Luck of the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

During our week the children and I spent time talking about St. Patrick's Day. We pointed out where Ireland is on the map in our circle center. Once we began playing, the children noticed a basket with items in it and a note that read:

 

 The children were very excited to be left gifts from the Leprechauns. They enjoyed the toys during play time and in our gym time where we played "what time is it Mr. Leprechaun?"

 

We also read some St. Patrick's day books! It helped me explain the personality traits of a Leprechaun, which can be hard when playing make believe. 

 

Our creative expressions experience was a lot of fun this week, when the children got to get really messy!
Our first craft let the children do a lot of mixing. We mixed white paint and white glue to create a sticky paint. We also mixed that white paint on the paper with some yellow paint. It's always exciting to have the permission to PLAY in the paint. After mixing and painting, the children added gold sparkles, foam stickers and picture stickers.

Lastly, we sat down and explained to the children about what "lucky" meant. I told our preschool friends that being lucky is having something we don't HAVE to have. We have to breath, and stay healthy, but we are lucky to have good friends, family (and in our Mon/Wed class - God and Jesus). Feeling lucky makes your heart and tummy warm, and makes you happy.
Then, we asked the children what made them feel lucky, and added it to our art.

The answers were ADORABLE

Our second craft of the week was a pot of gold!
The children were told the story of how a Leprechaun's job is to hide gold at the end of rainbows, under shamrocks and 4 leaf clovers.We took the time to decorate our own rainbow to a pot of gold with our hands.

Sincerely,

Ms Asha

Tails are not for pulling

On Friday, March 8th 2013, we went to the Edmonton Humane Society.
It was a spectacular field trip to expose children to various pets and how to care for them. The Edmonton Humane Society has created an extraordinary program for young children called tails are not for pulling..
Sadly, the smart board wasn't working so we all sat together and read the actual book.

We learned that animals have feelings, just like people! That they can feel happy, sad and scared. Sometimes when animals are scared they may growl and bite. They taught us how important it is to not touch a strangers pet  in case they like their space - but ask "may I pet your pet?"
After, the SPCA staff brought out various pets for us to meet. The playschool children did extremely well using their words to ask permission to touch the animals.

First, we met Nevel the guinea pig.

"May I pet your pet?"

Next we met Francis, the Bearded Dragon!
He was not as soft as Nevel. We know that is because he is a lizard, and guinea pigs are mammals. Nevel had hair which was soft, but Francis has rough scaly skin.
Some playschool friends were not as excited to pet Francis.
The parents were brave and pet Francis as well.

The last class pet we met was Edgar the ferret.
The children really liked him as well.

Edgar made us laugh when we found out if you hold him by the scruff of his neck it makes him yawn and get sleepy.

After the presentation, we were allowed to have a tour of the facility. It is a gorgeous center which can home many animals until they are adopted. It was amazing to see the baby puppies before they are placed out for the public to adopt.

It's sad to see so many animals in the need of new families, but it really is peaceful to know that the Edmonton Humane Society is such a wonderful place for them to stay at for a short term.

Sincerely,

Ms Asha

How much is that puppy in the window?

Happy Sunday! What a wonderful end to a week.
Our week has been a lot of fun as we learn more about pets!

We spent our circle times talking about our favorite pet animals. The children really love this topic.
I taught the children the lyrics to "how much is that doggy in the window" in which they would reply with a "bark bark!". It was so adorable. After the doggy, the children would put up their hands to offer me more pets to sing about, such as kitties, birds, snakes and fish.

Preschool songs are so fun to learn, and have so much learning in the singing. When children learn new songs, they are also learning timing, tempo, repetition, memorization and in this song prediction. We had to predict what the new pet would say, and see if we were right since I only taught them what a fish would say (either fishy lips or glug, glug). This is known to support long term learning for math and literacy. Not to mention creative expression.

We also practiced our preposition with a kitty and a transparent cup. The cup being see through helps the children literally see the kitty "in" the cup. Again, we practiced left and right, as well as on top, behind, under and in front as prepositions.

