A is for Apple and All About Me

   This week marked the return of our preschool schedule. Our calendar area and schedule were updated as we welcomed the return of favorites like circle time.

 

    The books we focused on included The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall and What's Inside Miss Molly's Locket by Louise Croft. The second book is a gift I received from my amazing mentor for my college coursework. We will be revisiting these books next week as we expand on some of the themes presented. For this week, we looked at the life cycle of an apple tree and how each one of the children are unique with different skills and interests. The children shared some of their favorite activities and things they do well.

    Our table activities included worksheets from the curriculum I purchased from Preschool Palace. This week, I placed the worksheets in sheet protectors to add to our dry-erase writing center.

     Our art activities included painting with apples from the backyard tree, making a torn paper apple and drawing an apple. We also had a great time sharing our handprints with our "friendship art."

    For sensory and science, we searched for letters in noodles and compared apple slices that had been coated in lemon juice compared to those that were not.

   We had the opportunity to eat Gala and Granny Smith apples with caramel and decide which type of apple we liked better. We also referred to our apple chart to explore color as well as our own uniqueness.

    Other activities included a look at circles by playing with our Connect Four game and exploring color with the light table.

    We enjoyed the following video as we looked at the life cycle of the apple tree and look forward to continuing our unit next week.

Fun with Art and Summertime Activities

     Summer seems to be flying by but we have had many opportunities to enjoy some beautiful weather. I have always been inspired by Tomie dePaola's book, The Art Lesson. In the book, a young artist is told that his picture should be copied in exactly the same manner as modeled by his art teacher. When children ask what color something is, it is easy to give our wise answer of "blue" for the sky or "green" for the grass, but there are colors to be discovered in grass or even a piece of the sky. We can answer instead, "What do you see?"

    We explored different art methods during the past two weeks. Inspiration came from science projects, Lisa Murphy's training session, fun with plastic eggs and a winery. The first art experience included our favorite volcanic reaction with baking soda, vinegar, food coloring and Dawn dish soap. We placed our paper on top of the reaction for a print.

   The next art project included dropping food coloring and water with a straw on top of a paper towel. The paper towel was placed on top of a piece of paper for a transfer activity.

    Here is Lisa Murphy's activity that includes nylons stuffed with un-popped popcorn and paint. 

 
     In this activity, I placed liquid watercolors in a plastic egg to be shaken onto our paper. I used tape to seal off on of the ends on the egg.

     At the winery, I saw this beautiful painting, which inspired our own use of watercolors, pipettes and Mod Podge.

    

     Other art activities included marble art, Perler Beads and fun with Play Dough.

      We also had opportunities for sensory play and light table activities. Often times the children use my phone to take pictures of their masterpieces.

     We had a fun day in the middle of our theme with a focus on...

We were able to wear some cool hats from home, take home a balloon animal (if it survived) and decorate our party plate.

         Farms were built and creations made as children worked together during free play.

     We also revisited and activity by Steve Spangler. I recommend using two toothpicks at crossing angles rather than just one. I did not get a photo of the reaction, but Diet Coke shot up through the construction paper Geyser Tube and ended up above my head.

    We had the opportunity to capture a wood boring caterpillar that used the wood in the stick to form a cocoon.

     We are also eagerly awaiting our sunflowers to form a flower.

   
     This week we begin our look at Ocean life. Here is a glimpse into the beginning of our week. Have a great week!