Eggstravaganza

In preschool holidays are a big deal! Easter is one of my favorite  to celebrate with my class. They are always so excited for the Easter egg hunt. This year is no different. We started our festivities by dyeing eggs. Each year we try to come up with a new approach to egg coloring, this year it was kool aid !  Most of the colors turned out vibrant and the kids absolutely loved the smell!  

We boil a lot of eggs, this is only half!

We gave the children paint shirts and FREEDOM!  Some children chose to drip colors on to their eggs , some kids submerged their eggs, and others poured their dye on. It wasn’t too messy but you could tell those who got in all over from those who didn’t ! 

   

  

I noticed most hands were dye free by the next day :). And the eggs? Beautiful! 

   

We sent them home in tiny nests! 

 

 

Our egg hunt will be tomorrow with PLASTIC eggs!  

-Miss Amber

Advertisement

Our morning of “Miss Janet Day”

As I came into work on Wednesday morning I was greeted by a few of my friends with big hugs and big “Hello’s ” and that will most definitely make my morning great. Once I got all settled in and ready for my morning to start my friend Elianna ask me if I knew what day it was.  I ask her what it was and she yelled ” Miss Janet Day ” (I was not expecting that reply) and it was Miss Janet Day.   Miss Janet teaches our Music Together class on Wednesday’s, music is one of Elianna’s favorite classes.  We had fun singing, dancing and playing various types of instruments. We finished up with music and then headed outside to enjoy the beautiful sunny Spring morning!

A few of the girls took turns shooting hoops and they did a great job of it.  They actually made several baskets,  there were times that the ball went other places  instead of in the hoops, like on top of their heads, but they had a blast anyway.

After our outside time we came back in for circle time. First some of the boys and girls sat around the table and looked at books.

Then when Miss Maria was ready for our circle time we gathered all of our classes together to sit on the rug. We start with our ” Days of the week ” song.

When we figure out what day of the week it is Miss Maria will pick someone to change the day on the calendar.

Then we all count to see what the date is.

She has another child add the number on the calendar.  They all want it to be their turn to change the calendar and most do fine when they don’t get picked but of course there are a few that will be upset if they aren’t picked.  The changing of the calendar is one of their most favorite things to do and they will sometimes take turns being the “teacher” and do the calendar with a few of their friends.
We had a few mintues left before lunch so Miss Maria read a couple of books to them.

Then off to wash our hands and enjoy our lunches!!

Miss Susie

A day in the life of a preschool teacher.

Today I fought imaginary fires next to the Fire Chief and I was trusted to carry the fire hose in the back of my school bus.

I was given a lesson in the art of fighting monsters, and afterwards I was presented with half of a magical sword!

I built LEGO airplanes that in the real world would never even have taken off, but which in the imaginary world flew like eagles!

I had exotic pretend sandwiches made with cucumber and cow hide, followed by ‘savage’ cupcakes!

I was told numerous jokes by a little girl on her porcelain throne, because she was so excited about having stayed dry all day long!

I have holes in the knees of my pants, and now you know why.♡

Have a wonderful weekend. Always remember to use your imagination!

– Miss Maria

Growing

Here at Miss Amy’s we have been enjoying the warm weather. We’ve all got Spring Fever!  The children (and teachers) are more than excited to start getting their hands dirty on the playground.  

We have signed up for the Grow Your Own project which is a food access program.  The program was created by Appalachian Sustainable Development . Their goal is to grow food, communities and opportunities to build a thriving Appalachia. They have been successful with this too, last year they grew 14,000 pounds of food to feed families in our region!  We are thrilled to be a part of the program and the children are eager to map out our garden spots! 

We are still waiting  for our new grass to take root ( 8 more days) ,  but we just couldn’t wait to get our hands on it.  So we brought in a roll of sod a.k.a “the grass burrito” and we inspected the roots with our magnifying glasses. 

  Then we rolled out our grass and enjoyed! It’s been a year since the kids touched new, growing grass. It was WONDERFUL!  

-Miss Amber

Spring is in the air!

