together.

Which color should I choose to decorate my hands?

Seriously Sister Cuenca, another picture?

Letter of the week “M”
Word of the day: Moat (English)

Mesa (table)

9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Talk about Thanksgiving, being grateful.

9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- coloring/writing letter. “I can read/write” Thanksgiving place mats.
10:15-11:00 Special project: Magnets!
11:00-11:15 Story time
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

Today we had a fun time learning about magnets! Darius & Lorien really caught on fast and surprised me at how much they really comprehended. I gave them each 2 magnets and they were given a variety of things to see if their magnets would pick them up- things like a pencil, fork, key chain, keys, etc...

The magnets would not pick up the keys, but could pick up the key chain, I asked them why this was & Darius was quick to reply, "because the keys to do not have iron in them and the key chain does!" It's nice to know they were paying attention:)

We also made Thanksgiving Place mats today! They traced their hands and used them as leaves on their "Thankful Tree", then we laminated the trees to use as place mats for the Holidays.

When we were at closing circle time, Darius demonstrated some dance moves he's been working on. Lorien joined in & Anne just enjoyed the show! Lorien has some crazy dance legs going on, they both of them are having a blast!

Library Day Nov 21

Circle Time: We sang our "Goodmorning song" and went out to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we came back in to figure out the date and review our words of the week.

Reading and Writing: The words we worked on were: Levy, Lick, Lid, Lie, Lift, Lily, Limp, Lion, Lip, Lisp, List, Lit, Lock, Loft, Log, Logo.

Free Craft time: Painting, coloring, cutting, play dough. I think they just painted. (We were a bit tired since we went to see Twilight at midnight that morning!)

Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, play.

Library Time: As always they had a blast listening to the stories, singing songs, and finding books to take home. One of the activites the Librarian had the kids do was to make a felt Turkey. They had lots of fun.

Lorien and Darius in front of the Bee's garden and their Hives.

Bee on Farah. Sorry Farah, this one was just too good to pass up!

Field Trip!

The Lady closed the door to the hive and they were all trying to get back in. It was cold!

Darius did a great job! What a cute Blue Lamb.

We started out with opening Circle time. We figured out the date, looked at our new words: English: Liberty, Spanish: La Leche. Then we went outside to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Words to read and write were: Leek, Left, Leg, Lend, Lens, Lend, Less, Let. They are doing so well sounding out the words and writing the letters.

Free Craft Time: Lorien and Darius painted. They were very creative. Darius painted Journey to the Center of the Earth. And Lorien drew a map to get to the Giants, and the Purple Place.

Field Trip! Yeah, it was finally time to leave! We all piled in our cars and headed out to Bear Foot Honey Farm. There was nobody in the parking lot. We went into the sparce room and the Owners mom came out in curlers and said "Just a minute!" When we all got settled inside we gathered round her and she told us about Bees. She had huge pictures to show us upclose what Bees look like. We learned that the Bees are mostly female. There are only a few male Bees. They are called Drones, they don't sting. And the woman's kids used to take them to school as pets and the teachers would get upset that they would put all the others in danger like that! I think I had more fun learning about all that then the kids! We looked at the machine they use to shake the Honey out. We tried honey right from the honey comb. We had to chew the wax and suck out the Honey and spit the wax out. Then we went outside to see the Beehives. We got to see a starter hive up close! Lorien and Darius were a bit scared in the beginning, but the lady in charge (I don't remember her name) was just so relaxed and at peace near the Bees we couldn't help but feel the same way. Some Bee's landed on us and we got to see the other Beehives out in the garden area. They plant gardens for the Bees and then let their customers pick whatever they wants. She had tomatoes at the time. We didn't need any, though. Oh, we had so much fun! We went inside and tasted honey after that. There was cinnimon, Mint Thistle, Orange Blossom and so many others! There was Honey from Texas and somewhere over Seas, I can't remember. Of course we bought some. There were honey sticks for the kids. Then we had out snack in the parking lot. (They need picknic benches) Everyone had a great time. And I don't think anyone is scared of Bees anymore. The pics we got were amazing! I'll probably have to do two posts for this one!

They leave honey out for them to gather in the Winter.

