Jugando con la naturaleza. Having fun with nature

 Spring is the air! We all can see the changes around us, flowers blooming, green trees waking up, bees, birds, and sunny days. 

A couple of years ago a bird built it nest on a tree by my window, my kids and I enjoyed watching the way the bird took care of the nest and laid the eggs and feed the little birds. When they left the nest we carefully removed it from the branch and I have kept it since then. 

I brought it to preschool so my little friends could actually see a real nest (nido), they observed it and were fascinated with all the things the bird used to built the nest. 

Something that I don' t understand just yet is how could a bird know what to use? Interesting!

Well I shared with the children a book called " More" and after that we went on a nest hunt, the children collected grass, rocks, yarn, twigs, paper, anything to built their own little nest.

It was so much fun!

 " Un pajarito, lindo y chiquito

Un pajarito con un piquito,

Come, come,come gusanitos,

Come, come, come gusanitos"

I was not planning for this...but it turned to be and awesome literacy activity

 

As part of my lesson I was going to teach the children a new song

" Una linda abejita" which is the Spanish version of  " I am bringing home a baby bumble bee"

As soon as I started to sing a little girl raised her hand and said " I know that song in English" and she started to sing her version of the song. At the end she said " That is the end of my story"

Then I said  " You guys would like to hear my story?" 

Suddenly after I was done singing a bunch of little hands were raised wanted it to share their stories. What an amazing activity, the children were laughing from the silly versions of their songs, they practiced their listening skills, language, creative thinking and also waited for their turn to come to the front of the class and sing, all of these with out having to ask anything Wow! 

At the end I asked them if they wanted to make a picture of their story and I could not resist to wrote down what they came up with. They were all super excited to share with their families.

Rainbows and Leprechauns

 !

Layers of colors to form a rainbow. The children used colored rice and spoons. So cute!

The kids  made a rainbow using paper plates and cotton balls to form a cloud, and then with paper crepe they formed their colorful rainbow.

After reading a story about  leprechauns, I asked the children to think where would they hide their gold if they were a leprechaun. They came up with fantastic drawings and great stories.

The children practiced number recognition by playing this game. They had to roll the dice and then covered the number. I used plastic covers and dry erase markers to use the pages over and over.

Another math activity. Children tried to put together a leprechaun by choosing the pieces according to the number on the dice. 

Best play dough ever!

Found this recipe for play dough and honestly it is super easy to make.

The following day I brought it to the preschool and the kids were very engaged rolling, cutting,and molding it. Because it was Monsters week they came up with these cool monsters.  I gave them wiggly eyes and pipe cleaners and they did the rest. Love to give them opportunities to use their imagination and creativity. Check it out.

1cup flour

1cup water

1/4 salt

2tsp cream of tartar

1tbs oil

Kool- aid

Mix all of the dry ingredients, cook on medium heat, stir until it forms a ball. Knead it until is soft.

Fine motor skills activities

"Fine motor" refers to the development of small muscle movements of the hands. Fine motor skills develop as your child's whole body gains mobility, stability, cognitive and emotional/social development.

One of the most challenging things a preschooler has to learn is to control his little hands, fingers, brain, eyes, and make it work all at the same time. We don't know how we got to master it, but now we are experts in holding a pencil, cutting, grabbing tiny pieces of paper, etc.
 Last week I planned a bunch of fun activities to give my friends the opportunity to practice, and practice and practice their fine motor skills and eye- hand coordination.

First the children had to tear the paper into little pieces, and then grabbed each piece and paste it on their duck.

For this activity I colored rice in different colors and the children had to filled up a cup  using a spoon. They had to count 5 spoons of each color, at the end they form a rainbow with different layers of colors.

I gave the children paint and q-tips to follow  around the silhouette. Dot, dot,dot.

Free play with shave cream on the table. 

I put a towel over the table and then gave the children a thumbtacks to poke all around the edge of the snail. Poke,poke,poke...

I gave stickers to the children to form caterpillars by counting and recognizing the numerals. They worked hard peeling those stickers.

Practicing letters

Last week was our "Transportation theme week" and beside doing lots of fun things with my little friends like we always do, I had a writing center in the morning ready for them.I printed a cute page I found with cars on it and simply slipped it into a page protector, I had some dry erase markers and letters.This center really sparked the interested in writing practice. I usually have alphabet puzzles, sand, and other types of hands on activities for the children to learn the letters but this new idea was really a hit.Some of them  are really good at forming letters and some are still writing letter-like symbols, but I told them to do the best they can and they did. 

Polar bear craft

"Puffy paint polar bear" 

For this craft we used shaving cream, white glue, blue construction paper, wiggle eyes and black construction paper for the nose.

It is very fun to paint with this mix, at one point one little girl said "Miss Aymee, it feels like marshmallows". She started using her fingers to paint and was really engaged investigating.