Just the Beginning to a Crazy Week

Goodness! I can’t believe it’s Tuesday night already. The last two days have flown by. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the visitors and phone calls I’ve had the last couple of days. I swear that phone is going to ring itself out one of these days.

A good chunk of time was spent on hearing and vision screenings on Monday. I’m grateful these services can be offered at SON Shine. It is incredibly beneficial to catch hearing and vision problems early! In general, the children just thought it was a lot of fun to be out of the classroom (we were in the Fellowship Hall) and to be playing “games” with new people. They had a great time. (Plus, they got stickers. I think I’ve said it before, but giving a preschooler a sticker is like offering them a lifetime of happiness.) While they weren’t being screened, they spent some time drawing and writing at the table. 

Today, we were back to our hard work on our bodies. We’re almost done! One more day on each body and we should be good to go. Here’s what our bodies look like now:

Morning:

Afternoon:

 

I had the kiddos do some interviews today. My hope was for them to practice a few social skills (using nice voices while talking and listening to each other), writing skills, and letter-sound correspondence through writing. We worked as a small group to pick out three questions they wanted to ask their classmates. Then, I sent them off with clipboards and pens to find the answers. They looked so grown up as they conducted their interviews. Asking all the questions and writing down their answers – they looked like adults. The really cool thing about this was how they decided to forego returning to their centers so they could continue the interview process instead! 

 

Next Tuesday is Kindergarten Round-Up. (Seriously?!? How did that happen? We just started school yesterday, right?!?) Preschoolers who will head over to the big school next year will come to SON Shine just like a normal day. I’ll walk the children across the street and stay with them during the Round-Up process. We’ll be back at SON Shine for you to pick them up there at the end of their class. If your preschooler normally comes on Tuesday/Thursday but will not be headed to the big school next year, you will have a day off from school on Tuesday – Enjoy!

Please remember to sign up for a time to help out at our tip day on March 10. Again, you can sign up for as little or as much time as you have available. Thank you, in advance for your time! I am so grateful to have so many fabulous families at SON Shine!

Construction Underway

We have been loving building our bodies this week! Hopefully, we'll have them completed by the end of next week, and I cannot wait to share them with you.

The morning class started work on their body by creating a brain on Wednesday. We talked about how the brain is the boss of our bodies and it tells our bodies how to move and what to do to accomplish different tasks. We also spent some time examining various pictures of brains to determine what our brain should look like. Here's what they came up with:

They rolled play dough into "worms" and squished them all together to make:

the brain, which we put inside this plastic skull.

On Wednesday, the morning class worked on their legs. We ran out of PVC pipe while working on our second leg, so we taped two together. This led them to come up with the idea that their person had broken a leg, so we put a cast (made of a sponge and some gauze) on it. While we did this, we talked about how broken bones are fixed. Here are their legs:

The afternoon class decided to make the skeleton of their body first. We started out making the arms and collar bone on Wednesday. Then we added hips and legs on Thursday.

Emma, who brought a bunch of sponges to share, was determined to use her sponges on Thursday too, so we did some brainstorming about what we could use them for. Eventually, they decided to use the sponges to make the brain. First, though, they needed to paint them, because the brain is not yellow or green. 

 After the girls painted the sponges red, they scrunched them all together and we tied them together using some string. Of course, since the string was white, it needed to be painted too. Here's the finished brain:

We'll continue this project next week, and hopefully, we'll be finished by Thursday. I'm hoping to have full skeletons, with some organs (heart, lungs, etc.). We'll see what the kiddos have in mind first though!

Here's a look at some other things we did this week:

We made pattern bracelets:

We made Puff Corn Balls with Jodie:

We also did some finger painting and, of course, continued our construction in the block center.

Just a reminder: Our vision and hearing screenings are on Monday (or Tuesday for those who come on Tuesday and Thursday). If you haven't brought in your consent forms, please bring them in on Monday! Thanks!

Also, we are having a tip day at Pizza Ranch on March 10 from 11-8. I want to encourage everyone to sign up for a shift to help out with this day. You can sign up for just one hour or for as many hours as you would like. We're planning to use this money to update our play ground!

