Snow, Rocks and Hearts . . . 

The T/Th group is learning that they really like to draw when they do it together!

We're seeing lots of beginning smiley faces and "suns" that will evolve into people drawings some day soon!

Our "group selfie."

We had lots of opportunity for snow play this week.  Thanks for preparing the kids for the weather.

The MWF group read the book, below, and made moons with our oil pastels.

They worked on their Rock Museum.

We painted rocks and gave them descriptive names . . .like the names we saw at the geology museum.

Block building continues to grow . . .

The MWF crowd constructed a "movie theater" together.  We cut up tiny little tickets for the theater-goers.

Noe thinks as she sounds out the letters for "movie."

Jack made us a parking lot . . .

Outside, Jack pretended to be the teacher and led the kids in meeting time!

The T/Th group enjoyed this story . . . 

The little girl makes a lot of valentines for friends after it rains hearts.

It then rained hearts in our classroom, so we gathered them and sorted them by color and size . . . 

and then WE made some valentines.

We are getting better at our gluing skills.

And then there was some pink gak to play with, too.

A bowl of peanuts proves to be a project in itself as the children try to figure out how to get the shell off.

One idea was to smash them with a block!

More snow!  We painted it and built a fort . . .

Then had peanuts and hot chocolate.

YUM!

The MWF group learned a lot at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum.

Sooo shiny!

The museum has a great view of the foothills where many of the dinosaur bones and fossils have been found over the years.

We were shown functional uses of some of the gems . . . 

And we got to see real gold!

Noe found a crystal in her favorite color!

And Jack found a crystal taller than himself!

There was a neat replica of a mine, illustrating that most of these rocks were found far underground.

Some rocks glow!

Jack enjoyed looking at all the modes of transporting the rocks . . .

The museum offered some nice hands-on opportunities with a variety of rocks we enjoyed sorting.

Noe and Hazel discovered that size does not always match perceived weight of some rocks - the rock on the left was much lighter than the white rock.

We were able touch some fossils.

This class loves maps and informational posters!

Wow, that's a BIG femur!

A moon rock!!

We enjoyed looking at a collection of books.

Each preschooler got to pick some rocks to take also!

The beautiful weather permitted us to eat our snack outside on the Mines campus.

We then walked through the campus to get to The Sherpa House restaurant.  As we walked, I explained to the children that we needed to not be too noisy, as students were studying.  They asked me what "studying" meant, so I had a good time giving them preschool-friendly explanations of that.  I used the example that we were just "studying" the rocks . . .

Hazel said the restaurant was pretty . . . 

We received many compliments on their wonderful behaviour!

We tried some Nan and a yummy chickpea-fried vegetable fritter - everyone enjoyed trying some new foods.

The T/Th gang enjoyed some bridge building and play acting of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Sinh enjoyed seeing how many creatures he could get onto the bridge.

Making a bridge over some water.

And then the dinosaurs came back into play...

Sinh made sure they each got their own towel when they were done with their bath.

Before we made new play dough, we had to replenish our supplies.

We made bridges out of the play dough too!

On Wednesday, we walked down to a housing project to gather some dirt and rocks to "study."

We then washed our rocks to see their color better.

When we were at the museum, we got a back of small rocks.  We put them in a bowl to wash them.

Then we dried and sorted them meticulously!  Look at the great descriptive language the children learned to describe the rocks...

Playing house with our dinosaurs.

Hi Ava!

Colin drew his own "lifesize" dinosaur and compared his own length to it!