PIzza! Pizza! Pizza! it's a lots-a lots-a fun

The pizza parlor is looking pretty good. The kids are busy in their chef hats. They are taking orders, talking about favorite ingredients, baking pizzas in the oven ans dividing them into slices. We used hole punches in yellow paper to make cheese for a shaker and we punched red and orange for hot pepper flakes. 

We acted out the story of of The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza as we read the book last week. We've been singing. "Pizza Pizza Pizza!" Here are the words:

Pepperoni and zucchini and a lots of mozzarella

Pepperoni and zucchini and a lots of mozzarella

Pepperoni and zucchini and a lots of mozzarella

Pizza, pizza, pizza it's a lotsa lotsa fun!

Pizza, pizza, pizza it's a lotsa lotsa fun!

Pizza, pizza, pizza it's a lotsa lotsa fun!

We had the same question: Who puts zucchini on pizza? 

We made some English muffin pizza. The kids had a choice of pepperoni or plain cheese. Some chose to just have sauce (no cheese). They tasted great.

Our Wild Selves

     When Kristen Hughes came into the read The Chicken in the Family last week, she shared the website Build Your Wild Self with us. On this webpage, you make a kid who looks like you. You pick you eyes, hair, mouth and clothing.

Once you have an avatar, you can add various animal body parts to build your wild self. When you are done choosing head dressing, arms, legs, bottoms, wings, ears and a background for your wild self, you can print it out.

The site will print the picture and a description of each animal the body parts you chose. for example, we had a, "Lio-wal-ringo-antula-fly-tiger."

Around this entry are some various examples of our wild selves that we made on the site. We decided to use our wild selves to be new name tags in the classroom. Now when the kids use the planning board to choose the area in which they are going to play, they mark it with a picture of their wild selves.

Family Soup

Our Family Feast day was a great event on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We invited adult family members and younger siblings to come enjoy friendship soup with us. We made the soup by having each student and teacher bring in a vegetable that was chopped. We added these to basic chicken stock and simmered it on the stove. Simmer was the word of the day.

This year our soup contained carrots, celery, jeruselem artichoke, purple cauliflower, corn, parsnips, green beans, jicama, onion, potatoes, yellow squash, and probably some other veggies I am forgetting now. We also enjoyed some chocolate chip banana bread that the kids made the week before when I was in Washington DC. If you are interested in learning what I learned at the National Association for the Education of Young Children Conference, you can read it on the Early Childhood Programs blog.

While we enjoyed the culinary delights of preschool, we also celebrated Thanksgiving with Tasha and Erica from the Bookmobile with our donation check for $450.00. It was wonderful to share are soup and celebration with them.
We also saw a video of "I Can Do It," a song the kids have learned this fall. Beth also read I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie, which has become a Family Feast tradition. Thanks to everyone who helped sing "A Thanksgiving pie, which was really too dry. Perhaps she'll die." Beth's voice was fading fast.

We also collected all of the food that we used in our grocery store this month in order to give it to the Fairfield Food Shelf. When we gathered all of the cans, boxes, jars and bags, it filled three boxes. The kids helped haul it over to the food shelf and we let Nancy know it was there for the next pickup.

And the winner is...

The votes are tallied and the result is in. The recipient of our $450 donation from the money we made selling Snowflake Fudge is (Drum roll please.......)

The Franklin-Grand Isle Bookmobile!!!!

The other organizations that were in the running for the donation included The Fairfield Recreation Department (and playground committee), The Vermont Special Olympics, The Bent-Northup Memorial Library, Fletcher Allen's Children's Hospital, Ronald McDonald House in Burlington, and The Fairfield Center School Music Deparment.

The kids learned a little bit about each of these organizations and the good work they do. Then they each voted for their two favorites in the first round. The top two vote-getters went into the final round and everyone got one vote for their favorite. The runner up, in the end, was the Ronald McDonald House of Burlington. 

Beth has invited the Bookmobile staff to join us for our Thanksgiving soup on September 24. At that time, we will present them with the check for our donation. We are thrilled to be able to support the Bookmobile and the great work they do bringing library resources to the rural communities in the northwest corner of Vermont.

