Learning About Rainbows

Learning about rainbows is one of my very favorite lessons of the whole year. In fact my older kids remembered how much fun we had last year and begged to stay home from school to "help" me.

First we read a few books about rainbows from the library including this cute book

which opens up on the last page to a big rainbow!

We made rainbows out of Fruit Loops

Then, we celebrated Eve's 5th birthday with this delicious cream-filled Danish that Eve's mom baked for us. We made tie-dyed t-shirts with all the colors of the rainbowand then saw how rainbows are made when sunlight shines through prisms.The kids LOVED making their own little rainbows.

Then we listened to a couple of fun rainbow songs

and did FREEZE DANCE!
The kids had as much fun as I did!

Learning About Leaves

Today we learned all about leaves. We focused on the letter, "L" and even made the shape of the letter L with our bodies. We la-la-la-ed " I am a Child of God" and thought of all sorts of L words. We talked about the seasonal changes of trees and the different types. We looked at several books that showed trees in all their seasons, including this classic book that had them all giggling and giggling!

Our main activity of the day was going out for a nature walk. I gave each of the kids their own brown lunch sackand we went all the way around the block


looking at flowers, leaves,
dandelions,and even met a friendly tree up close and personal.

We came back here, did some leaf rubbings and made ourselves a little nature book filled with the treasures we found on our walk.

Kites & Bunnies & Easter Eggs, Oh My!

Last Thursday, we talked about wind (on a perfectly calm day, mind you) and made wind chimes and kites.  Notice the picture is only of the girls?  That's because the boys did a couple of swipes with a marker and ran off to play. Funny how girls are so much more artistically inclined!

Tuesday, we talked about Bunnies.  We read stories about bunnies and made our own bunny ears and tails.  I started to teach the kids a poem called "Funny Bunny" but they had more fun hopping around in their outfits.

We also started painting our Bunny Pots . . .

Which we finished at preschool today.  We talked about Easter and Eggs.  The kids decorated paper eggs using colored water and Q-tip paintbrushes.  We also discussed the Easter story.

Many thanks to James for having a birthday on Tuesday and to Maylie for having a birthday on Thursday, and especially to both of their moms for bringing cupcakes each day.  The kids loved their preschool treats!

Saint Patricks Day Preschool Lesson

I got all the hard work handed to me on a silver platter for this lesson and I just got to have all the fun.

We loved all the little tricks the leprechauns kept playing on us.

Like leaving us little shamrocks and green t-shirts to decorate...

and cute little leprechaun hats for our heads.

But the best part of all was the little treasure hunt the leprechaun left for us...

They went all around the house and found little prizes and at the end was their pot of gold...these cute little shamrock cupcakes (Rebecca made for us).

We'll have to all wear our t-shirts together soon so we can take a cute picture.

We missed you James and hope you feel better. Thank you Rebecca for all your hard work and planning.

Better late then never. Right!

On March 3rd we talked about Spring. Even though the weather wasn't Spring, the kids understood that Spring is the time when the world washes away winter cold and begins the cycle of new life again. We then had a review with all four seasons and what months matched with the seasons. We also read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", the kids love that story. I believe alot of them have it memorized.

To work on our counting we rehearsed this poem about Caterpillars:

Ten little caterpillars climbing on a vine:
One climbed to high-then there were nine.
Nine little caterpillars crow led out the garden gate:
One got stuck-and then there were eight.
Eight little caterpillars resting on a stone;
One slipped off-now seven are alone.
Seven little caterpillars inched across some sticks:
One couldn't inch so then there were six.
Six little caterpillars eating leaves alive;
One wiggled off the plant-then there were five.
Five little caterpillars crawling on the lane;
A foot went "stomp" and scared one away.
Four little caterpillars climbing up the tree;
One tumbled down-then there were three.
Three little caterpillars wondering what to do;
Along came a bird-then there were two.
Two little caterpillars resting in the sun;
One curled up in a leaf-then there was only one.
One little caterpillars resting all alone;
One day became a butterfly-now she has flown!


On March 5th we talked about Flowers. We examine the parts of a flower. We noticed the differences and similarities of different kinds of flower. Then we colored our own flower.

Make Way for Ducklings!

The kids had a "quacking" good time today discussing all things ducky.

We read Robert McCloskey's book Make Way for Ducklings (apparently, it's a favorite at Ellie's house!) and found out that ducks are able to stay dry because parts of their feathers repel water. Each of the kids picked out a feather to bring home.  Have them show you which parts of the feather don't get wet.

The highlight of the day was making duck cups.

(James was here but didn't want to be in the picture.)

If you dampen the sponge, squeeze it around the string, and pull, the "ducks" will "quack" very loudly for you.

I tried teaching the kids the song "Ducks on a Pond" so they could sing and quack at the same time, but the kids were a little too interested in simply making their duck cups quack.  If you want to pick up where I left off, the song goes something like this (I always thought it was a Primary song, but maybe I was wrong?):

Ducks on a pond quack a happy song.

Mother hens cackle the whole day long.

Birds in their nests and wind in the treetops,

All join in singing a happy song.

And then we went outside to play Duck, Duck, Goose and just run around.  It's so great that spring is finally here!

Learning About Peter and the Wolf

Today in preschool we learned all about Peter and the Wolf. First we read a story about being a good friend, then we went on to talk about the friendship Peter, the cat, bird, and duck had. Then we looked at the different kinds of musical instruments used in the story and even got to hear the clarinet played in person.

We watched a little video with a cute cartoon version of the story and the kids loved listening for the different instruments throughout. Most of the kids were enraptured and wanted to keep watching, but one of the children was getting very scared at the cat chasing the bird so I decided to end it early before they could be traumatized by the wolf gobbling up the duck. :)

After we turned off the video, we just listened to parts of the story and narration, conveniently skipping over the scarier parts. I figured the point of the lesson was to learn to listen for the different instruments not for an accurate analysis of fine literature/music, so I let them interpret the story any way they liked. In our version the duck was not eaten (I completely skipped this part), the wolf shrunk in size and turned nice before calmly being taken to the zoo, and the cat repented for his mistake of chasing the bird and transformed into a nice cat.

Then we did a coloring activity with the different characters from the story and the kids matched up each character’s corresponding instrument and glued it next to them. They all seemed to have a good time and if you were interested in following through with this, you could have them listen to different types of music and try to figure out what kind of instrument is playing. Peter and the Wolf is available for purchase on itunes and the cute cartoon video we watched is linked here if you wanted to watch the rest (they watched part 1, but not part 2).

We missed Gavin today. Hope he feels better very soon!