Building Our Own Bodies

We have been hard at work learning about our bodies. It has been fun to watch the children pick up on the different organs and what they do. I'm hoping to combine all of this knowledge into a group project in which the children create a body out of recycled materials. We did some brainstorming today to come up with what the body should have and how to make each organ/body part. Here's our list:

I sent home a note with the afternoon class (I'll send one with the morning class tomorrow. I forgot to write it up during the morning class. Oops!) asking families to send in any materials they might find useful. I can't wait to see what the children bring to add to our body. Thank you ahead of time for all of your donations. I'm hoping to start our construction tomorrow.

The kiddos' favorite way to explore the body is in our clinic in the dramatic play center. They have been exploring many different social roles in this center including doctor, nurse, parent, patient, and receptionist. The babies have come in handy these last couple of days, and the children have been acting as parents to sick children. It cracks me up how caring they can be as they act as parents, and how mean (giving multiple shots and performing surgeries) they can be as they act as doctors. I even had one child who "took out the heart and the bones" today.

(sometimes I join in too)

The children have been absolutely in love with the parachute these last couple of weeks. I've been introducing new games throughout our gross motor time, and the kiddos have been having a blast. Their favorite activity of all is called Air Conditioner. Two children go under the parachute, lay down, and close their eyes. The rest of the kids move the parachute up and down to fan the children off. This is the activity we do to cool down at the end of our gross motor time, and the kiddos have started asking to do it whenever they feel hot.

The zoo building is still happening in full force. Each zoo is different than the day before, and I love to watch the creativity and imagination happening throughout that process. The afternoon class especially has been dedicated to this process. They even have their favorite animals, which they have named, and they work very hard to make the houses for those animals better than ever. Here's an example from today:

I'm really excited to start building our bodies! It should be a great chance for the children to show what they know!

Perfect Preschool Valentine's Day

We had such a great time celebrating Valentine's Day! We started our celebration on Monday by reading a couple of books and decorating the bags we used to collect our valentines. In the last year and a half, I have discovered that stickers are the secret to a child's happiness. I had some cute valentine-themed stickers, so I let the kiddos use them to decorate their bags. Their reactions were precious! They were in love.

After the valentines bags were created, many of the kiddos spent endless amounts of time making all kinds of heart art. They used heart-shaped doilies and other art supplies, including glitter, to make their creations. Needless to say, every surface in our classroom is covered in glitter now! The greatest thing about preschool is having a daily opportunity to watch how they think as they create a project. To the average person, looking at the projects the children made might not mean too much. Watching them make their creations, though, is a more enlightening experience. For example, one of my friends, worked on the same project for over a half hour on Tuesday. She spent a ton of time looking through the collage materials to pick out exactly what she needed. Then she carefully positioned each piece on her paper and glued them all down. Then, she added some color by painting a few objects. Finally, she added her glitter. She talked to me the whole time she worked - telling me exactly what she was doing and why. Preschoolers have deep thoughts and make meaningful decisions everyday, and I love that I have a chance to encourage those processes! (In other words, the glitter is totally worth it!)

On Tuesday, we started the day by passing out our valentines. They were all so excited to have something for everyone! It was fun to watch them show off their valentines.

We did all the normal stuff on Tuesday (i.e. circle time, playing in interest areas, gross motor play, faith time), but we worked in some special Valentine's day times too. We read the cutest Valentine's day book, Froggy's First Kiss. The children laughed the entire time. Before I read the story, I told them how funny I thought the book was and how I hoped they would laugh. When we finished, one of my friends said, "You were right, Mrs. Hansen! That book is funny!" 

We also made some special Valentine's day peanut butter and jelly roll-ups for snack. (Thanks for the idea Missy!) They loved them!

We ended the day by opening our valentines. The children were all so grateful and happy about their treats. Many of the children thanked each person as they opened their valentines. It was the sweetest thing to see!

If someone had told me five years ago that my favorite celebration as a teacher would be Valentine's day, I probably would have laughed. Now, I  realize there is nothing more precious than watching children show each other how much they love and appreciate each other. 

On that note, I promise the next post won't be nearly as sappy as this one. :) 

Skeletons and Obstacle Courses

So, as I mentioned in the newsletter and briefly in the last post, we are working on a study of the human body right now. The kids have been really getting into it so far! This week was our exploration week, so I borrowed a skeleton and a couple of models from the high school for the children to look at. They had so much to say about them, and they wanted to examine every part of them. I even had to get a step stool for them at one point, so they could examine the skeleton's head. 