What does Isabella do on the weekend?

Since Isabella does not visit anyone's house on Thursday and stays at the preschool over the weekend, we had been wondering what she does when we are gone. The preschoolers found out the answer to that question on Tuesday. When we started meeting on Tuesday, there was a blanket and a pillow sitting on the couch. I asked the kids if any of them had carried it down from loft. No one had. Hmmm....a mystery!

The kids took guesses as to who may have brought the blanket down. Some thought maybe it was a robber. We figured that was probably not the case because nothing was missing and it looked like the only thing he may have took was a nap. We checked with Carol and Grandma Freda and neither of them had been around. So, the mystery remained unsolved.

The kids went on to play for the day. At closing meeting, when we checked in Isabella's backpack to make sure she had everything to go home with another child, we noticed these pictures in the album.

One of the kids said, "It was Isabella who brought the pillow and blanket down to the couch. Apparently, Isabella is pretty busy in out classroom over the weekend, but it is clear she misses us. Is she looking out the window waiting for us to come back? 

Library Visit

Today, the town librarian visited and shared the book Flotsam by David Weisner. This was a book that did not have any words. The kids had to pay close attention to the pictures, which were beautiful watercolors of the scenery on Long Beach Island in New Jersey.
In the story, the main character, a boy, is a collector. He looks for things on the beach.  He has a magnifying glass and microscope to help him look at the small things he finds. As he is looking at a crab, a huge wave crashes over him and in its wake, it has left a camera--an old-fashioned film camera that works underwater. He takes out the film canister and goes to develop the pictures.
There is a picture of a boy who is holding a picture of another kid, who is holding a picture of another kid. The boy uses his magnifying glass and he can find two more even smaller pictures of kids holding pictures of kids. Then he gets his microscope. As he magnifies he finds 5 or 6 more pictures of people holding pictures, until he finally sees the last person--a black and white image of a man on the beach.
He also sees a bunch of pictures of sea creatures in amazing underwater cities and environments. 
The boy decides to take a picture of himself holding the picture of the kids holding the picture. Just as he finishes, another wave crashes over him and all of the pictures get scattered in it. The boy decides to throw the camera back in the water. After a bunch of sea creatures find the camera, it eventually washes up on another beach in another place. On this beach, and the last page, a new child finds the camera.
For the activity to go with the book, the kids made a picture of what they think the boy who finds the camera will take for a picture. As we were talking about the story, we also decided to take pictures of kids holding pictures of kids to make a book. Since we are going to be purchasing a digital microscope for the classroom, one of our first projects will be to see if we can see the pictures within the picture that are too small for our eyes. We are also going to experiment taking some underwater pictures, since Beth has a waterproof camera. We are looking for a big fish tank or some other large receptacle to put a bunch of water into.
We want to thank Kristen for sharing this book. It was really amazing and gave us so many cool ideas.

Short week

This week we decided to skip small group time and concentrate on making some decorations for the Fairfield Harvest Dinner. The kids all made melted crayon fall leaves. The teachers placed template of a leaf on resume paper (which is a little translucent) on top of an old-fashioned dish warming plate (it gets pretty warm, but not burning hot). The kids then slowly slid crayons of red, yellow, green, brown, purple, pink and orange over the leaves. The crayon wax melted a little as it slid across the leaves. When they are done, the waxy leaf can be hung in a window (or at a harvest dinner).
Shelley (parent volunteer) came in and made leaf wreathes with the kids on Tuesday. She had orange, red and yellow leaves pre cut for the kids to glue on to a circle. In the middle was a picture of each child. At their house, they have a thanksgiving tree with the same leaves. People who visit their house in the month of November write something they are thankful for on a leaf and then add it to the tree. We may do this in preschool, too.
The monster cups are all growing very fluffy green grassy heads of hair. We thing we will haev to name them all Harry. If the kids will let us, we will add them to the harvest dinner decorations--they would look great on the tables.

