Field trip short

So I should tell you, before we go on a field trip we review our Classroom "Expectations"  just to remind everyone what is expected of them.  We find this really helps everyone do their best while we are on a field trip.  We also bring a little key ring with a few visuals in case we need them for reminders.  It is only a little extra step that adds up to so much time and frustration saved. We usually get compliments on how well all of your children behave. :)

Today we had the opportunity to go to an special story time, but more of a storyteller event.  One of our local libraries had a childten’s Event called “Pig Out on Reading”. They allowed us to bring all 11 children 😊 and it sounded like fun.  Most of the time was spent storyteller style with “Farmer Minor” spinning his tale about how his house had been too quiet but then he and Mrs Minor brought Daisy the pig home. All the while he had Daisy pig 🐖 in a stroller on his right side and two pugs in a stroller on his left.

Some of the children thought the pig might eat them and were worried. Most were just totally enthralled with the storytelling and the fact they there was a pig.  When they learned they would get a chance to pet Daisy, most were very excited.  We lined up and waited for our turn.  Farmer Minor had told them that her hair was a little rough.  It was interesting to see their faces as they petted Daisy.  The pug puppies garnered a good bit of attention also.  After all, who doesn't like puppies.

After the field trip to the library, we returned for crock pot lasagna (my first attempt, it was a hit - none left over).  Then we dashed outside to run for just a few minutes before laying down for rest time.  They had been sitting all morning it seemed with the driving to and from the library and needed to burn off some energy.  Directly following the running, everyone was sleeping very soundly. 

As we had snack today we talked about the difference in the pig's hair and Hedgie's prickles. We talked about the possible difference I how the fur felt compared to the prickles that Hedgie has. They predicted that Hedgie would have rougher or pointier hair/spines. That was correct!  Also the pig was very big, and Hedgie is very small.  So we let Hedgie out for a little bit and took him outside to explore the bushes. 

The meals today were:

Breakfast: Cereal & Orange Wheels, Milk

Lunch:  Cheese Lasagna, Peas, Lettuce/Tomato Salad, Milk

Snack:  Animal Crackers, Bananas  

Keeping it fun

Our motto is:  "Where Fun and Learning are Child's Play".  If it isn't fun then they probably aren't learning.  So, to keep things fun, we added in some ice and penguins.  This not only allowed for fun fine motor play, it also brought questions such as "why are these penguins different?" and talking about colors, sizes, how they are different, and why they are in the different poses.  Some are for sliding, some for walking, and some for swimming. As the children played in the ice it became ice with some water, then water.  Of course we then could ask how it is different now, why is it water now, and what temperature the water is (still cold).  Then it because ocean water for the penguins to swim in. :) Not all penguins like the cold and we addressed this briefly.  We will go into more detail before the end of the week.

Hmmm, this might not be simple penguin play.....

 We purchased a book about penguins to come this week. Penguin book
The penguins we purchased were a Toob of Penguins from Amazon.  Below are the books we read today.  As you can see they are about cold weather animals and cookies, 😋 Gingerbread Friends cookies to be exact (I love Jan Brett stories!).  The children also requested The Gingerbread Kid Goes to School, another fun gingerbread story.

 The one and two year olds chose these books to be read today.  Three year olds usually choose to come to the bigger kid story time.  The one and two year olds are welcome to join the bigger children for their story time, or they can read books later.  Sometimes they aren't ready to sit for reading.  We try to allow them flexibility at the story time circle.  Sometimes it's just too distracting. 😜  Other choices for the younger children during story time are puzzles, coloring, or playroom with it's centers.  What they choose is whatever they feel like for that time.  After the afternoon snack time, Papa Joe was reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt and just happened to be at the snowstorm page when I snapped this picture.  Most of the children had gone home at this point, if they had been here they would have been at story time.  Everyone LOVES Papa Joe's reading of We're Going On A Bear Hunt!  If you need "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" for yourself you can get one on Scholastic Book Clubs or on Amazon.  Contact me if you need the group code.

