Hello, pre-tot families!

We had another wonderful week in the pre-tot room! This week we focused on Day and Night. We practiced making round suns and crescent moons with our arms. We sang “The sun comes up, the sun goes down, the world keeps spinning round and round. I love you, and you love me, that’s how simple life should be.” We also sang one of our old favorites: “Zoom zoom zoom, we’re going to the moon, zoom zoom zoom. If you want to take a trip, climb aboard my rocket ship. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one….BLASTOFF!” Our books of the week were “Goodnight Texas,” “The Moon in my Room,” and “One Red Sun.”

On Tuesday we printed out pictures of the moon and glued cheerio craters to them. The kids were very focused as they used Q-tips to dot glue onto their moons and then pat the cheerios on.

On Wednesday we used eye droppers to drop yellow food coloring and water onto coffee filters to make suns. We also used red dot markers to add some color.

On Thursday we did a lot of activities, including water color painting outside with the whole community. We also rolled out play dough and made stars using cookie cutters. Lastly, we projected stars and moons onto our ceiling after nap time. The kids loved this!

On Friday we had picture day! The children looked super cute!  

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Best,

Magdalen

Hello, Families!

We had another wonderful week in the pre-tot room! We have especially enjoyed the weather, and have taken full advantage of it by spending every possible moment outside. As you know, our tulips love exploring the outdoors! In the classroom, the children have been most interested in using our play kitchen to pretend to wash their hands and to mix up little treats.

This week we focused on “In” and “Out.” During circle time took turns putting objects into buckets and then taking them out again. The children watched intently as our bunny and doggy puppets jumped out of the buckets and then jumped back in to hide before jumping out again. Our song of the week was the Hokey Pokey: “You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about!” As you can imagine, the children had fun with the dance.

On Monday we did some free painting using paint brushes. I have noticed that recently many of our tulips are able to concentrate for longer periods of time. It is so much fun to watch them grow in so many ways!

On Tuesday we mixed food coloring with water and used eye droppers to suck up the paint and then squeeze it out onto paper towels. We talked about putting the paint into the eye droppers and then squeezing it back out.

The tulips were in charge of the weekly community theme, which was “taking care of our school.” On Wednesday we organized a community washing of the playhouse. We filled a sensory tub with soapy water and distributed wash clothes among the children. They really got into activity and worked hard to scrub the dirt off of the playhouse.

On Thursday we had circle time outside. To further explore the concepts of “in” and “out,” we placed a hula hoop on the ground and we jumped into the hula hoop and then jumped back out. Then back in and back out. The children loved it!

On Friday we had a community carwash. We put some water in the sensory tubs and a kiddy pool and brought all the cars, trucks and tractors on the playground over for a washing. The children used sponges to scrub down the toys. They had a blast!  

I hope everyone is enjoying this Memorial Day weekend!

Best,

Magdalen

Hello, Families!

I hope you are all having a good weekend! We had a very busy and productive week at Green Sprout. This week continued learning about opposites by focusing on "up" and "down." We sang "Jump up and Down" and "The sun comes up, the sun goes down, the world keeps spinning round and round. I love you, and you love me, That's how simple life should be." We tried to incorporate lessons about "up" and "down" into many of the activities that we do throughout the day. We talked about sitting down and standing up, we reached up as high as we could and then touched our toes, and we climbed up and down the ramp. 

We also spent a lot of time playing with balloons and bubbles throughout the week. We threw the balloons up in the air and watched them sail down to the ground. We also watched the bubbles float away on the breeze and glide down to pop on blades of grass (or our hands).  

On Wednesday we did a fun activity with shaving cream. We sprayed it into the sensory tub and then added food coloring and mixed it around. The tulips loved feeling the smooth, slimy texture of the cream and watching as the colors mixed together. 

We also spent a lot of time outside during the second half of the week. The tulips have been very interested in the gardens recently. They are especially fond of searching for roly polies and other bugs. On Friday the toddler class brought out a large number of lady bugs, which they released into the gardens. The children really enjoyed watching the lady bugs fly and trying to catch and hold the lady bugs in their hands. A large caterpillar and a snail were also caught this week, and the tulips have been very interested in those creatures as well. Additionally, the tulips have been enjoying munching on various goodies from the garden, including mint and tomatoes.


Enjoy the weather; we'll see you on Monday!


Best,


Magdalen

Hello, Families!

This month we are learning about opposites, and this week we focused on big and small. Our books of the week were Eric Carle’s “Opposites” and another book called “Big and Small.” We also sang “Five Little Ducks” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”  The pre-tots have been very interested in finding roly polies in the garden. They become very excited when they see those little creatures crawling!

Monday:  On Monday we took big circular coffee filters and glued small googley eyes onto them. We talked about how the coffee filters are big circles and the googley eyes are small circles.

Tuesday: On Tuesday we decided to put our knowledge about big and little to use on the playground. We searched for big balls and small balls. The children had a lot of fun bouncing the balls and carrying them around the playground. In order to practice caring for ourselves, we filled the sensory tub up with soapy water and practiced washing our hands and washing plastic baby dolls.

Wednesday: On Wednesday we practiced making ourselves big by standing up and stretching our arms out, and then small by crouching down and hugging our bodies tight. The toddlers also brought the hermit crabs outside and let them crawl around in the garden. As expected, the children loved this! In the afternoon we took our sprouting beans out of their bags and planted them in egg cartons.  We are hoping they will start growing big soon!

Thursday: On Thursday we took a field trip to the infant room where we said hi to our small friends. We gave the babies hugs and pats.

On Friday we had another fun dance party and made spy scopes with toilet paper rolls which we decorated with stickers. We also worked on a special art project for mother’s day.

Have a great weekend!

Best,

Magdalen

Hello, dear families!

We had another fun week at Green Sprout!  This week we focused on different forms of protein, such as eggs, beans, nuts, seeds and meat.

On Monday we had a super fun confetti Easter egg hunt with the whole school. We also put a bunch of soy and lima beans in water and swirled them around with our hands. The children loved feeling the beans in the water.  We soaked the beans overnight, and on Tuesday we used them for another sensory experiment, during which each child got to squish and squeeze all the beans. We then decided to put them in a Ziploc bag to see if they would sprout. They have now started to sprout so be sure to check them out, they’re hanging in our window!

On Wednesday we had a green eggs and ham art activity. We used slices of cardboard paper as bacon and made green eggs out of construction paper. They turned out super cute. 

On Thursday we made little chicks out of the leftover egg carton cups by painting them yellow. :)

On Friday we started out with a dance and balloon party. The Tulips danced and danced! We also found some roley polies under a rock, and the children were fascinated by the small bugs moving around in the dirt. In the afternoon we had some very special snacks—yogurt covered pretzels from Matilda and coconut sorbet from Finn! They were delicious, thank you!

As we say goodbye to Cherokee, we welcome June into our class. Please introduce yourself to June and her parents if you see them around. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! See you Monday :)

<3 Magdalen