Fudge for Funds

     We had a very successful Fudge for Funds fundraiser. We sold 181 boxes of fudge, which means we raised $905.00. Wow!  The top fudge seller sold 26 boxes and second place sold 22 boxes.

     Now the plan is to come up with a deserving cause to donate half of our proceeds (which comes to $450).  I would love to get some suggestions from the parents to find a deserving charity.

Here are the criteria:

1. It needs to benefit children

2. It needs to be a non-profit

3. It needs to be local (at least Vermont local).

     Bring your ideas into preschool over the next few weeks. If you are able to gather a little information on the cause of your choice, that would be great. We will be letting the kids know about the different places and how they help kids. On Election Day, (November 3), the kids will vote for the organization to which we will donate.

     Thanks to everyone for the hard work you did in selling the fudge. Snowflake will be done putting our order together on Sunday, October 25. You will have it to distribute to your customers on Tuesday, October 27.

     For anyone interested, here is more information on Snowflake Chocolates Fudge for Funds program.

Bring on the Wild Things

We have just started having some fun with monsters this week. We read Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly. We also listened to Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak as a book on tape with Grandma Freda. Rumor has there is a movie coming out this month based on this classic. I am reserving judgment on whether or not I think this is a good thing.

The project for the week was making monster cups. The kids each drew a monster face on a paper cup. Then they filled the cup with dirt, added some grass seed, and watered it. We will watch these cups and see how well the grass grows. As the grass grows taller and taller, it will become the hair for the monster faces.

The other hit this week was making gak--a rubbery substance--to explore with at the science table.
The recipe is:
In one non-metal bowl mix together
2 cups Elmers Glue
1 1/2 cups warm water
A little food coloring (your choice of color--we used red and then blue)

In another non-metal bowl mix together until dissolved
4 teaspoons of borax
1 and 1/3 cups warm water

When both bowls are mixed to a even consistency, pour the borax bowl mixture into the glue bowl mixtures. Quickly begin kneading the sloppy, slimy mixture with your hands. When the water feels absorbed and the substance feels rubbery, you have Gak
Keep this in an airtight container and it will keep for a long time. If it begins to dry out, you can add a little more water to revitalize it.

The problems with gak can come if it gets rubbed into carpeting, clothes or hair. If you catch it right away, it comes out easily, but if it has time to get ground in, it is as difficult to remove as glue (because, after all, it is made mostly from glue).

When the kids were playing with the Gak, some of them mixed the pink and blue batches together. At first, it looked a lot like two-colored cotton candy, with swirls of pink and blue still holding their color. Eventually, the kids noticed the colors completely mixed and made a light purple. It was also interetsing to listen to the words the kids used to describe this odd substance. I heard sticky, gooey, bouncy, icky, and weird.  

It's All Okay

This week we read It's Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr. The book is pretty straightforward with pages such as, "It's okay to have a big nose.", and "It's okay to do something nice for someone else." When we were done, I asked the kids if everything that was okay was in the book. They all said yes, of course, because they think that teachers do not try to trick them. Ha! I tricked them. I said, "I'm wearing a red shirt. Is that okay?" They all said yup. "Well, that's not in the book." Now they were getting it. We decided to think of more pages to Todd Parr's book. We came up with a bunch. In these pictures you can see the kids' ideas. I am going to email them to Todd Parr to see if he likes the improvements we made on his already excellent, but abridged, book.

Other things of note from this week:

• We made carrot muffins on Wednesday and they were delicious.
• Emma brought in a jar that had a salamander inside. We were able to observe it at science.
• We added Light Brights to the science area for the week.
• When we counted up all of our counting jar objects, we had 105. (Each of the 15 kids collected 7 items to match the number of people in our counting jar). 

