July

July Newsletter

July 1st- Canada Day!

               There was no preschool today, but hopefully everyone had a good time enjoying the holiday with their family!

July 8^th-Gardens

                During Circle Time we read “Plants Feed Me” by Lizzy Rockwell.  We learned about the different parts of plants that we eat.  After we went outside and looked at the garden.  The children enjoyed learning about some of the veggies planted.  We dug up some earth worms, and the children were fascinated by the way the worms moved.  We learned that worms are good for the environment and help plants grow.  We collected rocks for our craft and painted them to put in our gardens at home.

Painting our rocks.

July 15-Caterpillars

                We read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle using a flannel board.  After we did a finger play about how caterpillars move and the children had fun using their hands to act out the actions.  We turned egg cartons into caterpillars by painting them, adding googly eyes, and antenaes.  We learned about patterns by gluing pomp oms onto caterpillar patterns.  The children had fun exploring the bugs in the sensory bin and took the bugs to use for play in other centres.  A favourite thing was to add the bugs into their pretend food in the Drama Centre.

Discovering the bugs in the sensory bin.

Painting caterpillars

Playing with the flannelboard.

July 22^nd-Butterflies

                We read “Waiting for Wings” by Louis Ehlert and the children were able to learn about the life cycle of butterflies.  We pretended that we were butterflies and danced around the classroom to music.  When the music stopped, the children froze the best they could.  We went outside to try and catch a butterfly so we could get a closer look at one.  The morning class didn’t have any luck finding butterflies in the yard, so we went to the playground to look.  They got distracted by the equipment, and we just played instead.  The afternoon class was lucky to see butterflies in the yard, but they were too fast for us to catch!  We made butterflies out of coffee filters.  The children enjoyed watching the colours move on the filter after they used the eye dropper.  The children also coloured a butterfly lacing card, but instead of lacing the cards they turned them into kites and flew their butterflies around the classroom!

Looking for bugs!

Playing at the park.

Making butterflies.

 

Making butterflies.

Looking for butterflies.

 

July 29^th-Ladybugs

                “The Grouchy Ladybug” by Eric Carle was our story today.  The children enjoyed the “5 Little Ladybugs” finger play following the story.  Their favourite part was when the bird came down and snatched the ladybug off the leaf.  We placed ladybug cut outs on our chairs, and put them in a circle for musical chairs.  The children loved the thrill of trying to find a spot to sit once the music stopped.  We went outside to try and find ladybugs, but didn’t have any luck.  It seems that on the days we want to find a specific bug  (let alone any bug at all) we never do.  When we came in we sorted ladybug cutouts from smallest to largest.  After, we made a ladybug out of a paper plate by gluing read tissue paper down, and then used a bingo dabber to create the dots.  The children had a lot of fun painting the glue onto their plate and then placing the tissue paper on top.

Musical chairs.

Making ladybugs!

 

Sorting ladybugs.

 

June

June was such a busy month and it is hard to believe that the first month of Summer Preschool is over!  Here's a recap of what went on at preschool this past month

June 3rd-The First Day of Preschool

Today was a crazy, hectic day with so many new faces to meet! The children enjoyed getting to meet their new friends while we explored a short ''All About Me" unit. We introduced each other in Circle Time and We learned what our friends liked to do, what they liked to eat and their favourite things. We discussed the weather and dressed Ribbit the frog. The children enjoy picking his outfit each time they come to preschool. Then we read "From Head to Toe" by Eric Carle and the children had a lot of fun moving their bodies to match the animals in the book. We sang songs and played some games while learning about our new friends.

 

Checking out the big box.

 

Making a pretty picture together.

June 10th-Friendship

We added an attendance chart that we complete before Circle Time. The children get to find their name and move it from the "My Class" space to the "I'm Here Today" space to help with name recognition. Again we talked about the weather and dressed. Ribbit.  Afterwards we read "Rainbow Fish" by Marc Pfister and talked about sharing and what it takes to be a good friend. The children also enjoyed "From Head to Toe" so much from last day, that we read it again! We played games and made "Friendships" for everyone. We wrote the nice things we noticed about each friend on them and hung them on the bulletin board next to our pictures. We also made a craft for Father's Day which consisted of a short poem and a handprint. The children enjoyed getting their hands painted and commented about how much it tickled.

Playing in the Block Centre.

Experimenting with magnets.

Making our Daddy Day craft.

Block play!

 

June 17th-Flowers

We read “The Tiny Seed” by Eric Carle and introduced the Days of the Week song in Circle Time.  It will become a regular part of Circle Time to help children learn the days of the week.  We discussed the different parts of the flower and what they need to grow.  We also did a cool science experiment where we saw a white flower change colour by adding food colouring to the water it sat in. The children found it fun to add the food colouring and watch the colour change as preschool went on. We went outside to see what different flowers and plants we could find in the yard, and the children decided to catch bugs.  We were even lucky enough to catch a dragonfly! When we came back inside, the children cut out and coloured paper flowers which were later glued onto a ribbon that was cut to their height. We stuck them on the wall to create our own little flower garden and compared our heights. For our craft the children tore tissue paper into pieces and glued onto a piece of paper to create their own flower garden to take home.

Our colouring changing flowers.

Bug hunting.

June 24-Plants

            During Circle time we watched a video about Jack and the Beanstalk.  The Golden Goose had come to preschool the night before and left everyone a golden egg with a surprise inside.  The children were excited to find their eggs and discover that there were magic beans inside.  We planted the beans in cups for the children to take home.  The giant also visited preschool and left giant footprints.  The children used them to find things that were bigger and smaller.  We measured and cut out our own feet to compare who’s was bigger or smaller.  The children used their imaginations and drew pictures of what they thought was going to be at the top of their beanstalks once they grew.

Seeing what's big and littler than the Giant's feet.

 

The children's drawings of what they think is going to be at the top of their beanstalks.

More bug hunting!

           

Preschool Tour

     The Preschool is all set up and ready for the students to begin tomorrow!  Here's a quick look at what the Preschool looks like!

Reading Centre

     We will meet here at the beginning of the day to discuss the weather, special events, and new things happening in the children's lives.  It is also where we will have our group story.

Writing/Craft Centre

    This is where we will practice our letters and do our crafts.  All of the writing materials are at the children's level so they can come to the centre at any point and practice their writing and imaginative skills.

Sensory and Magnet Centre

     Each week we will have a different sensory theme for the children to explore.  The magnet centre can be used to practice spelling their names, matching up lower case letters to upper case letters, and seeing what items will stick.

The Block Centre

     Children can work on their cognitive and motor skills while building with blocks.  Creativity is also built on as they use their imagination to decide what to build.

Light Centre

     This centre is pretty neat!  The table lights up for children to explore light, shadows, silhouettes, opposites, and more!  The possibilities are endless!  Underneath are popsicle sticks with velcro for them to use to create letters, shapes, or whatever else they want.

Learning With Legos

   When I was little, one of my favorite things to do was play with Lego.  How can a person not enjoy Lego?  You can build whatever you want, knock it down, and then build something completely different!  But until recently, I had NO idea that they could be used for educational purposes.  Here are 6 websites that have some pretty fun ways to use Lego to encourage learning!

   Lego can be used to help teach rhyming words:

   They can also be a great sensory tool:

   Your child can learn about colours using Lego:

   Children can also learn about the alphabet!

   You can create many different variations of this Lego matching game:

Lego can be used to measure weight: