Igloos and Penguins--Pre K Activities

Since we have continued with our winter theme into this week, on Wednesday we learned more about the life cycle of a penguin. We made a book to take home that shows the life cycle--starting out with an egg, the penguin hatching, growing and changing colors, and then becoming the proud parent to another egg. The children really got a kick out of pretending to be a penguin and trying to walk holding an "egg" between their feet.

Today we read the book Mama, Do You Love Me? about an Intuit girl and her mother. It had a lot of new words we have never heard before. After we talked about the book, we made an igloo using blue paper and white labels. This is another great idea I found on the Frugal Family Fun website. It was great exercise for our fingers. We are going to be great writers next year!

Melt the ice cube game

The pre-k class enjoyed playing a dice game called "Melt the Ice Cube." This is a game I found on one of my favorite websites "Little Giraffes." Each number on the dice that we rolled had different method we could use to melt our ice cube. It was fun seeing whose ice cube melted the quickest. We got to sprinkle 10 sprinkles of salt if we rolled a 5.

If we rolled a 3, we got to blow on our ice cube for 10 seconds.

If we rolled a 6, we got to float our ice cube in water for 10 seconds. You might have heard talk at home of the favorite method. It was definitely the method listed for 2--put the ice cube down your shirt. More than one of the students rolled a 2 on purpose. :)

It's Cold Outside

Since we returned to school following Christmas break, the children have been busy with many new center time activities. One of the favorites is creating snowmen out of playdough.

The Friday preschool class painted snowflakes that were taped out on their papers. We used four different shades of paint and sponges for these paintings. (This is an idea I got from one of my favorite blogs, Frugal Family Fun. It's a great resource for fun activities you can do with items you probably already have at home.)

They are beautiful!

I added the preschool class's snowflakes to a display of polar bear paintings that the pre-k students painted. They enjoyed learning about how to add texture to their artwork by using different tools. For these paintings we added salt to watercolor paint for the sky and we put saran wrap over the blue tempera paint to make the snow/ice texture. We really enjoyed the results!

Christmas in Pre-K (It's never too late to post these, right??)

We had a very special visitor in pre-k before Christmas break. The children were unusually speechless :)
Hope all our pre-k students had a very Merry Christmas!
I can't wait to start the New Year with all of you!

Preschool Christmas Fingerplays

We have learned two Christmas fingerplays in preschool during December. See if your child will say them for you at home.



Here is the chimney.

Here is the top.

Open the lid. Out Santa will pop.

The second one is called When Santa comes to my House.

When Santa comes to my house......

I would like to.......

peek.

But I know he'll never come,

Until I'm fast asleep.

Up on the Housetop student made books

On Thursday in pre-k the students made a book that they can "read" and take home.

The reindeer in the book can be manipulated to follow the directions given in the book.

At the end of the book is a snowdrift pocket that the reindeer lands in.

Christmas projects in preschool

On Thursday we read the Jan Brett book, Gingerbread Friends. For an art project we glued sandpaper gingerbread cookies to aluminum foil "cookie sheets." The children really got into giving their gingerbread boys and girls details like google eyes, bow tie pasta, ribbon, and sequins.

On Friday we read a story about Santa getting stuck in a chimney. He got out when his reindeer, a dog, some cats and a mouse pushed and pushed. During art we made spicy reindeer. First we put glue on the sandpaper reindeer. Then we sprinkled spices on them to make them smell yummy. Finally we gave them eyes, sequined harnesses, white tails and red noses.

The children really enjoyed putting their individual touches on their reindeer. Some of them had a lot of bling!