Ocean Exploration

On Monday during centers, we played a fun alphabet game. The letters of the alphabet were hidden around the room and the kids had to find them and put them in order. They did awesome! (The letter H did get skipped, but they figured out a pretty good solution.)

After that we talked about dolphins. We learned lots of interesting things about the way they communicate and learned about some dolphins who are training to be spies. They are using their echo-location to look for mines and other dangerous objects on the bottom of the oceans. Then the kids each got to make their own dolphin sun catcher!

On Wednesday we moved on to coral reefs. The kids were very concerned when I told them that coral were endangered and came up with a plan to stand on the beach and stop people who are going to throw garbage in the ocean or go out and touch the coral. It was so sweet!

I had several pictures of  different types of coral and had the kids guess what it might be called, based on what it looks like. They did a really good job! They got rice coral and finger coral on the first try.

On Friday we worked with numbers some more and learned a little more about adding. The kids put together a penguin and then answered a few questions about how many fish he had. We used the extra fish to practice adding!

And finally, we got to the part of the ocean that all the boys have been waiting for, the darkest depths. Throughout the month, every time they have had time to look at books, at least one boy, if not two or three have grabbed the Eyewitness Oceans book and turned to the pages that show the fish that live in the bottom of the ocean. They are some pretty crazy looking fish. We finally read those pages and talked about all the cool things these fish can do like glowing in the dark and eating other fish that are larger than themselves. Since these fish aren't cute and don't do much, they don't lend themselves well to many crafts or activities. So, we made a fish bowl with some pictures of the fish we had learned about! It was a good opportunity to review what we had learned.

Under the Sea

This week we have been focusing a lot on numbers. The kids are getting so good with the alphabet and letters sounds, but numbers could still use some work!

On Monday, we learned about the different zones in the ocean and focused on the intertidal zone. We then played, "Roll a Crab", each child had a die and the pieces to a crab. Each number that they rolled got them another piece of the crab and they had to keep rolling until they got all the pieces! 

On Wednesday we moved to the continental shelf and the many animals found there. We started making our octopuses and spent some time out in the beautiful weather playing sharks and minnows.

Today we finished up our octopuses by adding legs! They turned out super cute and were a lot of fun to make!

During centers time today, we did a little bit of numbers bowling. Each toilet paper tube has a number written on it (we did 10-16 today). As I gave them a number, they tried to knock that number down with their ball. This is a great way to review numbers and is really simple to make. It would be a great game to make for the kids to play at home!

We have been having some trouble with manners at preschool, so we have been talking about it a lot over the past few weeks. This week, we read this book:

It was really fun, so we decided to take it a little further. We colored our own monsters and made ourselves a reminder on the wall!

They have all been working hard to remember their manners!

Blasting Off!

We have had so much fun in outer space this month! I think we were all a little sad for it to end. No worries though, this month's oceans theme is going to be great. Plus, we have our field trip to look forward to!

I know I've written about this before, but I love seeing the kids continuing to learn during their own time! One of their favorite things to do during snack time is to make shapes and letters out of their snacks. This is completely unprompted and unaided by me. This week they were practicing letters and numbers!

In my last post I mentioned that they were working on painting their rocket. On Monday we added decorations. Here is the finished product!

They had tons of fun playing in it on Wednesday and using their imaginations to explore space. Props to my husband on his idea for installing an instrument control panel, that was their favorite part!

While they were waiting for their turn in the rocket, they water-painted pictures of some of the things we've learned about throughout the month.

We also completed our paper plate astronauts this week! They turned out super cute!

Friday we got to celebrate Read Across America. We read some of our favorite Dr. Seuss books and played some fun games to go along with them.

After reading The Cat in the Hat, we helped the cat pick up all his hats. The kids rolled dice, counted the number of dots showing and then 'picked up' (crossed out) the hat with that number.

We loved reading "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". It is one of the finer examples of Dr. Seuss's amazing imagination. Afterward the kids got to make their own fish bowls. We painted the water with corn syrup. It stays nice and shiny when it dries so it looks like water!

To finish out the day we read "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" and played with some Oobleck of our own. (Always a hit!)