Musical Instrument Demonstration

Many thanks to Deanne's neighbor who was kind enough to give us an up close demonstration of lots of woodwind instruments.  The kids were enraptured by his presentation. 

Which included a short description of each instrument and him letting us all hear what they each sounded like...

The kids were surprisingly good for the whole thing....

But excitedly headed back over to Truman's house afterward...

So they could make their own little instruments out of plastic Easter eggs filled with beans, rice, or lentils.  The adults used strips of packing tape to seal them together to prevent spillage. 

Then the kids painstakingly placed stickers all over them to make them fancy....

Then we played a game where the kids passed around one of the eggs while the music was playing and whoever was holding the egg when the music stopped got to be out and go get a treat.  It was great, since no one had to be sad about getting out, since there was a treat awaiting them. 

After the treat, they sat down and had a little indoor picnic with their lunches. 

Everyone had a wonderful time learning more about musical instruments and getting to spend the time with their preschool friends.  Thanks Deanne and Heather for making it happen!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

If the kids didn't have a grasp on the color green before today, they sure do now. Even if you're not Irish (I'm not), the kids think it's so fun to dress up for a theme.

We started out our day talking about St. Patrick's Day and that it started in Ireland. We didn't get into who St. Patrick was - we focused on the purely magical and fun side of the holiday. First, I told them all about leprechauns and how tricky they are, and how they have pots of gold and how they're very difficult to catch. They were focused in rapt attention. Then I introduced them to one that I "caught":

We named him "Larry the Leprechaun". Everybody wanted to hold him. Here's a link to where you can print him off and make your own http://familyfun.go.com/st-patricks-day/st-patricks-day-printables/leprechaun-paper-craft-for-st-patricks-day-704364/

I made him out of printer paper, but I would suggest printing him on cardstock if you want him to survive the day.

Then I showed them how I knew that there was a leprechaun lurking around my house. We went into the bathroom, where I had previously put some green food coloring into the toilet. Well, I hadn't figured into my plans the fact that someone would need to use the bathroom before I got to this point in my lesson, so the water was blue. We had a quick recap on color mixing :) It's those real-life applications that really stick with the kids, right?

Then we went to the fridge so that I could show them the other clue I'd found. They were all excited about the green milk.

Larry wanted us to read a book about Leprechauns, so that we'd understand him better, so we read "Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato" by Tomie DePaola. Then I told them, that since I had captured Larry, he had to give us his treasure. We were going to go on a treasure hunt, but first we needed to make leprechaun hats so that we could trick any other leprechauns into thinking we weren't looking for their gold.

The kids are getting better at cutting things out, but there are still frustrations with cutting outside the lines, etc. Keep practicing!

Here are our little leprechauns ready to go hunt for their treasure. They followed a trail of green confetti and shamrocks (you might want to remind them of that word - they kept asking for me to repeat it throughout the day) out the door and through the yard.

Finally they discovered Larry the Leprechaun's treasure!
He left us some leprechaun gold (my gold glitter spray unexpectedly stopped working, so they didn't turn truly gold - the kids didn't seem to notice).
And, even better, he left us some yummy rainbow cupcakes! The rainbows even had frosting clouds on top!
The kids were very amazed when they bit into the cupcakes - the rainbow colors were so bright!

The day was so nice, we decided to eat them outside. Matthew and Maylie work on getting off the paper.
Rachel looks like she's going to take care of her cupcake in one bite! If you'd like instructions for these cupcakes, go to Familyfun.com: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/taste-a-rainbow-cupcakes-842128/. They were a bit time consuming to make, but the kids sure did think they were different and fun.

We watched a very short music video by "They Might Be Giants", that taught about rainbows and had a leprechaun in it. It's called "Roy G. Biv" (R=red, O=orange, Y=yellow, G=green, B=blue, I=indigo, V=violet).
Then we tried a trick with leprechaun gold, where you're not supposed to be able to drop the coin if you hold your hands in a certain way. Oh, it didn't work! The kids all just pulled their hands apart (you're not supposed to) and dropped the gold and said "That was really easy!" Oh well!
They ended the day by coloring pictures of rainbows and leprechauns and practicing writing their names. They kept asking if leprechauns were real. I didn't want to lie, so I said no, but that it's fun to pretend that they're out there!
So, keep an eye out for the little green guys tomorrow! They might be up to mischief!

Dinos and Fossils

On Thursday we talked about dinosaurs and fossils. As the boys arrived I had playdoh with mini dino figures out to play with. Allen made a volcano with his playdoh, Berkeley buried his dinos in the playdoh, and the other boys had fun making dino tracks in the playdoh.

The boys were very enthusiastic about this topic, so it was easy to get their attention. In fact, during circle time I couldn't get them to stop looking at all the dinosaur books I had. They loved looking at all the different kinds of pictures.

After circle time we read a couple stories and then did some personal "reading" by looking at a book for 2 min. before having to pass it along to the next person. This was an activity that Andrea did before and it worked really well with the boys. Ten minutes had passed before we even knew it!


We talked about how dinos lived a very long time ago and about the different kinds - big, little, sharp teeth, flat teeth, long necks, short legs, walk on all fours, walk on only 2 legs like us, hatch from eggs and so on.

We made fun dino pictures using foamie stickers. The boys worked on these for a long time.

We also watched some short clips from a Prehistoric Planet DVD from the library. It shows realistic dinosaurs and tells all about them. We watched clips about dinos on land, in the water, and in air. They boys were very into this!

They couldn't make up their minds where to sit and they got the blankets out by themselves. It was cute to watch them. =)
While we were watching the video we couldn't believe that dinos invaded the upstairs. We had to go on a dino hunt and the boys found 2 dinos each that were trying to hide.

We talked about the different dinos they found, their names and characteristics. Each boy picked one dino to show us and tell about. Then we pretended to be that dino.

We continued with a story about fossils and where they come from. Then we got to be Paleantologists ourselves and dig some mini dinos out of ice. Our fingers got cold, but eventually we got those dinos out.


We ended with some pages from our workbooks - letters C and D.

It was a fun day and great to see all the boys so enthusiastic about a topic.

Smell and Taste

I just got around to teaching these topics, since I was originally supposed to teach them the week school was canceled.

We had a lot of fun with smells and tastes on the same day. We started with a review of all our senses and what body parts we use for each sense (with a Mr. Potato Head as our prop).

We had fun using our sniffers for the first half of our class. The kids had opinions about all the different smells - vanilla (yum), cinnamon (yum), mint (yum), orange (okay), soap (okay), perfume (yuck), onions (yuck), vinegar (yuck). Cinnamon was the favorite.


We added pages to our 5 senses books too. We cut out noses and other things with strong scents and pasted them to a page. We also colored a fun picture of a baby with a stinky diaper (thanks Lara) that the kids had fun with.

We used koolaid to make smelly scratch and sniff paints. The boys had fun painting. And Jack knew exactly what he was painting (a big orange and an apple) whereas the other boys weren't as sure, but were just as enthusiastic.


We moved on to the taste testing, which was equally as fun. We tasted sugar (sweet), salt (salty), lemon (sour), and baking chocolate (bitter).

It was funny to watch the boys stick their finger in the chocolate and then all cough, gag, and say ewwww!

Yuck - bitter!

Surprisingly they all liked the lemon and even asked for seconds.

Yum - lemon!

We mixed some flavors - sugar, lemon, water - to make yummy lemonade. The boys drank that down in no time.

We added another page to the 5 senses book telling about the different tasting parts of our tongue along with pictures of foods that we like to eat.


It was Thomas' last day of preschool and we were glad he could make it! He was slightly late, so there aren't many pictures of him but here is one for proof that he was there.

We'll miss having him in our group and wish him the best in France!