Sorry it has been so long since our last blog post. This time of year is always so busy and a lot of time and energy had gone into graduation, which by the way turned out amazing and I was so appreciative to have everyone there! It was very special to have your children be my first preschool graduation. Some of our friends have said goodbye to go to kindergarten, new schools, and taking the summer off. We have also said hello to some new faces and children transitioning up from Red Room. We are very excited for summer and we have been loving the weather.
Blue Room taking care of their classroom chairs and building community.
Scrub, scrub, scrub!
The children wanted to make a bus with their beautifully cleaned chairs! Singing "The Wheels on the Bus."
Water slide time!
It is always so neat to see the imaginations in our class. K and S making a zoo and if you look closely you can see that each of the animals had their own caged area.
There has been a lot of talking and questions amongst the children about camping. So we decided to explore different areas of camping and one of the main things that caught their interest was the fire and how to make a fire and cook things. R building a campfire.
E is painting the logs for the fire.
M dumping what was left of the glue to glue the logs together and the flames.
Using our hands and paint brushes to make a fire.
It was so neat to see how the children used the different colors and hear their conversations about fire and how it gets so hot, and how you cannot touch it or you will melt and burn, and how you can stop, drop, and roll if you catch on fire.
I decided to bring in my own camping tent to bring camping into the classroom. I asked the children how to put it up and one of our 5 year old boys said you need to blow air into it. So i did. And then another child said you need an air pump. And then a light bulb went off and a couple of the children shouted you need those poles. It was so great to have the children help me put the tent together and watch it transform from flat to a dome shape. The children were so giggly and excited to be inside.
Camping is one of my favorite things to do and I try to go as often as I can. My friend Sandi came to school this day to help us with the tent and she told the children a camping story that was from a time that we camped. The children laughed and got excited to tell stories of their own. Z had been camping a few times before and so he had a true story to share. We fit 17 children and 2 adults! ;)
E had a made up monster story to share as well. They loved it!
We even played blocks inside and looked at books.
K was our photographer of our camping trip extravaganza.
While talking abut camping, the topic of birds, squirrels, raccoons, and different animals you may see while camping came up. So we decided to make bird feeders out of pinecones. I picking his pinecone.
N, M, and G starting to slather on their peanut butter.
L, L, and I trying to work the peanut butter into all of the nooks and crannies of the pinecones.
A is one of our new friends at school! And S is sprinkling on the bird seeds.
K and M sprinkling on more bird seeds.
M looking through his binoculars.
Teacher Aimee helping our friends use tape and attach string to their binoculars.
L and G looking at a funny book together!
We had a teddy graham tasting test in our class. The children loved tasting the different flavors and took their job very seriously.
Then we voted between the four flavors - Chocolate, Honey, Cinnamon, and Strawberry/Banana. Amongst the children Chocolate won and all the teachers voted for cinnamon. :) We also introduced our teddy bears to each other and danced with them.
Our Teddy Bear Picnic was so much fun! We ate all together with Purple Room on the grass. We had a lot of fun!
Our new friend N, C's little brother joined our class on a great day!
We have been watching and feeding our silk worms as they grew and grew and grew. We built the homes out of toilet paper rolls so the they could build their cocoons in. The moths have started to come out to mate and lay eggs. It has been such an interesting process to explore and observe.
L, G, M, and N helped Teacher Thaovy clean our fish tank and replace the water and keep an eye on our sucker fish (which the children named "Elsa Ben 10") and our two gold fish.
I would like to also like to say, "Thank you!" Thank you to all your support and love throughout this past year. It has been a pleasure woking with you children. Also, I really appreciate all the time and effort you all put in collaboratively to make me a shutter fly book and for the gift card to Costanoa! It is BEAUTIFUL! I love it so much and cannot say thank you enough. Your kind words and the awesome pictures of your children and their art is priceless. Such an amazing keep sake! I LOVE IT! Thank You Again!!
Hugs,
Teacher Kristina
