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 

Bubble fun!

March 9-13 is National Bubble Week! We were super early this Friday, but it's a great way to get prepped for the week of bubbles, and get our spirits up for Spring!

On Friday, February 22nd we went to Edmonton's Telus World of Science for their 'Bubble Fun' program.
We were greeted by their kind staff, and brought to a room to meet a wonderful instructor - Jennifer!

Jennifer taught us some interesting things about bubbles. She told us bubbles are lazy, even if you use a square bubble blower the bubble will always come out as a circle, which is also called a sphere. Another interesting fact, bubbles also like to be wet. When you try to use anything dry to touch them - they will pop! But if you went your hands in bubble juice you can even touch bubbles. That was probably the best part, when we had opportunities to put our hands through the bubbles, or hold them in our hands.  
Last but not least, bubbles reflect light.Which, as one of our brilliant little ladies told Jennifer, means we can see rainbows in it. 

Once we were educated in the art of bubbles, Jennifer introduced us to our 6 centers.

1. Bubble Painting - using coloured bubbles to make pictures we could take home
2. Blubble Drawing  - blowing bubbles on laminated pictures of shapes like caterpillars and mice to cover the drawings with bubbles
3. Bubble touching - putting our hands through the HUGE bubble maker - as well as using our hands to make bubbles by touching our fingers together.
4. House Hold Bubbles - using items we find like funnels and spatulas to make bubbles
5. Bubble Houses - making igloo dome houses for our tiny toys
6. FREE BUBBLES - just use your straw to blow bubbles

From there we were offered our own diy straw bubble blowers, broke into groups and went to work.

It was a very well put together field trip, and one of my favorite ones of the year. 
I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

Sincerely,

Ms. Asha

Easy DIY bubble solution

1 gallon water
1/2 cup Dawn (or Joy) Dishwashing Liquid
1/4 cup glycerine (obtained from your local pharmacy)  

Note: Let solution sit over night.

To make the colourful bubbles just add food colour! Careful it doesn't stain clothes.