Launch Day!

Here is a wrap-up video of the rocket launch day last Thursday. I have to admit, it was my favorite day EVER as a preschool teacher.

Preschool Bucket List

As we near the end of the year, we realized there is so much we though about doing that we did not quite get around to doing. So, we created a "Bucket List" of things we definitely want to accomplish before this school year ends. Here are a few things we have managed to check off our list.

HATCHING CHICKENS

 Angie Boardman offered to share her egg-hatching project with the preschool. She is hatching chicks for her home, but generously shared the eggs, incubator and information with us. We have been making predictions about how many will hatch, what color the chickens will be, and if they will hatch on time or not.

We now know, it takes 21 days to hatch and we should expect to hear peeping in our room on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. After they hatch, we'll put them in a "brooder box" and Angie will be taking them to her home after school on Thursday. We have a chart in the classroom that we have been using to count down the days. We also have used this opportunity to learn the names of the days of the week.

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR THANK YOU

 In order to thank the authors who responded to our request of book donations to the new library. She came in and shared some of the books with the kids.

 

Next, half of the kids "Illustrated" the letters T H A N K and Y O U. The other half of the kids "Authored" an invitation for the authors and illustrators to join us for a Tea at the library on June 18th.

Next we took a picture of all of us with the books and the THANK YOU, which will be the cover of the invitation that we send.

MORE LIFE PROCESSES: TADPOLE TO FROG

Grandma Rita brought in tadpoles (and a few eggs that had not hatched yet) in order for us to watch how they change into frogs. We will feed them and watch them change over the next few weeks.

Hopefully, we will have frogs before preschool is through.

Author Author!

One of our post office focus projects was to write a letter to Vermont authors and illustrators to ask if they would consider donating books to the new Bent-Northrop Memorial Library. The kids collaborated to come up with the words for the letter. (I helped them with the word "considering," but the rest is theirs.) Then, everyone wrote a few of the words on a real piece of notebook paper. I scanned the letter many times and wrote a cover letter to the recipients explaining how the kids worked together on the letter. 

We got some responses this week. How exciting! The real notes from Julia Alvarez and Amy Huntington are posted on the preschool wall, with the letter that the kids and I wrote.

 This one is from Julia Alvarez

This is from Katherine and John Paterson.

 

And this is from illustrator, Amy Huntington. She sent her note on a postcard that she also illustrated.

Another Traveler's Story

This is a video I put together of Flat Brandon's trip with Babci and Grandpa. Enjoy.

Department of Motor Vehicles

I am catching up on some older activities that I have been meaning to post about. In March, as we were learning about various vehicles, we had a day at the DMV. 

The kids needed driver's licenses for the cars we were making for our drive-through bank. I had each student take a number at the end of meeting. I taped numbers to their clothes so they could keep track of them. During play time, I was the DMV lady. I called their numbers. 

They came over to me and I asked them their eye color, birthday, if they were a boy or girl, and their street address (which we had practiced a lot during our post office theme). It was a fun way to find out if they knew these facts and to see how they answered questions. Next, I weighed them and measured their heights. Our scale runs a bit heavy, so I estimated down a couple of pounds for everyone. Then, we took their photo for the license. You may notice, none of them are very flattering--so true to the real DMV, don't you think?

An example of the resulting driver's license. I used my dog so as not to give away any personal information about kids. The last step after I printed out the licenses was to have the kids sign them. They also had to fill out the organ donor card on the back, which was a very fun conversation. They ran the gamut from, "No way," to whole body donors. They had to sign that, also. This gave them two opportunities to practice writing their names on small lines.

Spring Thaw

Today as we played outside, we noticed several large areas of water--mini lakes, actually, on the playground. The kids, of course, gravitated to them. I warned that they might be too deep to splash around in. The kids were not sure about this.  We decided to approach the problem scientifically. I got a yardstick and we measured how deep the puddle was. 

Whoa! almost 10 inches deep! Then, I compared the waterline on the yardstick to kids legs. They agreed after we checked that they would, indeed, get wet almost up to their knees and that even the rain boots most of them were wearing would not protect them from water that deep.

Flat Flatly in Chicago

 I'll be posting several of the Flat Stanley Project adventures here on the website. Our Flat friends have visited states all over the country as well as 4 countries outside the United States. When they return to the preschool with pictures, I have been sharing their adventures with the kids and posting where they went on our map just inside the classroom.

Here is installment number one: