Eggs and Beans!

The week before Spring Break we did many egg-oriented activities. . .

Below, the children enjoy a cheese omelette and toast!

 We made plans to decorate eggs. As a welcome-to-spring activity, we collected materials outside to make our own bird's nest!  The children then chose a rock to paint to look like an egg.  We read a story about a bunny who mixes colors.

We celebrated a milestone birthday for Jane.  

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY, JANE!!

Below, we made our own little library.  The children made their own library cards and spent a long time play acting "library" - you can check out 3 books at a time!

Nabil enjoys a cupcake for Jane's birthday. . .

And this week we began with play acting the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  Below, Joy holds the "Magic Beans."

We had the props for the giant's gold and the goose that laid the golden egg.

Joy, as Jack, stealing the treasure from the giant (Jane).

Below, Colin's turn to be the giant - he loved saying, "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!"

We also drew pictures of the story - wow - look how great the kids are doing at depicting representational objects!  Below, Colin drew the beanstalk and Jack.

We took time to draw and cut out leaves to put on our beanstalk that we constructed. . .

We also constructed the castle out of a big box!

This week we also took a walk to see if we could find some green sticking up out of the ground!

After dumping the blocks, Colin contemplates what to build . . .

 Summer's mom shared lots of seed packets for us to explore and compare . . .

 . . . and we made "mud" out of chocolate pudding and crushed up Oreos!

Thursday we made up our own dot-to-dot pictures.

AND, celebrated another important birthday.

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY, JOY!

Children's Literature as Curriculum

We read a fun book this week, below and enjoyed drawing our own hats.  We read books together, not only for fun, but for developing curriculum and going deeper into story.

We talked about different kinds of hats...

We recognized that the hat in the book was the shape of a triangle.  Below, Jane and Summer draw their own.

We played a game where we had to find the red hat all over the room, too.

We talked about how the Bear in the story felt, at first, not knowing where his hat was and then later, when he realized the Rabbit had not told him the truth.  We practiced showing emotions on our faces.  Below, Jane is "surprised" and Colins is, guess! "Mad!"

It was hard not to giggle when we tried to contrive a "sad" face . . .

They loved doing "happy" and Colin is showing, "I'm thinking."

Jane is showing us, "I know the answer!" in raising her hand confidently.

We also made green play dough and looked for green things in the room.

We had enough snow this week to attempt a snow person...

We painted his face on and added sticks for arms.

and then we painted the snow...

The kids are still really enjoying playing with the cars and track.  I added ping pong balls for going down the track.

They sure love Curious George.  Thursday, Noe suggested we read the one where he swallows the puzzle piece.

Learning the Alphabet

Playing Games

This week we began making a class alphabet.

We also continued to look at our early readers. . .

I love it when the kids gather around a book on their own!

We are learning how to play simple games together and on our own.  Below, I created a game with shapes and colors, which requires the children to take turns and count.

We used the simple old favorite, Old Maid to do a matching game.

Summer took this to the next level and showed Jane how to play the game with all of the cards turned over.  Nice challenge!

The children loved reading this fun book, below.  The characters in the story learn to work together.  They had very fun magic wands, one being a Magic Pickle.  We made our own magic wands and talked about what we would do if we had magic powers...

The kids played another round of "going to the airport."  I wonder if Jane's family brings this much stuff to the airport in "real life"...?

We did a lot of play with the toy cars.  Jane and Anders lined ALL the cars up on the carpet, while Nabil enjoyed racing them on the track.

 

Later we decided to paint with the cars.  It was fun to see the tracks the wheels make.

And then, we had a car wash!

A very fun and productive week.  Welcome, Dublin to our Fridays!