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.   

Little Leprechauns

Our sweet 2s celebrated St. Patrick's day on Thursday!  

There were lots of tiny leprechauns running around Sunshine Day School!

Community Helpers

Our community helper unit is always enhanced when special guests come to preschool to share with us about their  jobs.  The Rainbow 4s had several special guests in February and March.  On this day Anna Grace's mom, who is nurse manager of the NICU at NHRMC, stopped by to talk with the children.  

 She shared with the children some of the tools that she uses at her job.  

 

 I love how a few days later the children are incorporating what they learned into their play.  

So nice to have you Nurse Brandi!  You are making a difference both in and out of the NICU.  I see a whole new generation of nurses being inspired by you!

The Little Red Hen

Our 4s have been enjoying the story of The Little Red Hen this week. In response to reading this good farm story, we decided to bake our own bread.  We didn't grow our own wheat, or take it to the mill, but we did mix and bake it ourselves.  In addition to increasing our vocabulary with words like "wheat", "thresh", "mill", "flour", and "yeast", we also practiced building comprehension by sequencing the parts of the story.  Each child made a picture book that detailed what happened first, second, third, and fourth.  Now they can retell this classic story to their families at home.

 We started with warm water, it needed to be 100 degrees to make the yeast grow.

 Then we added the yeast and sugar.  

 We were able to see a really neat reaction happening in our bowl!

 We added the flour and stirred and stirred.

 Finally, we let our bread rest and rise.  We set the timer for 25 minutes.

 While we waited for the rising to happen, we had a volunteer to wash the dishes.  The next time the Little Red hen wants to bake bread, she should come to SDS, because we have lots of friends that would want to help her!

Thank you to Savannah for taking this picture of me putting the bread in the oven.  I think she did a great job.  She also caught some good pictures of Goldie that I will include next.  Her photography skills really made me think about having a camera in the classroom for the children to use to photograph things they find notable throughout the day.  I can think of several things that they could have photographed today: a pretty bird  at our bird feeder, a very cool block structure, and they even could have photographed the steps that we took to bake our bread.  The trick is going to be finding a good, child-friendly digital camera.  I will have to start looking.  

A Wishy Washy Day

 This week preschool has been full with the sounds of the farm!  We read this book about Mrs. Wishy Washy, and her farm animals friends.  In the story Mrs. Wishy Washy makes the animals take a bath and they get mad at her.  They decide to leave and find a better place to live.  They end up lost in the city.  Never fear though, Mrs. Wishy Washy saves the day!  She drives to the city in her old farm truck and brings them back to the farm.  The only thing left to do it give them another bath!

Our 3s gave our school farm animals a bath.

 I loved all of the good conversation that I heard during this play.  The children talked about the different animals that they were "scrubbing".  They talked about their colors and sizes.  And best of all, I heard them mimicking  fun language from the story.  

Soon they requested a towel to dry the animals...I should have thought of that!

Washing the farm animals was so much fun, that we ended up washing all the animals from the block center, including the pets.  This guinea pig appreciated his bath too! 

 We left the water out throughout the morning, giving many children the opportunity to explore the materials.

 A fun day on the farm... This baby is really lucky that she didn't end up in the tub!

Art Show!

Wow!  What an evening we had at Sunshine Day School!  We were super excited to see everyone at the 2nd Annual SDS Art Show.  Thank you for your unwavering support of our school and our little artists!  Thank  you also to the Mimis, Nona's, Poppies, Aunts, Uncles, friends and family members who came see what we have been up to so far this year at preschool.  We treasure each opportunity that we have to get to know your families.  Please enjoy a few photos from this special night.  

Special thanks to Hope at Art of Hope for helping us display our artwork. Please be sure and see her on Main Street!  Thank you also to Mrs. Renee', Mrs. Jill, Miss Ashley, Mrs. Regina, and Mrs.Vera for helping us get all set up.  It couldn't' have been done without you!  Finally, thank you to Biggie for making that delicious punch!