 

In our artistic expressions center, the children made their own pets this week! Pet rocks.

We had the freedom to choose which rock we wanted from a group of smooth rocks, before decorating them with paint, googly eyes, sequences and pompoms.

We also made our own fish tank! It was fun to use water colour paint to cover our paper plates, before adding aquarium rocks. We had to wait till the paint dried before adding our own fish.

 

Capilano Playschool children love sensory play! Mostly, we love our playdough. 

 

Some children are more sensitive to sensory and messes, or are just not in the mood for messy sensory. I set up these sensory bags this week, to offer a different exposure to sensory play. Most of the children knew one was water, one was paint and the third was "goo", or in more technical terms, hair gel with blue food colouring. I also put various amounts of foam fish in the sensory bags to compare numbers and promote addition. Generally, when I can successfully offer the children groupings in small quantities, when we count them I will ask them to count how many in total, in this incident, how many fish in total if we count all of the bags.

Our house center is still a pet store and adoption clinic in prep to go to the Edmonton Humane Society.

 

Alana, our Edmonton Public Library librarian paid us a visit this week. She read us great books, including Children make Terrible Pets (starring Lucille Beatrice Bear) by Peter Brown. We loved the comedy in this book! EPL is an AWESOME extension to our program.

Sincerely,

Ms Asha

All in the family

This week was the last week we talked specifically about families. It all tied in with Valentine's Day, and love. It also went over Family Day on February 18th.

The children  and I spoke about the dynamics of families and how different they can be. We talked about parents, siblings and grandparents. During last circle we went around the circle and asked all of the children how many people were in their families. I reminded them that not everyone had to live in the same house, as there are older siblings who live on their own - but we tried to keep it to parents and siblings.
I wrote each child's name on a house and we put it next to the number each child's family matched.
After, we talked which number had the most, and which had the least. The Monday/Wednesday went RIGHT off the chart with the number 4.
It was neat to see the difference between the two classes.

 

Once we went over the amount of people in our families,we spent the rest of the week talking about "pets" and how they can also be considered part of our family. We will talk more about pets through the month, and even get to go to the Edmonton Humane Society to see various pets.

As a craft, we put some fur on cats and dogs using string and blocks.

The children were allowed to choose from a dog or cat template. Then, they cut the animal out with little to no assistance from an adult.

If the children seemed to still need reminders about keeping their thumbs up, they allowed me to draw a tiny heart or star on their thumb. Even the children who needed NO help wanted me to draw the stamp though!

 

During play we transformed our house center into a pet store, and a place to adopt animals.
It offered the children some fun dramatic play for pretending to purchase animal food and toys. They have a cash register, which has been very popular! It's the greatest when we have the chance to enjoy math! The cash register is also a calculator and makes awesome sounds.

We had pets in the house center, sand center, block center, and even some matching pet games on the tables. Of course, it is unavoidable and lots of fun to take the animals away from where they are "supposed" to be and find new places to explore our understanding of animals.

 

We made fish bowls for our fish - and even bought fish food from the pet store.

Lastly, in the gym we played a new game called "doggy doggy". It is similar to other games we've played, in which we sit in a circle and take turns being "it". One of our friends hide their eyes in the middle, while a peer hides the dog biscuit behind their back. We then sing
" Doggy, Doggy - where's your bone? Somebody took it from your home! Guess who? Maybe you, maybe the monkey from the zoo? Wake up doggy, find your bone!" And we take 3 turns to guess who is hiding it behind their back. Once we were all done the children enjoyed free play with the balls.

We're so fortunate to have access to the gym and all of the equipment. They love throwing the balls, bouncing them, sharing them, tossing them and rolling them.


Christian Note:

In class I told the children the story People Wave Palms. 
As a craft, in reflection from our bible story we made the donkey that Jesus asks for from his disciples. 

The children used their hands to make the donkey, before adding eyes and coats.

Lastly, we wrote "Hosanna!" at the top and Luke 1:37 "Nothing is impossible with God"

Sincerely,

Ms Asha