We also had the centers that we are working on this week.  We also brought in the easel for chalk and magnetic letter fun.  The children used teamwork in a few of the centers, or at least more collaboration between each other while working beside each other.  The day was much more cheerful and fun with the camaraderie.  We also added 9 chains to our Super Friend Chain today with all the sweet Super Friends.

I know you can't see their faces, but boy were they proud of their hard work!

 The picture cards are working very well for the ten frame centers.

 After their centers were finished one of the things they chose was the small legos to build cars and other structures.  They worked for a long time, and brought it out in the afternoon again.  Side note, this is all girls; the boys were in the penguins/ice.

 Two of the younger children working below.  The first is doing some pre-writing.  She had noticed the older children writing their names and friends names.  The youngest below is learning about opening and closing, and pressing buttons.

The menu today was:
Breakfast:  Multigrain Cheerios, Apple Slices, and Milk
Lunch:  Beenie Weenies, Cooked Carrots, Whole Wheat Bread, Milk
Snack:  Yogurt and Bananas was replaced with Applesauce and Graham Crackers since we didn't have the yogurt we thought we did.  Sorry!

They ate the usual amounts at breakfast - at least one serving. 
At lunch we had about two servings left after multiple servings per child.  In case you are wondering the beef franks are sliced long ways, then into small sections from there so they are safe for eating.
At snack, only a few children had a little bit of graham cracker left.

January Back to PreSchool

Back to School - January

 It's January and back to school after a -what seems long - break for Christmas and New Year's holidays.  Some of the children were here during the two weeks for childcare some of the time, others not at all (VPK was on break).  Knowing they would be excited to return to schedule, yet probably lost a little ground, we wanted to have a fun day.  We used one of our music CDs to begin with morning circle time to bring in the children for fun.  All ages join us for morning circle time and/or story time as they feel comfortable and their attention span allows.  Even the youngest (not quite 1 year) joined us for circle time and drank her bottle as she watched and joined in occasionally vocalizing or pointing.

With fun in mind, we brought out some of their favorite activities as well as the new Audubon birds purchased over Christmas, and the new or replacement musical items.  FYI - cactus rain sticks are not ok to be used as drum sticks even though the children think they are. 😬  Everyone really enjoys the Frog Rasp with it's unique ribbit like sound and different tones according to where you tap.  If you would like one they are available through Amazon.  They also have a variety of cactus rain sticks.  The Audubon Birds are made by Wild Republic but we have been purchasing them through Amazon .  They make the actual bird calls, or squirrel sound, when they are squeezed.  The Purple Martin is my favorite bird call, and they are so pretty.

Find the birds - there are 8!

We began our early morning fun with big piece floor puzzles that they could complete on their own if they were up to it, or work with friends.  They worked on these for almost an hour!  Love the big piece puzzles!  Most everyone here really enjoys puzzles at whatever stage they are at.  Whether its the peg puzzles for the one year olds, the slightly more difficult puzzles for the two year olds, or the jigsaws and more for three to five year olds.  We have a great puzzle collection and use them as transition as well as open during free play and open centers.  We will be bringing in more fairy tale and nursery rhyme puzzles this month to go along with our theme.

For VPK centers we used some of the items we were using the last of VPK so they were very familiar with them and didn't have to learn a new process or skill today.  The majority of the children accomplished these centers very easily.  It was wonderful to see!

We made our own activity cards for this one to help them understand the directions.  It worked!

For this one we modified the activity so they could focus on one word at a time.  Simplifying worked!

This picture is from last week, but playdoh was ready and available also.

This picture is from right before Christmas, but we did the same activity today.  Learning to put them in sequence from top to bottom is the hardest part!  Much of what we do is learning to follow direction or rules.

Learning to lace cranberries and cheerios.  This was fun!  The 3-5 year olds laced the cranberries and cheerios.  The two year olds simply laced cheerios as they could not get the cranberries to go on.

