February 21st, 2014

After Valentines, my classroom began our new unit on the Arctic.  We'll be examining the animals that live there, the habitat, the Inuit people, igloos and the Northern Lights.  To start, over the course of 3 days this week, my students all helped construct an igloo out of sugar cubes.

Our finished product looked almost like the real thing, right?  :)














This week we also viewed many beautiful photographs of Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights.  While perhaps we didn't discuss geomagnetic storms in the earth's magnetospere, the children did understand that this phenomenon can occasionally be seen in the arctic.  This picture was our favorite since it included the light show and an igloo.

To celebrate, we made our own Northern Lights.  We mixed various shades of greens, blues, purples and yellows.  Then, we rolled them out. 

This week we also learned that M is for Mops!

This is how we mop the floor, mop the floor, mop the floor...

We finger-painted M's in shaving cream, and we fished out M-objects in our surprise boxes.

Meanwhile, in Ms. Rebecca's classroom, they enjoyed some quality time in their library!

We love preschool!

February 14th, 2014

Happy Valentines Day!!!  This morning, just for our viewing pleasure, a plane drew a heart in the sky as we walked in from recess.  Thank you, heart plane!

This week we visited our favorite place, the Grossmont Gardens Retirement Community.  We sang Valentines songs, worked on art crafts, and decorated cupcakes.  It was a wonderful time that has been cherished by the residents.  In fact, we plan on visiting for the 3rd time around Easter.

"Decorating the cupcakes was my favorite part!"

This week we also prepared for Valentines.

These are my hands. 

My hands will do

A thousand loving things with you
And you will remember
When I am tall
That once my hands
Were just this small.

On the 14th, we passed out our Valentines cards...

 ...we decorated cookies and had a Valentines party!

We all had fun!

We love preschool!

February 7th, 2014

Coming back to school Monday, the 3rd, we celebrated a belated Groundhog Day.  We learned about the annual tradition and then watched the video from the devoted website, groundhog.org

In Phil's own words:
"A Super Bowl winner I will not predict, but my weather forecast you cannot contradict.  Why that's not a football but my shadow I see.  Six more weeks of winter it must be."

Six more weeks of 65-70° San Diego weather will be difficult to bear, but we did make groundhog day hats to commemorate the holiday.  

On Monday, we marked another special event.  Miss Kim's class opened this week for the younger 3-year-old's!  This is our 4th classroom launched due to our increased enrollment, a very happy occasion indeed!








This week we got straight to the business of love. 



















We learned that the letter Ll is for the story of the lion and the lamb.  What better lesson in love?















We made handprints...













...we made handprint hearts.












 We painted pictures of our loved ones, too.  

Sons of Diocese

We love preschool!


  

January 31st, 2014

We had a super exciting Monday morning when the Union Tribune recorded their weather reports live from the playground and from inside my classroom!  To see the video, click on the link: Union Tribune Kids Weather Report

 Whether they were on camera or watched the report from a distance (there were a few that were camera shy), all agreed that it was a lot of fun!  Weather reporter, Monica, was wonderful with the children and she seemed to enjoy it as much as they did.

  

Later, in Ms. Rebecca's class, some of the students had fun re-creating the event.

Fame, and arriving at school before 6:30am, isn't easy.

Earlier in the week with Miss Gabriella, the students were introduced to their new members of the classroom, an ant colony.  This is actually a fascinating little thing to watch over the course of a week. 

In my class, we planted wheatgrass seeds to watch grow.

When the wheatgrass was ready, we juiced it.  Oddly enough, not one student enjoyed drinking it.

This week we learned that the letter K is for Karate Kick (a definite favorite)...

...and kangaroo!

We made a fresh batch of playdough, and then constructed letter K's.

 We have fun in preschool!

January 17th, 2014

Continuing to learn about weather, we focused on clouds and rain this week.  After reading Sometimes It Looked Like Spilt Milk, each child finger-painted their own clouds with a shaving cream and glue mixture.

"Sometimes my cloud looks like an elephant and a zookeeper".

"Sometimes my cloud looks like a clown telling funny jokes".

We also are learning about rain and experimented with water vapors this week.  Using a jar partly filled with warm water, we closed off the top with a plate filled with ice cubes.  As the steam rose, it collected on the sides and dripped back down, similar to the earth's water cycle.

Science is always fun!

In Ms. Rebecca's 2-year-old classroom, they experimented with mixing shades of blue.  Then they painted their snowflakes!

We learned that J is for Jaguar.

And j is for jellybeans!

Towards the end of the week, we examined some of the concepts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work... on a preschool level.  In my class, we focused on God's love for everyone, friendship, and kindness. 

(

(To the Tune of BINGO)

There was a man
Who was a friend
He preached love and kindness
Mar-tin-Luth-er-King
Mar-tin-Luth-er-King
Mar-tin-Luth-er-King
He was a gentle man.

I love teaching preschool and making these songs up!

We're good friends in preschool!

January 10th, 2014

We came back from our Christmas vacation ready to learn!  We started a new theme for January focusing on weather and, in my classroom, we created a water tornado out of recycled soda bottles. 











Living in San Diego, it's difficult to understand snow.  So, we made a sensory bin of a polymer blend InstaSnow.  It squishes, it packs... it's room temperature.  The children (and the teacher) have a great time with this!


















In Miss Gabriella's class, they learned that the letter I is for Ice.  They had a wonderful time freezing different color ice cubes.  The next day, they "painted" their letter I's with the ice.

Back in my class, we've been studying triangles.  We've also been practicing cutting with scissors.  To combine the two talents, we made origami snowflakes.  Oddly enough, no two were alike. :) 
















Later, they served as the dot in our lower case i-icicle.











Totally unrelated, we also learned that I is for Iguana.

We have fun in preschool!