Flower Painting

It is not spring at preschool if I don't go home with a pocket full of dandelions each day!  Our sweet children love to pick them and give them to us.  Today we decided to make use of the lovely flowers growing on our playground and paint with them.

 First, we gathered the flowers.

 We found many different kinds.

 Then we sorted them by color.  Yellow, white, purple, and green.

 Then it was time to paint.

 The children really seemed to like this outdoor fun.

 Some used one color, some used all of the colors.

 Not everyone wanted to paint, but most did.  

 It was interesting to watch the children explore the different textures of the flowers, and how they marked the paper.

 Such a fun and easy way to paint together.  

Beautiful!

Community Potato Project

Thank goodness that Windsor got an IPad for Christmas, and doesn't mind sharing with me!  It has been very cool to use this teaching tool in the classroom.  Today we used it to show the children how we were going to plant our community project, potato towers.  We talked with the children about how how even though they may live in the city, you can still have a garden.  Our potato towers are a neat way of gardening vertically.  I showed them a website that detailed how to do this step-by-step.  

 Here Mrs. Regina is showing the children the eyes of the potato, and teaching them how to plant them so they are "looking out".  

Mrs. Renee talked with the children about about how God created everything, and how we are thankful for the good things he gave us to enjoy.  

Then we went out to do our planting.

 These girls are looking for the "eyes".

 We filled the towers with alternating layers of compost and potatoes.  

 We lined the towers with straw to keep the moisture in.

 Then we gave the towers a good drink of water.

 We topped each one off with some flowers, just to add a little color to our play ground.  

 Working in the garden can be messy!

It was another great day at preschool, working in the garden.  We learned new words, compost, evaporation, germinate, cylinder, and lots more. We got our hands dirty and will hopefully soon see the results of our hard work.  If all goes as planned, we should have about 50 pounds of potatoes to harvest this summer/fall!

Here is a link to our project idea:

 http://urbanfarmerseward.posterous.com/potato-towers-and-living-fence-posts

Growing Vegetable Soup...Part 2

 Today it was the Rainbow 4s turn to work in the garden. 

They planted many root vegetables including radishes, onions, and carrots.  

 They also helped plant the pole beans that will run up our garden tepee.  

 Working in the garden is hard work, especially when it is so hot, so early. 

This little fellow decided he would do his planing on the go!  He just didn't have time to stop!  I Love it :)

Growing Vegetable Soup, Part 1

Today was gardening day for our Sunshine 4s.  

 We prepped the ground, using real garden tools.

 We added new soil...

 And spread it all around.

 Then we made a plan for how we wanted our garden to look.

 We planted tomatoes...

 peppers, onions, and corn.

 Finally, we gave everything a good drink.

Thank you Mary, Susan, and Ashley for your help in the garden today!  It was hot.  Tomorrow, the Sunshine and Rainbow 4s will be planting our potato towers, at about 9:30.  During recess, between 11 and 12, the Rainbow 4s will plant their garden.  They will be planting radishes, carrots, and peas.  The peas will grow on a tepee, which will make a very cool garden structure.  Join us! 

Look Who is Hopping Through our Garden!

Today our 2s planted strawberry plants in our garden. 

These little bunnies were practicing hopping, a very tricky thing to do when you are 2 or 3!

Great job!

Time to water the strawberries!

Community Rainbow

This community project is a teacher's dream!  At every step of the way, children were actively engaged, working at their own pace, achieving their own specific objectives.  

 To start with, I placed scissors, magazines, and sorting bowls on the table for open exploration with our 3s.

 At this point in the year, I am more comfortable with 3s using scissors somewhat independently.  We are still practicing how to hold them, and use them efficiently, but they have the safety stuff down.  3s really need this time to "practice" scissor work.  Free cutting in magazines provides just this opportuity, without any unnecessary pressure of cutting on lines.  Just cut!

 

Adding the sorting bowls provided an extra challenge for the children.  After they cut, I asked them to sort the items by color.  Asking them to sort also gave them a purpose for the cutting. 

 Before the cutting commenced, I settled on the carpet to draw our rainbow template.  Before long, I had attracted a crowd!  I was excited that they were so interested in the project, they were willing to leave their centers.  Our subject this week is weather, and rainbows are a perfect tie in to St. Patrick's Day.  We talked about the order of the colors, and how rainbows are formed.  

 Then the fun began.  As you can see, they did so well with this.  It was a team project all the way.  They worked in waves.  Some stayed a while, some went back and forth.  Most importantly, they shared the glue, helped one another, and cooperated so nicely.  

 Before long, we were able to see that we needed to find more red, yellow, and orange.  Now I was able to add an another skill to the basket!  Sending them back to the magazines to look for specific colors, created an opportunity to practice visual discrimination skills.  

 Perhaps the most surprising thing to me was what happened when the 4s came to school the next day...

 They wanted to help finish the project!  I was a wonderful opportunity to extend the learning to a new class, and offer them the same learning opportunities.  

If you look closely here, you can see that one of my clever 3s decided that since I had not included a space for white things on the rainbow, that they would glue the white pieces on the extra paper around the rainbow.  Now, if that is not good thinking I don't know what it!   I would have bee easy to just peel those off as a mistake, but when I asked the child what he was doing, he had a very good explanation.

I love that I am learning right alongside these children.  I could not have imagined all the learning opportunities that would come from this simple "art project".  As you can see it is so much more.