The Z Was Zapped

Today during circle time, we read The Z Was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg. The kids absolutely loved it. I think several of them would have been happy if I'd just read it over and over for the rest of class! I would definitely recommend checking this one out from the library and reading it at home. If you haven't read the rest of Chris Van Allsburg's books, you need to check him out. For us adults, his artwork is beautiful. For the kids, he is so creative and writes in a way that helps the kids use their imaginations.

Here is another of my favorites from him:

Also, for those that had their fingers crossed for our plants, we have success! As of today, all our plants have sprouted! The radishes are doing really well. I might even have to thin them out to get some decent sized ones.

More Farm Fun

Due to our shortened week and our Grandparent's Day craft (which took much longer than anticipated), we took some extra time last week for the letter C and reviewed what we have learned so far. The kids loved playing with the playdough!

We continued learning about seeds by observing different fruits and veggies, looking at where their seeds are and how they grow. We then got some extra gluing practice by gluing all the red things we could find onto some tomatoes.

We also used some of the fruits and veggies that we looked at to paint pictures with! Cauliflower and green beans were the favorite painting tools. We were having so much fun that I didn't get any pictures taken while they were working, sorry!

We ended our seed week by reading about The Little Red Hen. The kids were not impressed by how rude her friends were, so we made our own bread to show how they could be much better helpers than the animals in the book! We threshed our own wheat, ground it and made it into rolls. They turned out pretty yummy!

We even made our own butter, which was apparently very hard work!

The kids made their own story wheels of The Little Red Hen while we took turns shaking the butter. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my brads that I thought were with the rest of my school supplies, so we skipped that part. A couple kids just drew a picture of a brad on their wheels!

I wanted to add a note here about my philosophy of preschool, just in case you were wondering. During preschool we do a lot of exploring and playing with the things we are learning about and  then the kids do a worksheet or a craft to take home. I try to let the kids do these on their own as much as possible. This means that they won't come home looking perfect! Frequently the kids follow the directions on the worksheet, and then start doing something else (coloring all the circles instead of all the squares, for example). It is good practice for them either way and we do plenty of other practice on following directions. So don't stress when their work doesn't come home looking perfect! Preschool is all about learning how to be independent and do their work on their own, even if it doesn't look beautiful that way!

Down on The Farm

During the past week, we have started our new unit on farms. During the first day of the month, we sorted through all kinds of animals and other items to find things that belong on a farm. The kids colored everything they found and put it up on our board. If you look closely, you can see the pigs that are hiding in the barn. 

We took a quick break from the farm on Friday to make gifts for our grandparents. The bookmarks turned out really cute and were super fun to make!

This week we are learning about some of the plants you might find on the farm. We learned about how seeds grow and then planted some of our own. The blue container in the back holds radish, carrot and onion seeds and each student has their own cup containing flower seeds. Keep your fingers crossed for us that everything will grow! We will be observing our plants throughout the month and then sending the flowers home (and hopefully eating some of our vegetables!).

After washing up, we made some fancy pictures out of seeds. It was great practice for using glue and following an outline.