 

 

 

Meeting Families, Eating from the Garden

This week in preschool we moved from learning about ourselves to learning about our families. The kids made family portrait rubbings by using sandpaper cutouts of people and pet shapes. They found a shape for each person and pet in their houses. After arranging them on the table, a teacher placed a piece of paper over the sandpaper shapes. Then, the kids used the side of an unwrapped crayon to rub over the shapes. Like magic, the people and pets showed through. When they were done rubbing, the kids named everyone and we had a representation of the people who live in each of the kids' houses.
The other ongoing activity this week was weeding the preschool garden and harvesting some of the vegetables from the community garden. Whatever we harvested, we brought to the science table to look at with magnifying glasses. We cut gourds in two, pulled broccoli apart, and tasted everything. We also made zucchini bread on Tuesday from a giant zucchini from the garden. Most kids like it when they tasted it on Wednesday.
We had our first visit from the Bookmobile this week, as well. The kids met Tasha, a volunteer on the Bookmobile. We sang a few songs and then she read us a book about apples. After the story, everyon was allowed to choose a book to borrow from this library on wheels. The kids put their book in a special book bag to keep track of that book over the next four weeks.

Week #2: The face of preschool.

We spent last week working on our faces. First, the kids made a round shape for a teacher to cut out. Then we used various shades of skin color paint to figure out what matched each student. Some kids were peach mixed with almond or chocolate, others were hazelnut mixed with olive, and others were straight peach or caramel. It was fun to figure out what shade we were.
After the paint dried on our shapes, we colored and cut out our facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) and made hair from rick rack or yarn.
When we were all done, Beth put them up on the wall. Next to the faces she put a drawing each child made at small group. Everyone thought of something they know how to do really well. They drew a picture and Beth wrote the words. This connected back to the book, Now I'm Big. In that book, kids talk about how they needed a lot of help when they were little babies, but now that they are big, they can do many things for themselves.
This whole activity also connects back to our word of the day on Wednesday, which was unique. As the kids discovered their special skin color and made their own pieces of their face, they found that each one of them was unique. No one else in the class was exactly the same.

First Day 2009

Here are a few photos from the the first day of preschool.

Kids found their way through the activities in the classroom and outside.

Some worked on puzzles.

At science, they explored the attraction of magnets to each other and to some metal objects. There were a lot of choices in blocks and manipulatives. Kids were making buildings, playing with the bucket of dogs, and rolling toy cars down the road map on the floor.

Outside, they tried the balance beam, learned how to descend the fire pole, went swinging across the monkey bars, and playing on the different structures with slides and climbers.

At small group time, everyone made a cut out of their hand in fall colors. Then, we put those cut outs on the classroom tree to be fall leaves.

We spent the rest of the day learning the routine and rules at school. Students learned about how the job chart works and how to sit, listen and take turns talking at meeting time. They found their special spaces: their coat hooks and cubbies. Everyone had a chance to write in their own name practice book.

We are just beginning to learn about each other and we are all working on learning the names of our new friends.

A Brand New Start

I have been slowly getting the classroom and the preschool office in Fairfield organized for this upcoming school year. I have unpacked a few boxes, gone through mismatched toys and games, and ordered some new gross motor options for both inside and outside.
This past Wednesday and Thursday I spent in a training for a new classroom assessment, the Devereaux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA). It is a tool to help identify strengths and goals in the social-emotional learning domain. We can use this tool to look at the social-emotional temperature of the whole class. The DECA also provides strategies to teach social-emotional skills that will help kids learn to have self-control, initiative, and successful friendships.
Tomorrow, I will spend the morning at our countywide meeting. Once a month, the whole of the Early Childhood Programs get together for trainings, sharing ideas and to get updates on what is happening in our programs at the administrative level.
In the afternoon I will begin home visits with families. I will continue those next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. When I am not on visits, I will be in the classroom continuing to clean, organize, plan, and otherwise get ready for the start of preschool.

Welcome to Preschool

I am starting this as an experiment this year in order to help preschool parents keep up with what is happening in the classroom on a regular basis. I plan on posting weekly about what the kids are doing, learning and exploring in the preschool classroom.
This blog is for parents, other early childhood collaborative members, and friends of the preschool. It is by invitation only.
Hopefully this will be a productive way to share the weekly goings on in preschool this year.