Peter and the Wolf and Smart Kids

Once we hit January, and the half-year mark, I started to feel the pain of sending my little one off to Kindergarten. But it still seemed so far away. However, watching these kids on Tuesday (who are ready for Kindergarten!) made September seem right around the corner.

We talked about our names a lot. We discovered that Maylie has the word "May" in her name. And Gavin has the word "in" in his. Gavin wanted to know what each of our names would sound like without the beginning sound. That's a kindergarten skill: breaking words apart. I was so excited!

The kids had no problem looking for two number cubes with dots totalling 9. Wow!

When I started reading Peter and the Wolf, Rachel said, "This book is fiction. I know."

The kids are feeling so independent, serving themselves. Guess who was the only person who spilled while pouring the water? me.

And, it was so exciting to watch the kids trying to make words out of their Cheezits. Several of the kids were making 3 - 5 letter words like box, rat, pant. Maylie found T for Taryn.

Daniel was worried that he couldn't read any words, but when I put N and O in front of him, he could sound out the word "NO". And look! He's raising his hand (not sure why). That'll come in handy next year!

Peter and the Wolf

The topic yesterday was Peter and the Wolf. This was my favorite version of the story:

Last year Lara showed part of a YouTube video of Peter and the Wolf which was really cute, but one little one was way too scared (of even the music) to view it. I put it off, hoping to have time at the end so those who wanted to watch could, and those who didn't could play. But we ran out of time. And I don't know how to include a link. Just look to the right under Peter and the Wolf. She included a link.

Peter and the Wolf puppets:

The kids had a lot of fun coloring finger puppets from Peter and the Wolf. And trying to contain them in their *garden* (recycled boxes with a fold-out door for the gate). The boys thought up ways to make the wolf extra dangerous (Daniel tried to add lightning; Matthew suggested coloring lava around the wolf's mouth, and Gavin wanted both). Even Ellie declared with a smile on her face, "I'm going to make my wolf bad. Really bad." Maylie was the only one who wanted a purple wolf that would be pretty, not scary.

"Grrr"

9 Things from Peter and the Wolf:

Here are Gavin and Maylie, practicing counting and writing their numbers.

Before I layed out the characters and instruments, I asked the kids which characters and instruments were in the story, and collectively, they remembered all of them. So smart!

Opposites Game

Here's Matthew picking a stick from each cup. One cup contained *actions*, the other cup contained opposites.

Here they are, crawling quickly.

And here are the girls, crawling slowly. I'm not sure why none of the boys are in this picture. I think they crawled as slowly as their little boy bodies could possibly handle, but not as slowly as the girls.

And this was the favorite: jumping loudly. I'm sure it was my work-from-home-husband's favorite too :)

Helen Keller

Today we talked about the number 7. The kids had to count out 7 toothpicks and make the number 7. As it turns out, a 7 CAN go either way... :)

Today we talked about our ears and hearing. We talked about all the wonderful things we can hear-- music, voices, speaking, etc. We sang the songs softer, louder, faster, etc. with our eyes closed so we could appreciate our ears.

We worked on our senses workbook and practiced our writing. For part of our 5 Senses Workbook, we 'wrote' our names in braille. Here the kids are working in teams to make the holes.

We passed around a bowl that has braille on it so the kids could feel what it felt like.

We also read the book The Black Book of Colors. It is a book for children who are blind. It describes what colors 'feel' like.

Valentine's Party

I was able to take a few pictures at the party. The kids played games, ran around, made valentine bags, exchanged valentine's cards, and made and ate pretzels.


Making pretzels was fun. The kids made all sorts of pretzel shapes - hearts, snakes, and some traditional pretzels too.

Time to exchange valentine's while the pretzels bake. The kids had a learning experience trying to match up the name on the card with the name on the bag.

Yay! The pretzels are done. Let's eat! Most kids enjoyed the pretzels and ALL the moms thought they were wonderful!

Thanks for having all of us over and for the fun time, Mina!

T is for Tasting and Tongues!