We talked a bit about bones and organs this week too. We tried to put together our own skeleton using a felt board, which led to many great conversations about how our bodies are put together and how many bones we might have. We also played around with where our organs are found in our bodies. My favorite guess was that our lungs are in our legs!

Since we are talking about our bodies, I designed an obstacle course for the children to run through in order to explore the different ways our bodies can move. They started out on a balance beam:

did a couple somersaults:

crawled through a tunnel:

hopped over some hoops:

and took a ride on a scooter:

The kiddos had a great time with this, and I'm sure this will be something I'll pull out again for them.

I'm looking forward to our Valentine's Day party on Tuesday. Your child brought home a class list on Thursday, so if you decide to send valentines with your child you can use this list to address them.

I forgot to mention in our newsletter that we will not have school on Monday, February 20 following the LMCS school calendar!

Have a great weekend!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

It's over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our verification visit happened yesterday and today, and from what I hear, the verifiers were very pleased with what they saw! I'm so grateful for all the support I have received from parents and other adults at Salem, the school, and the AEA throughout this whole process! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I left my camera at school today, so I can't add any pictures tonight. I did want to give you just a sample of some of the things that made me smile this week.

1. While I was watching/helping some kiddos work on a zoo in the block center, one of my friends collapsed into my lap and said, "Mrs. Hansen, I'm going to sit right next to you, because I never want to leave you." At this point, my heart melted and I nearly started to cry. (I blame the tears on the overwhelming ups and downs I've experienced with the verification process the last couple of days.)
2. My morning friends made some pretty cool pipe cleaner sculptures on Monday, and we hung them from the ceiling to decorate the classroom. When the verifiers walked in this morning, one of my friends walked right up to them, pointed to her sculpture, and said, "Look!" She was so, very proud of her sculpture. The verifiers made a big deal of it, and she walked away with a gigantic smile on her face.
3. We have had a review week during Faith Time this week, so we've been rereading some of bible stories we have read since we came back from Christmas break. We were talking about the story in which Jesus calms the storm, and one of my friends remembered the words Jesus said to make the storm go away: Peace. Be still. When she remembered these words, another kiddo said, "Yup! Those were the magic words!"
4. The children have been exploring a skeleton I borrowed from the high school biology teacher. It has been fun to watch how they've interacted with the skeleton. This afternoon, I was playing a game with a friend in the toys and games area when she noticed that one of my morning friends left a present in the skeleton. Sitting on the skeleton's right hip was a plastic lizard. We laughed and laughed at this! There is nothing more out of place than a plastic lizard on a skeleton's hip.

As I mentioned, I am so grateful this verification process is over, and I cannot wait to focus my attention on teaching once again! If there's anything I learned from this week, it's that the children I get to see everyday are precious and wonderful in many, many ways, and I am truly blessed to have them in my life. I'll give you another update on Friday!

Snowmen and Scrambled Eggs

Thank you all for bearing with me as I prepare for this verification visit. What a crazy, crazy time this is! As you know, I got a sub for today and worked on various files and portfolios throughout the day. I have got to tell you: it is torture to be away from the kiddos (especially when I can hear them laughing and having a good time and I'm doing paperwork....). I thoroughly missed them, and I cannot wait to be back to teaching next week.

I wanted to give you just a brief update of some of the things we've done recently. Yesterday was a blast and a half. The children had so much fun going outside and playing in the snow. Snowman building was the greatest fun! The kiddos laughed and laughed as they rolled gigantic snowballs and tried to pick them up (phenomenal gross motor experience, by the way!). They ended up making about five preschool-sized snowman throughout the day.

We also had a super fun time cooking with Jodie yesterday. We made scrambled eggs and the children all got to crack an egg. Most of them are actually pretty good at this, which surprised me! Then, they got to use an old hand-powered mixer to scramble them up. I think this was definitely a favorite cooking experience for them!

We finished up our animal study this week, and next week, we'll beginning a study of the human body. Since the preschoolers love to move so much, they'll love learning about why and how their bodies move the way they do.

Hopefully, after Tuesday, I'll be able to give you a much more in depth review of what we've been up to. Thank you, again, for hanging in there with me!

Have a fantastic weekend!