Lucky

I have been giving my class creative ‘writing’ prompts since the beginning of the school year, we call it Morning Message. I pick a different child each day to tell me their message and I write it for them. I started doing this because there was so many random statements at the beginning of circle time. It stayed random for the first couple of months, my kids had the floor to say whatever was on their minds. Then it started to get redundant, everyone started saying, “One day I went…”, so I started giving them more structured prompts to think about. This month’s prompt has been my favorite so far. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I chose  ” I feel lucky when…” .

Here are some responses:
“…I get a new purple toothbrush!” – Erica
“…it’s my birthday!” – Ryan
“…My mom is with me.” – Blake
  “…I go outside and it’s Summer time!” – Lily
“…I go to my mom’s office.” – Raleigh

My students love Morning Message because they have so much to share. The prompts help promote creative thinking and language development. They aren’t thinking about those things though. They just like being heard.
– Miss Amber

Art du Jour

Mondays can be manic, especially in a creative space. The children have so much energy, so many ideas, so many emotions coming back to school after the weekend. Today in our atelier, though it looked like an explosion had happened, many things came into being from a variety of materials.

We have been using cardboard extensively, purposefully and beautifully. Egg cartons, cereal boxes and bottle tops have all been upcycled into new objects. Today, there was the freight train:   :

The play dough space station:

The boomerang:

And a beautiful painting:

Simply providing opportunity by way of  space, materials, and a wee bit of freedom is enough for young children to imagine, create and give meaning to their world.

-Miss Lori

An unbirthday.

“An unbirthday (originally written un-birthday) is an event that is typically celebrated on any or all of the 364 or 365 days in which it is not the person’s birthday.
It is a neologism  coined by Lewis Carroll in his Through the Looking Glass, giving rise to “The Unbirthday Song” in the 1951 Disney animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.” [Wikipedia]

Today I celebrated my unbirthday, not my real birthday, but a bonus one that one of the children in my class presented me with. She made me a cake. It smelled so good! She put candles on it and asked me to blow them out, but then she suddenly remembered that when you have a birthday, someone is supposed to sing to you! She looked around for someone who could sing with her and spotted a little girl who did not turn two years old  all that long ago. My cake making friend tried to make her two-year-old friend sing, but the two-year-old just gave her a sort of blank look, before she took off to play somewhere else…
The birthday planner was by now very frustrated. She told me that she couldn’t remember how the Happy Birthday song went! I suggested that I sing it with her but she quickly told me that I couldn’t sing it because it was my birthday!
I tried to defuse the situation by suggesting that we cut the cake and eat some. As I was attempting to pass a slice of cake to her, she suddenly exclaimed; “No, it’s hot!”
She took the plate with my pretend cake on it and stomped away with it towards the play kitchen. When she was half way there, she stopped, turned around and came back to me. Looking very serious, she said; “And that’s the end of your birthday!”

Working at a preschool/day care center, there are many unbirthdays in a week and hundreds in a year!! Summertime is an especially popular time for unbirthdays, when it is easy to whip up an unbirthday cake in the sandbox.
With the arrival of warmer weather I am looking forward to many more unbirthdays!

Happy Unbirthday to you all!

– Miss Maria

3 year old artist’s

I personally think my 3 year old’s are very artistic!  They each have their very own ideas and it is so fun to find out what they are drawing. Especially when I have no clue what it is, but once they tell me I have an “aha” moment! A few of my 3’s are still in the scribbling stage and I have some that are in the preschematic stage where they begin to connect what they draw to the physical world around them.  Their circles and lines will describe people or objects that are present in their life. They figure out they can communicate through their drawings. Here are a few drawings  I have gathered the past couple of days. Enjoy!

Miss Susie

Everything Old is New Again

My class is still very busy building and creating 3D art. They are all so creative!  Our art room and school is stocked with recycled materials. We always offer an array of materials. They always amaze me with what they come up with.

Many of the children started making rocket ships. The top ship was made of paper towel tubes, tape strips, and a few stickers. Oh and don’t forget , imagination! The other rocket is mostly made from blocks. Some grinding stones were used as decoration. The black pieces you see are the launch pads for the rockets. They are end pieces to old blueprint tubes. 



Another child made a robot, everything is recycled except for the google eyes! 

   

-Miss Amber