November 17th

Circle Time: Sang Good morning song. Put the date on the calendar. Said the Pledge of Allegiance. Introduced letter of the week as L. Laugh was the word of the day and Leer, which means to read in Spanish. We also talked about the Mayflower coming to America and their first Thanksgiving. I brought pictures I found online so Lorien and Darius listened intently while studying them.


Reading and Writing: Practiced writing the letter L and colored a picture of a Lamb. I had the kids read and write the following words: Lab, Lad, Lady, Lag, Lap, Lay, Lamp, Land. And for homework I gave them the following words: Lard, Lass, Last, Lava, Law, Lazy, Led, Lee. Darius had so much fun getting his homework out at the library at Cyrus' school the next day.


Free Craft time: Hermit Crab observation, Painting, playdough was put out. I also had a craft for them to do. Since Thanksgiving is next week we made Turkey Lurkey. He was made out of big feathers cut out of 12x12 paper. Lorien and Darius both told me what they were greatful for (mainly their families) and I wrote it down on the feathers they cut out. Then they decorated with macaroni, glitter and stickers. Darius helped made the body, which we glued onto a milk carton. He also helped cut out feet and a beek and a gobbler. He glued them on and put googly eyes on as well. The finished product was awesome! They really had fun with this one.


Snack Time: They were getting hungry so we decided to do snack early. They only had a couple minutes for free play time.


Reading Time: Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert, The Best Beekeeper of Lalibela by Cristina Kessler illustrated by Leonard Jenkins.


Science: We studied fire. We talked about how to put out a fire. Just a regular one, not a greace fire. So I lit the candle and they blew it out. That was one way. Then I lit it again and put the lid on it. And it went out! They learned that fire needs air to "live" just like plants and humans need air. Lorien and Darius both took turns putting the lid on the candle. Oh, and we also learned that if you see smoke coming out of a bedroom that has it's door closed, you aren't supposed to open it. That would give the smoke air, which would make the fire ignite and could hurt you really bad.


Closing Circle: We finished up the Nursery rhymes

Monday, November 10th

Leilah&Vanessa just chillin' in the USA
Lorien rolling out the dough

Darius steam rolling

Lorien mixing our secret recipe!

Darius mixing w/Cyrus supervising

Letter of the week “K”
Word of the day: Kindle (English)
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. How was your weekend? Word of the day.
What is “Thanksgiving”?
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- Trace/color. “I can read and write”, Painting. Shape picture puzzles.
10:15-11:00 Special project: Making Play dough w/glitter
11:00-11:15 Story time, “The Man Who Kept His Heart in a Bucket”
by Sonia Levinton
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

Today was a good day. I had written a lot more today, then Cyrus, my older son decided to close out the window, so everything was lost! Maybe I'll write more later if I get in the mood again. What a bummer!!!!!

Here are the words to the Thanksgiving song we learned today:

I have a turkey, big and fat.
(Make a fist with one hand-thumb Out for turkey's head)
He spreads his tail and walks like that.
(Attach "tail" by spreading Out fingers of other hand and join together)
His daily corn he would not miss.
(Poke with thumb at floor)
And when he talks, it sounds like this:
Gobble Gobble Gobble

Zap! Zing! Jellyfish!

11-7-08

9:30am, Opening Circle: Sang "Buenos Dias". Said the Pledge of Allegiance. Went over J words and reviewed Monday's and Wednesday's words of the day. Talked about being a journalist. Then we made Newspapers. I used the One Paper Book folding method that my sister Julia gave me. They started writing an article in it right away. Both Darius and Lorien drew lines and started writing "words". I taught them how to write "News" for Newspaper. We talked about it meaning North, South, East and West, like the compass they made.

9:50am, Reading and Writing: They wrote in their journals, and both decided to draw pictures of Jellyfish. They also did a great job sounding out and writing the following words: jog, jolt, joy, jump, jut, just. As always they were very eager to write the words as fast as possible. Their handwriting is improving every time we do this project.