Infant enjoying texture and trying to pour apple scented oatmeal with red and green caps as well as measuring scoops.

 Our books for today related to being safe when out and about, and about being in cold environments and being safe.

Meals today were:
Breakfast:  Bagels, oranges, milk
Lunch:  Crockpot Chicken and Sweet Potato, Broccoli and Whole Wheat Bread.
Snack:  Spaghetti noodles, Spaghetti sauce.

Thanks for reading.  If you have any questions please send an email to:  NanasLearningPost@gmail.com

Snowman and Gingerbread People Fun - Florida Style

With Christmas so close, we decided last week to focus on activities related to Christmas so everyone would be engaged and excited.  As you can see, the younger children really enjoy decorating the kids Christmas Tree, taking decorations off, and redecorating again.  I love that they will work side by side to decorate it.  Such sweet Super Friends.  

The VPK age and three year olds enjoyed playing the Build a Gingerbread Man game.  They had to wait a turn for this game, roll the dice, and then find the number of dots to know which item to add to their gingerbread man.  Waiting for a turn is a very hard task for three and four year olds.

Below are some of the learning games we put together this weekend.  You can see that they use fine motor skills to open and close the mittens glued onto clothes pins, and to attach the links on the cards for the gingerbread math activity.  Also you can see that they are using math skills to read the number, subitize (or count if necessary) the gingerbreads on the ten frame, count the gumdrops, and lastly count the cute gingerbread sticks grouped into fives.  We also have word "lights" with some of our recent sight words, and the children chose a word then choose the letters to hang up that make the word.  Each game has a visual description of how to play it so the children remember steps.  

 The Candy Cane ten frame game we just read the number, subitized or counted the candy canes, and added the appropriate number of tiny erasers to make 10.  We didn't worry about adding the number on the line to make the full equation.  We will add that part tomorrow.

Since we were talking about snowmen today, we added a few Florida (no snow) natural snowmen to talk about how many circles we needed for a snowman, and attributes of our face (eyes, nose, mouth) and body parts such as arms.  We also included a little discussion about feelings.  The white snowman is simply cork sprayed white.  We made a snowman for each child's name so they can practice putting their letters in order and the younger children get familiar with the letters in their name.  They can also practice spelling friends names if they choose to.  They are stored in envelopes with the names on the front to assist with the order of letters.

This little snowman ornament we made at our Parent's Night Out / Kid's Christmas Party.  It was easy, fun, and they had fun with it.  However, it is glass, not plastic like I thought. 😲

Everyone has still been enjoying working in the usual centers as well.  You can see the block center "under construction" as the two and three year olds are working on building.  

Sometimes in VPK we have one round of centers such as the first two on the easel on this page, then they can choose anything from the literacy or math centers.  This Sort n' Shape was her choice of free centers.

We had been seeing many bad choices.  Then we brought the "Super Friend chain" or "Helping Hand" chain back into play.  So many nice choices are encouraged by this chain!  Every time it touches the floor, we take a piece of paper out of our idea jar with something written on it.  Last week we had a trip to a fantastic Lakeland park which the children thoroughly enjoyed!  I wonder what we will get next time we have reached the floor.

We read at least 3 books every day.  Since we were going to donate last Friday at a local collection tent, we read about Howard B Wigglebottom and the

Look at these cuties!  They carried the presents in to the Holiday Tent.  They wanted to fill others full of Hope.  Then we went for a quick tour to see how they sort the items and get them ready for some one to "shop" when they come pick up their food.  In the van, almost all the way to the tent, they were singing Jingle Bells very loudly!

This is from the Parent Night Out/Kids night in.  These are melted snowmen - just hot glue with stuff stuck in for body parts.  The gingerbread cookies they had fun decorating, then ate them of course. :)

This is the youngest child that came to Parent Night Out this past week.  She was doing her job exploring and learning about shapes and dumping them on the floor. 😲 But she helps pick up now as well.