The Coolest Thing Ever!

Okay, I’m going to do two posts today. One to show what happened during preschool hours on Wednesday and Thursday, and one to share all the fun we had at our Read-A-Thon.

On Wednesday, I introduced the kiddos to water beads (A.K.A The Coolest Thing Ever!). Water beads are a polymer crystal that absorbs water and gels similar to gelatin; this polymer is the same substance found in diapers. They are traditionally used for floral arrangements, but they are a ton to explore in preschool too! They come in many different colors, and we made four different colors. The really cool thing about clear water beads is how they disappear if you put them in water. When we began interest areas, I had all of the clear water beads hiding in a tub of water. I asked the kids if there was anything in the water, and, of course, they looked at me like I had seven heads because obviously there wasn’t anything in the water. They were so surprised when they reached their hands into the water and came out with handfuls of water beads.

After they explored for a while, they helped me make yellow, blue, and purple beads. The only frustrating thing was they had to wait until the next day to see the colored beads since they take 4-6 hours to rehydrate. 

 

We also had a great time making Orange Banana Smoothies with Jodie on Wednesday! The kids get so excited about cooking days; they ask me almost everyday if today is a cooking day. 

On Thursday, we made our own watercolor paints. Not only was this a great literacy (following the recipe) and math (measuring and counting) activity, but it was a great lesson on colors. I only let the kids use red, blue, and yellow food coloring for the paints, but I told them we were going to make purple, green, and orange colors too. They had to guess which colors to mix together to make these colors. Sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong, but every time they were excited about the new color they had made.

During small group time this week, we’ve been working on our counting skills and our letter recognition skills. On Monday, the counting group played a game called Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. They drew a card to find out how many guests they would have for dinner, and then they worked together to set the table for their guests. On Thursday, they played a game with water beads. They were given a cup with a number written on it, and they needed to put the correct number of beads into their cup.

The letter recognition group went fishing for letters (buried in water beads) on Monday and learned some letter songs to help them remember what the letters look like and what sounds they make on Thursday.

Overall, we had another fantastic week at SON Shine!