Preschool Song Lyrics

Preschool song lyrics are now being posted to a page on the Fairfield Preschool's webpage. Follow this link:

Fairfield Preschool

Field Trip to St. Albans Post Office

All of the kids with Beth and a parent in front of a mail truck

Matt Durphy, the officer in charge at the Post Office showing us around.

We had a great visit to the St. Albans' Post Office. We have been learning about how mail and packages move around the country and world in preschool all month long. These boxes hold packages for people who pick up their mail at the post office.  






There are a lot of carts to roll mail around on inside the post office.

A worker sorting mail.

We saw a postal carriers sorting the mail for their routes. Each sorting carousel has slots in order by block and house. Rural carriers use cars to deliver the mail. City carriers load a mail truck, but park and walk their route with a bag.

The whole class got on the big scale. We weighed a lot, about 460 pounds.

A few of us tried out the slanted chairs at a sorting station.

We had mail to send out. We mailed Flat Stanley paper dolls to Florida, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, France, and New Zealand.

Most of them cost about 88 cents to mail. France and New Zealand cost $1.18.

We each had a valentine we made special for another student in the class. Everyone addressed and stamped their envelope to send it in the mail. We wonder how long it will take to make it to our friends' houses?

What's Up!

We finished our focus on Outer Space at the beginning of January, but I have been remiss in blogging to all of you about what transpired as we navigated the stars. The above photo is one example of the many projects we undertook. We made a solar system model with the sun in the middle and the eight planets orbiting. You'll see that Saturn has pipe cleaner rings. And Uranus' rings are rotating at 180 degrees, because that planet has a tilt that makes it spin as if it were a bowling ball.

We also went stargazing in the bathroom--the one room without any windows. When the light was on, we talked about how that is very much like the daytime on earth when the sun is shining so bright, we cannot see the stars, even though they are still there. Then, when we turned the light off, simulating night, glow-in-the-dark constellations appeared on the bathroom ceiling. They were placed in the "relative" positions to where you might see them in the winter sky. We included The Big Dipper, Aquila, Bootes, Orion, Leo, The Serpent, Lyra, and Cassiopeia. 

We did an experiment with gravity that helped the kids gain a concrete understanding of this force. I asked them to jump up and then stay there. Even though I asked them to stay up, they all came back down to the floor. We tried it a few times, but they still came down to the floor every time. We even tried it outside in the wind, but we discovered that gravity is stronger then the wind, which is why we really don't blow away in strong winds. 

We learned there are about only a few people who do not live on the earth--those are the scientists on the international space station. Otherwise, all humans live on the earth.

There was a lot more to absorb as we rocketed through the universe: meteors, comets, galaxies, rockets, shuttles, satellites, and moons. It was a wonderful time of learning about what's out there.

Holiday Concert

Here are the preschoolers performing at the Fairfield holiday concert.

The really rock, don't they?

Family Getaway Deal

I just saw this deal on Travel Zoo and thought of you preschool families. This is a sweet way to enjoy an indoor water park on the cheap in January. Here is the the link:

The Great Escape Deal

Hopefully, this is useful. It is a fun family getaway in the winter.

Election--Preschool Style

In order to practice voting, we chose the design for our two preschool Jack-o-lanterns. At meeting, the kids each got two "voters," a small animal to mark their vote. 

I showed them six pumpkin designs. They were: The Skeleton, Sharp Teeth, Cyclops, Kitty Cat, Goofy Gus and Happy Hal.

The kids got two votes each (one for each pumpkin). I called them up one or two at a time and they placed their "Voters" on the two favorite designs. When everyone finished voting, we counted up the number of voters on each design. Everyone helped with the counting and the figuring out of which design had the most (we have been working a lot on the concepts of more and less).

The Kitty Cat design came in first, with 9 total votes, and Happy Hal was the runner-up, with 7 votes. They became our two designs.

As in a real election, some kids were very happy with the result, and others were disappointed. My number one choice, Cyclops, tied with Goofy Gus for third.

The kids helped me carve the pumpkins into the two Jack-O-Lanterns. 
 

We think they ended up looking pretty awesome. Laurie toasted up the pumpkin seeds and we all got to try tasting them at the end of the day.

Barn Raising

Back in mid-October, we put together a new toy barn. The barn was made by one of the kid's grandfathers. He made it so that we could actually build it together in preschool. 

The kids got to help me figure out how to fit it together. Then, everyone who wanted to try, used the power drill to screw all the wooden pieces together. 







  

The result--with all of the helpers. I still hope to paint it the same colors as The Big Red Barn, from the book we read.