Take Flight

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it. – Peter Pan

Every year around this time my class becomes obsessed with flight. They talk about it, they try to do it, they draw it. Their entire day seems to become centered around flight.  This year is no different. A lot of my kids this year are more technical, scientific, and hands on as opposed to my class last year that dreamed of fairies and caring for birds.  

Lego planes are quite popular with boys and girls! 

 

 Our recycled art is taking off too! They have found ways to use old cardboard and marker lids to create planes and space satilights. 

 

  

  The block center is being used to make gigantic satelights that are ready for orbit.   

Even the fish aren’t exempt… 

 

“Miss Amber the fish aren’t swimming they are flying through the water!”

-Miss Amber

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

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

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

Reading and Working across America

The morning started off with a lot of excitement! Our good friend and librarian, Miss DonnaMarie came to read to us for Read Across America! She brought her friend Sister Bear from the Berenstain Bears book series! It was a real treat and the kids loved her ! 



After our friends left my class decided they would like to build a city with skyscrapers and elevators!  So we started about the importance of teamwork and they all worked on a blueprint.



The they started their work.  one child thought it would be safer to wear a hard hat!  







Rub-a-dub three girls in a tub!?  Just kidding ! This actually became an “antique clock” .







-Miss Amber

Pizzazz

Even the pizza has pizzazz around here. With a giant pizza box found in the recycling bin, the children made their own pizza with toppings, sauce and crust. Maybe not edible, but a blast to make all the same….

Winter Wonderland

It has been quite snowy in Virginia lately. Most of the public schools have been called off for nearly two weeks, but we’ve been trucking along at Miss Amy’s ! The children absolutely love the snow and we have been venturing out as much as possible. This is possible because each child brings appropriate clothing: snow pants/bibs, waterproof gloves, snow boots, and warm coats, and hats.

Helping the children put on all of their winter wear is no easy task, but it’s worth it. We have a blast !

Teaching 4 and 5 year olds to sled is one of my favorite parts of winter!

There might have been a little well a lot of snow eating !

– Miss Amber

Love is in the Air!

It’s “love week” so we have been celebrating and preparing for our Valentine’s Party on Friday. At Miss Amy’s we always like to let the children share their thoughts and ideas, at party time this is no different. Some things we can accommodate, others not so much. Here is their list for the party. Can you guess what was cut ?

The children have been very interested in baking the past couple of weeks. So they will be baking muffins for the party. They are so excited about that! I also mixed up some chocolate playdoh for them to experiment with. They love the scent!

We have also started on our valentines. Each child makes one valentine to put into our Valentine Box. Then on party day they each get to pick one super special handmade valentine out of the box. In preschool love is friendship, and there is a whole lot of love here ! – Miss Amber

We are all different

The best part of my job is getting to know the children that I teach. Each child learns at their own pace. They each have their own learning style. I have to observe them close enough to recognize that style and then put it into practice. It can be a challenge in preschool !

Many of the children in my class are still enjoying working with melty beads. I love to watch them work with these because it takes a lot of skill and concentration.

Some children make a plan before starting. They are very organized, work slowly, and typically enjoy making patterns.

For other children the melty beads are more about bright colors and fun and less about structure . They don’t necessarily have a plan. They grab mounds of beads and see what looks right in the moment.

Two very different approaches to the same task. It might also surprise you to learn the children pictured above are twins! Learning is different for everyone.

Here are a few other pictures of our melty bead projects. Keep in mind some of these took hours to make !

– Miss Amber