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.  

                             

Children's art

Process:  It's all about the engagement, the exploration, the experiment. Process is an open-ended experience. It's you and the media and there are no right or wrong answers. It's  go with the flow and  see what happens. It's quite possibly messy. Even TOTALLY messy! 

This week we learned all about penguins and polar bears, we had a lot of fun playing with snow, paint, numbers and books. Something that I really enjoy a lot is having art as part of our class. Here are some samples of what we did and the children's final products using their creativity  and not a pattern. Enjoy!

Literacy in the classroom

Story time is one of my favorite activities of the day. Having all of my little friends sitting in front of me, waiting to see what new story we are about to read is priceless. I love asking them questions about the story, and listen to their very clever answers. Today we read  "The mitten" by Jan Brett  in Spanish is "El miton" and the children were laughing so hard imaging all the little creatures getting inside a mitten. We pretended to be the animals in the story by getting one by one under a white bed sheet that I placed on the floor. One of the kids was pretending to be the bear at the end of the story, so when he sneezed all of the kids ran out  in all directions from under the  bed sheet. It was so funny! Later I saw two of them retelling the story to each other. What a fun day!

Fun pics from last month

 Learning and growing together is so wonderful. At My Happy Preschool we learned through play and hands on activities all the time. Look at our pics!

Cutting skills

How exciting is to begin a new year with new ideas and lots of fun things to share with my little friends. Today I had a cutting center inviting children to come and see what I was doing. The first reaction of course was "OHH"  Can I try? I love when children are interested in trying new things, and get curious about it. At the beginning it was hard to learn how to fold the paper, and then trying to cut through several layers, but at the end they did great and the most amazing. thing was that every single paper snowflake was different just like they are different and special. 
 " I did it all by my self " said one of the girls when her mom arrived to pick her up. What a great activity to help the children with their cutting skills and with their self esteem

Our Learning Enviroment

Amazing me week!

Today we invited the children to write their own names on their paper. Many of the children cannot actually write their own name yet and others are already well on their way. But as each child begins to get in the habit of writing his or her own name on their art work or "making their mark", soon their name will begin to take shape but for now, any mark they make is just perfect.

Colors Week

Colors are all around us. We used cereal this time to incorporate different skills such as sorting, counting, gluing and more. This was a very fun learning experience plus the children learn their colors in english and spanish. Try it at home!

Los colores estan a nuestro alrededor. Esta vez utilizamos cereal para incorporar diferentes areas de aprendizaje como clasificar, contar, probar, pegar, escribir y aprender los colores en ingles y espanol. Intentalo en casa!

BACK To SCHOOL

Classes starting soon, enroll your Child today!

One of our Favorite Weeks

Health Week

Dinosaur Week

Window Murals

I found this idea in a cute website, I tried it with my preschool children and they absolutely love it and enjoy it.

The activity was so much fun and promoted lots of open- ended creativity.  It's clean and reusable too. I cut out shapes in different colors, and children arrange them any way they wanted to. At one point we run out shapes and they cut out some more.  Children were able to easily stick the pieces to the window by dipping them in a plate of water first. painting . What a fun day!!

One of my favorite activities at preschool is cooking. Today we read the the story of "The little red hen". Children were so engaged after we sang, and reacted the story. We also made bread, yes! we made bread, the children were able to copy the recipe and helped me add on all of the ingredients. By doing this they were able to recognize quantities, count, follow instructions, wait for their turn, connect preview knowledge with real events. It was a great lesson!! Children loved it!