All Aboard!

The toddlers have been learning to go potty. Some are just ready to practice sitting, flushing, and pulling their pants up and down while others are having some success. Each child has a sticker sheet and gets a train sticker when they go potty plus Mrs. Cathy blows a train whistle to celebrate success. The children get very excited for their friends and shout "All aboard!" when they hear the whistle!

When Life Gives You Lemons

For the past week, the Bears have been busy selling lemonade at the lemonade stand in our dramatic play center! We saved up some soda bottles and filled them with colored water then added labels for the different flavors. We also added some big cups, ice cube trays, money, recipes, and a menu. One glass of lemonade sold for $20 according to the children!





M is for Monkey and monkeying around! This tree is a thrift store find that is perfect for hanging monkeys. We also have some hooks on the back of the shelf in case all of the monkeys want to hang in a line!

Back to School Muffin Tin Monday

Today was the first day of school for our district, so we had an ABC theme for this Muffin Tin Monday!




On the left: Apples with peanut butter and "A " shaped toast; in the middle: Bananas and Blueberries; on the right: Crackers and Cheese

I think that this was the favorite muffin tin so far. I didn't get a chance to sit during lunch because everyone wanted more!





That's what it looks like when I am preparing 15 muffin tin lunches!

Sweet Goodbyes

We are sending two of our friends to kindergarten today. We are so sad to see them go but we are excited that they are beginning something new!

The kindergarteners are being sent off with a bang! We added water to our sandbox to make a beach and the children spent an hour just digging and dumping the wet sand. They were covered from head to toe and we had to take a sprinkler shower before going inside. We will finish up the day with a special lunch of train shaped pb & j sandwiches.

May God bless these children on their journey.

Trucks and Triangles

Our new sensory table set up has lentils (a personal favorite...it is so relaxing to have them run through your hands) along with some construction trucks and a construction site. We have been working hard at moving the lentils across the table.







I love the Dollar Tree! This week we found these great magnets with shapes and the words for shapes and colors. We put them on our magnetic dry erase board and added some dry erase markers. Before long, the Bears were drawing shapes and the words on the magnets. In the picture, you can see where Z wrote "heartorangestarred". She was very proud of herself and I was proud too!

Magnet Attraction

Check out our new set up in the Science Center! We have an "I spy"-like collection if pom poms, dominoes, blocks, paper clips, and a bunch of other toys. The preschool class gets to use the magnet wand, horseshoe magnet, and magnetic fishing wand to find out what is magnetic and what is not. We will.also add a science journal to record our observations and an I Spy book of items to look for.

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Nursery Rhyme Notebooks

The preschoolers are beginning a new project... a nursery rhyme notebook!  Every week, we learn a new nursery rhyme and sing it every day.  We are going to begin illustrating the nursery rhymes and adding them to a book for each child.  At the end of the year, they will have a great book of their drawings and the nursery rhymes that we have learned.  This week we are singing "Hey! Diddle Diddle".  Here are some of the illustrations from today:

Z, age 4 drew the cat, the cow jumping over the moon (note that the cow is striped), and the dish is running with the spoon.

A, age 5 1/2 decided to try to write the rhyme.  He would forget which words he had already written, so he decided to draw a line under the words that were done. Pretty smart!

M, age 3 1/2 began by drawing the moon and a balloon. Then she saw that A was writing the words to the rhyme.  She said, "I want to write the song." and she did!  She made all of those letter-like symbols and M says that they say "Hey Diddle Diddle!"  Being able to write all of the symbols and recognize that they can mean something is an important step in learning to read and write.



Muffin Tin Monday: Shapes

Yesterday we had a shape themed lunch! From the top: heart shaped cantaloupe, star shaped fruit roll-up stickers, oval boiled eggs, circle shaped ham, triangle shaped cheese, and square shaped crackers. (We found mini Saltines at the store last week and when we went back they were gone :( ).

It shaped up to be a great meal!

Hot, Hot, Hot!

We have been beating this 105 degree heat by adding some fun water activities to our outdoor learning time. These dolphins and rings are a color matching activity plus they whistle different notes when they bounce up and down.


What would water play be without boats? We had flying boats, boat races, sunken boats, and shipwrecked boats that ended up in the sandbox.

Brown Bear Magnets

Last week I found some magnetic sheets at a craft store. The sheets can go through the printer! I spent the week trying to find the perfect thing to make and then I found some Brown Bear printable at www.kizclub.com. I printed six pages to a sheet and the magnets turned out just right! The preschool class has enjoyed using the magnets to retell the Brown Bear story and it has been a great sequencing activity.

August Newsletter

Here is our newsletter for the month of August.  Have you seen the newsletter page on the blog?  You can always go back and read this newsletter again or review newsletters from the past!

August 2011 Newsletter

Sprinklers and Sandwiches

Friday was our first day to celebrate "Sprinklers and Sandwiches"!  We started off with sprinklers on the playground.  We filled buckets of water and "painted" our wooden house.  We also worked hard at erasing the chalk paint decorations we made a few weeks ago.  Everyone had a blast running through the water and splashing around.

Then we had a special Brown Bear lunch.  Mrs. Cathy found this great Goldfish brand bread and we made pb & j sandwiches with little blueberry bubbles.  We added teddy grahams in a Brown Bear muffin cup and Green Frog pickles.  I made Purple Cat smoothies with berries and yogurt.  Yum!

To check out some other creative lunch ideas, go to http://www.muffintinmom.com/!