What better theme could you have for preschool than the sense of taste? We had loads of fun today learning about all the different kinds of flavors our tongues can taste.

We sampled the four basic tastes that our taste buds can discern by dipping our fingers into individual Dixie cups.

The kids had a fun time guessing the different flavors:

Bitter

Salty

Sweet

And sour.

We then talked about how the different flavors can be combined to make yummy tasting foods. We used, among other things, cocoa (bitter), sugar (sweet), and salt (salty) to make some hot cocoa. Each of the kids got to add an ingredient, and Gavin got to stir them together. All of the kids thought it tasted great, though Rachel informed me that her mom's is much better. :)

We then worked on our Five Senses books. The kids particularly got a kick out of the stinky baby diapers. Notice how they've all colored individual baby poops on the apparently see through diapers!

What a great group of kids!

Sense of Sight

Today we discussed the sense of sight. But before we got into the nitty-gritty of what eyes do, we did circle time and for one of the songs I had them sing "Do As I'm Doing". I thought it would be a good song to emphasize that they needed to use their eyes to see what to do. Well, it was crazy! The kids were hilarious - they had so much energy! Everyone had to have a turn at picking something to do, of course, and 6 out of the 7 kids picked SPINNING (or a combo with spinning included). They were like tops zipping around the room. I think it got out a few wiggles, so it was a good way to start out the day.

This photo doesn't do their spinning justice - they were really whipping around!

After we calmed down a bit, we talked about the parts of the eye and looked at some eyes on the internet. We had some good comments about what not to do with your eyes (Gavin - don't blow on cinnamon or it will get in your eye and sting; Don't flash bright lights in your eyes or you'll go blind - I can't remember who said that one). And we talked about what pupils do, how people have different colored eyes (but not purple, red or yellow), how we shouldn't touch our eyes, what eyelids and lashes are for, etc.

We read a good book called "The Look Book", where you see a small part of a picture, and try to guess what it is, and then on the next page you find out what you were looking at. The kids were so excited when they got it right.

Since the preschoolers are always ravenous, even if they got fed a 7 course breakfast 5 minutes before arrival, we worked in a snack. This snack used a number of senses (well, in fact, all of them). The most fun one used, though, was the sense of sight (with taste coming in a very close second - okay, maybe first). Here they are all just staring, sort of bored-like, at the popcorn machine turning it's arms around.
Then, POP! POP, POP, POP! They just laughed and laughed and thought watching the kernels pop was great fun.
There was a lot of shouting at the popcorn popper and squeals of delight.

Here everyone is very busy shoving handfuls of popcorn in their mouths. Ellie looks like she's contemplating the sublime taste of the melted butter on the popcorn, while Matthew just says "give me more!" (he didn't really say that - it just looks like he's enjoying it!). I know I enjoyed the real melted butter on it - I usually just make the microwave stuff which doesn't hold a candle to this.
This wasn't a planned activity, but I handed out wipes so that they could clean up their hands after the popcorn and before we worked on our craft. Well, they spontaneously started washing the table and really getting into it! They were laughing and scrubbing and I finally had to make them stop so we could go on with the activity. I was sorely tempted to have them start in on scrubbing the floor!
We experimented with magnifying glasses, colored glasses, binoculars...

and a microscope. We looked at cheek cells and the kids thought they looked really neat.

Gavin is looking for bargains.

We then did an activity where the kids colored around a picture of themselves that went into a frame. The other side of the frame held a mirror, so they could see themselves in two different ways.
I then got a fun call from my kids' school saying that my oldest child had a stomach ache and I needed to come and pick him up. Lara saved me by popping over and directing the gang in writing exercises while I dashed out for a few minutes. Life is never dull! Thanks Lara!

This is a shot during free play time. Some of the kids were playing "cat and dog". Ellie and Dan are the animals and Maylie and Simone are telling them what to do (roll over, wake up, come back!). It was so funny to watch that I had to take a picture.

This is a Richard Scarry book about cars and trucks. There's this little character called "Goldbug" that you have to find on every page. Here Rachel and Gavin are searching him out.

It was a fun day learning about how important eyes are.