10:00am, Free Craft/Science: So I had a craft for them to do. I had printed out pictures of Jellyfish. We talked about how big they can be. From one inch to 200 ft! It was amazing, Lorien and Darius were enraptured by the pics and the info I found. They learned that the tenticals can be very dangerous and if you get stung by the Sea Nettle, you could die! So we made our own jellyfish! Lorien and darius tried to make a cirlce out of a square piece of paper. Then they tried to punch holes in the cardstock. I helped them a lot. Then they had to tie yarn in the wholes. That was hard. Farah tried to take over Darius' project, but I wouldn't let her! So I think they both learned how to tie a knot. I helped a lot with that too. They had a lot of fun lacing the yarn through the holes. But be carefull! Those tenticles sting!

10:30am, Snack: Wash hands, eat, get ready to go to the library. . .

11:00am, Library: Barnyard was the theme today. Darius wanted to hold one of the puppet animals, Lorien got to hold the horse? I think. After story time, they rushed to find their most favorite books! Darius finally got his Pokemon book and Lorien asked for The Princess Primer book. They behaved so well today!

Jingle Jangle

(So Lorien got sick on Tuesday and I got sick on Wednesday. We rescheduled preschool for Thursday.)

11-6-08

9:30am, Opening Circle: We found the date first and I was about to go on when I remembered we needed to sing! So we sang "Good Morning", Darius said he'd write me a note to help me remember to sing the song! Then we said the Pledge of Allegiance. We reviewed old J words then went over the new ones. Juego (which means games, as in board and card games) was the Spanish word, and Journalism was our English word. We are going to be Journalists on Friday. I asked them to get their sharing things. Darius brought his car that was named Jack, he says he plays with it with Cyrus. Cyrus has his own car too that looks similar. Lorien brought her Jack-in-the-Box. She let Darius try it. He went as fast as he could.

9:50am, Reading and Writing:We practiced writing J and colored the picture of the Jellyfish. Darius asked a lot of questions about Jellyfish, so we will probably talk more about them on Friday. I had the kids read and write the following words: Jelly, Jerk, Jest, Jet, Jig and Job. They did a great job sounding out the words.

10:15am, Free Craft: Again I had something for them to do. We made wind chimes out of hangers and metal that I found at a thrift store. They turned out very beautiful. When Farah came home Darius said "You won't believe this!"

Lorien was excited to hang hers up when we got home but was dissapointed to find out we had to hang it up with the spider webs. She said "It's too pretty to hang with the spiders!"

11:00am, Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time (which they spent battling pokemon cards).

11:30am, Science: We talked about North, South, East and West. We drew our own "Compas" on paper. Then we faced in each direction and talked about what things were in what direction. For instance, Santa Claus lives in the North, Utah is in the East (Lorien was excited about that 'cause Grandpa Stolp lived there), Ocean is in the West and Penguins live in the South. We also talked about the path of the Sun. We'll go into that in more detail later. Afterwards Darius was quick to get his real compas. He was excited to find that the pointer always pointed North.

11:45am, Reading: Jake the Philharmonic Dog by Karen LeFrak Illustrations by Marcin Baranski, and Jingle the Brass by Patricia Newman pictures by Michael Chesworth.

12:00pm, Closing Circle: We sang Jolly Old St Nicolas, Jingle Bells, and Jack and Jill. Closing prayer by Lorien. Library tomorrow!

J Week!

11-3-08

9:35am, Opening Circle: We sang our opening circle song "Good Morning". Said the Pledge of Allegiance. Figured out the date. Went over letter of the week, J, word of the day, Journey, Spanish word of the day, Jugetes (which means toys). We also found a lot of J words to write on the J poster.

9:50am, History: We also talked about the first President of the United States, George Washington. Then we talked about the Election that would happen the next day. Darius was very quick to let us know that Barak Obama and John McCain were the candidates. They both had heard a lot about Prop 8 and were hoping it would pass as well, since their Mommies and Daddies had been talking so much about it.

10:05am, Reading and Writing: Since it had been raining so much we decided to stay inside and do our coloring on the kitchen table. They drew their letter J's and colored their pictures. Then I gave them the following words to read and write: Jab, Jam, Jar, Jay, Jazz, Jeep. Darius did very well reading his words. Lorien spent a little more time trying to get the right sounds. Lorien wrote her words very neatly.

