We also did a lot of harvesting both before the break and today. We have been so fortunate and our radishes, carrots, beets, lettuce, potatoes, blueberries, and peas did extremely well. Today’s harvest was the last of the carrots, the potatoes and the beets. The website will have lots of photos and the story of our garden and harvest after tonight. Next week, we will begin planting out tomato plants and get ready for the summer garden..

Stone Soup

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For the month of March,  our morning meeting every day with the children will  feature  the children sharing with each other the books they love. When the meeting is over, they can join the reading area where teachers and parent volunteers will read the many wonderful selections during choice time.

We have learned about lots of new books, everything from Sharks vs. Trains to Good Boy, Fergus. At the end of the month, I will publish a list of our new finds.

Why celebrate Dr. Seuss birthday? Firstly, it will be great fun witht Cat in the Hat and Greeen Eggs and Ham. On a broader level, Read Across America, an event that brings together Random House, publishers of the Dr. Suess books and the National Education Association  believes that “when we celebrate Dr. Seuss and reading, we send a clear message to America’s children that reading is fun and important.”

We send that message to our children every day as we read a wonderful range of children’s literature but this month we will have  another delightful way to bring books alive for our children.

Because, In Seussville,

You are never too old, too wacky, too wild

To pick up a book and read to a child.

I hope you enjoy many great books with your child this month.Tweet

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Life in the Construction Zone

Life in “construction  zone”  of our preschool is an ever changing place.   There are  a wonderful array of  building materials andtools to choose, Sawhorse and big  2’ 6” by 3’ 6”, sheets of translucent plastic are fabulous for the creation of a house or a small city.  Add towels and food and a whole village comes alive.

Moving boxes were perfect for the “burning” buildings the kids created after the fireman came to visit us.

The smaller ones morphed into  a long train that “traveled” from  one grandparent’s house to another.  Everyone took a job, conductor, ticket taker, passenger. We add the train song , “A train is a comin’, Oh yeah” as it chugged along. Many days were spent hopping in their own train car and going on another trip.

Trains haven’t been the only use for boxes. We looked over one day and noticed that  two empty boxes were wiggling  and some eyes were peeking out. The two box children ended up playing for a long time, sometimes tilting back their housing for some direct  conversation.

A few months ago we added a set of grid builders that interconnect to make different shapes . They have mirrors, holes for shapes to fit through, windows, and holes to crawl through.   At first, they were used as paths and streets for the big vehicles but lately they have seen more use as  home builders.  Their advantage is that you can create connections between building.

Our construction area has a full work table, filled with hammers, pliers, and screwdrivers and hard hats, yellow vests, and tool belts. The children enjoy putting together and taking apart not only the pretend buildings but also many things in the yard. Construction zone is one of the many areas of the preschool yard that provides children many opportunities to create and play out their great ideas.Tweet

How we take children’s interests and build our curriculum around them.

The warm weather has come and water play is in full swing. From the hose in the 8 tons of sand sandbox to the colored bottles on the science table, water is providing our children with hours of  great fun and many valuable lessons. Our preschool curriculum often develops around what is relevant and interesting to children; two things that are especially interesting right now are water and rainbows and their  colors.

Below, you can get a glimpse of how we follow through with children’s ideas ; hopefully it will offer  you some insight into how we integrate children’s interests into our curriculum over the areas of:

• science,
• art,
• literacy,
• fine motor activities,
• sensory activities.

Rainbow interest began, in part,  when we read Hawaii is a Rainbow by Stephanie Feeney, a beautiful book about Hawaii and its fabulous colors. Here are some of  the exciting things that happened after that.

The children  made bottles of water to have all of the colors of the rainbow. We put them in the window with pictures of real rainbows.

• We got out  the eyedroppers ( good small motor activity) to create rainbows and color designs on paper towels.
• That led to experimenting with the eyedroppers on different paper, including waxed paper, to see what happened.
• We layered tissue paper to create colors and see how colors changed.
• Out came the computer so we could  look at many different pictures of rainbows and talked about how they are made. We looked for the their pattern of color with a question in mind, “Do they always go red, orange, yellow, green, blue violet.” Yes! I showed the children the picture I took last Thanksgiving of a double rainbow that had a double thickness of the colors. Amazing!
• We read a  poem about rainbows.

My heart leaps when I behold

A rainbow in the sky

William Wordsworth

• On the “pretend you are at the beach day”, one of the children discovered that if you wear sunglasses with red lenses, the color of things around you change color. Everyone had to try that out.
• So we added the new colored paddles with red, yellow, and blue color gels for exploring how the things in the classroom look and if they change color.
• Outside, we set out  watercolor, tempura paint, and spray bottles filled with water and  colored paint for art exploration.
• Colored water was set out for experimenting and mixing; could  new colors be created.
• The water table was filled with colored water, tubes, and funnels. It was great fun to watch as the color water passed through the tubes and then mixed with the other color.
• We talked about the physics of force and pressure  as the water was pushed by the turkey basters through the tubes and  funneled into bottles.