10:30am, Free Craft: They didn't want to do any of the other crafting things I had out, so I had them do the project I prepared for them. They made a rainy day picture. They sprinkled water on their papers to be the rain. They were supposed to outline the drops with ink, but the ink just kept running into the water. It looked really cool! They used fabric and sticks to make their own special scene. Darius made a garden with flowers (the stems were popcicle sticks) and sparkly green grass and gold grass. Lorien made grass and a bridge made out of popcicle sticks. They had so much fun.

11:00am, Science: Since there were so many clouds in the sky we classified the clouds. I told them about all 4 types. They they drew pictures of them. Cirrus were feathery, and the highest clouds. Cumulus were the big puffy white cotton ball clouds. Stratus are just flat wide drizzly clouds, and Nimbus were the very dark grey rain clouds! We saw three of the 4 cloud types. It was great to see them draw what they saw.

11:10am, Reading: Just Another Morning by Linda Ashman illustrated by Claudio Munoz, and An Orange in January by Dianna Hutts Aston illustrated by Julie Maren.

11:30am, Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time.

12:00pm, Closing Circle: We did as many things as we could that started with J. We jumped, jogged, went on a journey, found junk (in our lunch boxes!), played with a jump rope, and last of all made jingle bell braclets and sang jingle bells. We also sang Jack and Jill. Darius was Jack and Lorien was Jill. They ran around the room while I sang. I kept telling them to try to sing, but they were having too much fun! I reminded them to bring something that started with J for show and tell on Wednesday.

More Halloween fun!

The finished product
Methodically decorating the apples

Ahoy! It's Halloween!!

Coating the apples (with Leilah supervising)

It's HALLOWEEN!

Who is smiling bigger- Lorien or her jack-o-latern?
Concentrating on his masterpiece...

...and here it is!

Every princess needs her...mexican pirate wrestler man!

Making bats at the library.

It’s party time!

What a fun time had during our first class party! So much to do in so little time! We had a fun Halloween bean bag toss game, pirate crafts that Anne headed up, and for a treat they kids made their own caramel apples! We melted the caramel in the double boiler, and then they each dipped their apples to coat. Then we brought the apples to the table where they decorated them with pirate sprinkles, M&M’s & my favorite, marshmallows! We then enjoyed a quick lunch together followed by pumpkin carving. Then off we went to the library to continue with our Halloween fun! After Halloween story time, the children did a bat craft and then received Halloween bags which contained stickers and fake spiders. What a fun filled day!

Wednesday, October 29th

Lorien enjoying her ice cream
He looks like a poster child for ice cream in a can:)

Rolling the can back & forth, with Leilah's noggin to supervise!

"my turn!"

Mixing the liquids.

Word of the day: Infamous (English)

Iglesia (Spanish)
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Sharing time. Rain forest review-
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- Journaling. Painting. Center project: Rain forest Project- Emergent trees or tracing pumpkins.
10:15-11:00 Special “I” project: making ice cream.
11:00-11:15 Story time, “I've been working on the railroad” by Nadine B. Wescott
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

What fun we had today! We began today by reviewing the rain forest concepts, and going over what we use in our daily lives that comes from the rain forest. The list was BIG!

Sharing time was a lot of fun. Darius brought his favorite (fake) iguana, and let us all pet it. Lorien brought her "Identical twins"- a couple of dolls that look the same. So cute! We then spoke of the difference between identical & fraternal twins.

After center exploration, we launched into our science project which was about liquids vs. solids. We spoke of things that are liquids (i.e., orange juice, water, apple juice, blood) and solids (i.e., the glass the orange juice comes in, the body that houses our blood, ice cubes). To reinforce this concept, I showed them a bowl of milk (with added sugar & vanilla). I then asked them what they think would happen if we were to put the milk in a baggy, and put the baggy in a can filled with ice- they were quick to say it would freeze into ice cream, which is a solid!

We proceeded to put the baggy in the can, and the children rolled it back and forth for 15 minutes. After they finished lunch we opened the can to see what became of our liquid milk & sure enough it turned into a solid bag of ice cream! They then ate their experiment. Yummmmy!