• We used big water  bottles with  special connectors to create both fountain and tornado effects. Over and over the bottles were turned upside down to see the water create the vortex or send a fountain up the tube.
• A third bottle was  made mixing mineral  oil, water, and food coloring; they gave it a good  shake  and watched the oil and water combine, then separate.
• Someone asked what it would be like to mix food coloring with sand or salt, so we tried it out  to see what happens. The colors weren’t as clear as expected; the white salt did better than the beige sand.

• Using glue bottles and paper, the children made designs and sprinkled on the new colored sand and salt.

• One day, the inside tables were filled with children making flubber in a rainbow of colors. They stretched and pulled them into different shapes.

Our water and color exploration will continue along side  other curriculum ideas. Gravity looks like the next area of interest as the children were trying out a rain gutter in the big sandbox and tilting it to see what happens. Ramps for the cars and trucks will likely be very popular. Sinking and floating are also likely to be of interest when we introduce them. We will make a chart of what sinks and what floats just the way we did when we figured about what was attracted to magnets and what wasn’t.

And so it goes in preschool as one idea leads to the next. There is always something interesting to explore and to write and read about and to create in art.

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A preschool should be appealing to all of a child’s senses- visual, auditory, smell, movement, taste and touch. Children learn best through experiential learning that focuses on engaging these senses in play. They come to better  understand the nature of things when they are able to handle and manipulate them, to change their shape and form, and to experiment with how to use them.

The  sense of touch and smell got more interesting at our school  when Ty joined us. She brought with her some great recipes for sensory experiences-Each of them is easy to make and the children enjoy helping make it; then it is good for hours of fun. Tell us how you and your children like them!

NO COOK PLAYDOUGH

1 cup white flour

1/2 cup salt

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1/2 cup water

Food coloring

• Mix flour, salt, and vegetable oil in a big bowl.
• Add food coloring and scented oil to water.
• Gradually add small amounts of water until mixture is like bread dough. Add water to leftover at bottom of bowl if they are dry.
• Knead and play. We add rollers, garlic presses, cookie cutters, small pancake turners, and any other tool that you can find.

CLEAN MUD

1 Bar of Dove or Ivory Soap

1 roll of  paper toilet paper

Warm water- warm enough to melt the soap

Cheese grater

Have the children tear up the toilet paper into little bits (the smaller the better). Using a cheese grater, grate the bar of soap into a big bowl. Add the torn up toilet paper to the bowl. Add the warm water a little bit at a time  while mixing the toilet paper and the soap together. You have added enough water when the mixture begins to fell like a thick cool whip. Do not make the mixture soupy. The more you play with it the fluffier it becomes. This is so much fun for kids.

FLUBBER

(note this needs to be created in two separate bowls)

Bowl # 1

1 1/4 cup warm water

1/3 cup of Borax laundry booster

Bowl # 2

1/4 cup glue

1/2 warm water

Food coloring

• Pour mixture from bowl # 1 into bowl # 2
• Gently lift and mix (it will be sticky for the first minute or two)
• Pour off extra water so that the flubber is stretchy, not watery

CORNSTARCH GOOP

1 box or more of cornstarch

1 cup or more of water

Food coloring

This recipe is so simple but it is not one where  we can give you the  exact amount of the water.  It is so fun when it is ready.

• Pour most, but not all, of the cornstarch in a big bowl.
• Add the food coloring to the water although the goop is completely cool without the coloring.
• Slowly stir the water into the cornstarch. At first it will still have some powder but at a certain point it will be mixed.
• The consistency you are looking for is to have it feel firm to the touch when you push lightly on the top of the mixture but when you pick it up it melts through you hands. If it is watery and runs through your hands, add some more cornstarch. Play with the measurements. Once you get it, you will know and be able to find the balance with no fuss.

By itself, goop is fabulous to play with. We also put in spoons, small cups, and other tools to play with. Dinosaurs are great fun because it feels like they are stuck in tar when you push them into the goop; we put black washable tempura in the water to simulate tar.

Happy Hours of Play!Tweet

The ending was a great retelling of Green Eggs and Ham. Each child chose a book page representing one of the items in the book- a fox, a box, a mouse,a house, etc. and the parents were the “Greek”chorus- “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam I Am”. Regular family gatherings give parents a shared school experience  with their child and create opportunities for parents to know each other better. This sense of  shared community is an important part of our school.

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8::30 to 9:30 am

Come Celebrate Green at the Preschool

Parents and significant others! Please join us for a hour of celebrating green, from  art projects to our organic winter garden.We will begin the morning, wearing green clothes or accessories, with a couple of green art projects. One  project will be using the color green and the other will be using”green” materials. We will create fun sculptures using the many recycled materials we get from Trash for Teaching and other sources. There will be a  green snack including some things from our garden. The conclusion will be  children, teachers, and parents together  retelling the great Dr. Seuss  book, Green Eggs and Ham. A quick stop at the garden outside will conclude the morning event.

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