Birds

Continuing our experiences learning about creation, the children had opportunities to learn about birds.  The Bunnies had a great time painting with feathers.  They dipped their feathers in watercolor and painted with them on white paper for very wispy looking art.

We put large photos of birds at the easel with white paper and markers for the children to attempt to draw birds.  At this age, children's art is sometimes hard to identify, in the eyes of adults.  That's OK.  The purpose is to give the children some inspiration and some tools (markers, paper) and see what happens.
The Bunnies learned the story Owl Babies and got to play with props for the story.  We read a book called Feathers for Lunch which is about a cat trying to catch birds, but all he gets is feathers.  We discussed how some birds in the story had an advantage because they had three ways to move - walk, swim (paddle), and fly.  The cat only had two ways to move - walk and climb.  Simple discussions really get the kids to think about attributes.

Science in Action

While the Bunny Rabbits learned about the oceans and fish God created, they also had the opportunity to explore properties of water.  In the sensory table, the children found a variety of items and a bowl of water.  They got to see which would sink and which would float.  The most fun part for Cade above in the red shirt was seeing which items he could push down to sink and then pop back to the surface to float.

In the next few weeks, we will be conducting an experiment with a pumpkin.  Stay tuned!

Kitchen Fun

As in any preschool class, the kitchen is a popular place to play for both girls and boys.  In fact, usually there are more boys in the kitchen than girls.  Don't these girls look like they are having fun - pouring tea, serving little food, setting the table!  Ideally, this is how the kitchen area would be every day.

Ummm, sometimes it gets a little out of control in the kitchen. 

Now, the little girls above were not responsible for this chaos - the culprits shall remain nameless - but the lesson is the same for everybody.  We emphasized that at home parents do not cook food and put it on the floor, nor do they put dishes on the floor.  It will be the same for school.  Dishes and food go on the table, on the stove or in the cabinets.  No one wants to eat food off the floor even when pretending!

How effective is this lesson? 

That is yet to be seen, but we have high hopes!

Book Makers

Lately some Bunny Rabbits have been very interested in making books.  These are simple construction paper books stapled down the spine.  The children can color or write on the pages and the grown-ups can write words.

So what does book making look like?

Music

This week, we began music time with Mrs. Vaughn.  She had darling songs and the Bunnies had a great time.  Mrs. Vaughn will visit our class every Monday morning.  Yay!

Creation Continued

We have continued learning about the world God created for us.  What a gift!  There is so much to talk about!

In the photo above, Henry made stars by dipping his finger in white paint and stamping it on the black paper.  He made the stars sparkle by shaking glitter all over the stars.

We read the story It Looked Like Spilt Milk to help us learn about clouds.  The Bunnies made their own clouds by putting a scoop of white paint on blue paper, folding the paper and rubbing to spread the paint.  Then they described what their clouds looked like and Mrs. O'Connor wrote down their words.  (All of these clouds will become a class book.)

Our creation experiences will continue with ocean animals and other activities with water.  Stay tuned...

First Fire Drill

In my experience, this was the best fire drill ever!!  Look at all those cute feet lined up so nicely on the yellow line!  As usual, the children were disappointed the firetruck wasn't actually coming.

Names

I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture, but one little Bunny wrote her name on her work.  At this point in the year, there is a huge range of ability in writing one's name.  Some children can do it well, some children can sort of get a letter or two and some won't even attempt it.  All of those are appropriate.  We typically encourage the children to just start with the first letter of their name.  Some are receptive to the suggestion and some aren't.  Writing is a later developing skill and we are not at all concerned when children aren't interested.  Everyone learns to write at some point, and it will be different for each child.

Woodworking

What kind of woodworking can three year olds do?

 This little Bunny is using a plastic (lightweight) hammer to pound golf tees into a big styrofoam block.  It's great for developing hand-eye coordination.   The plastic hammer prevents owies.

Opening and closing locks is a woodworking skill.  This is a lockbox.  It has tiny doors with a variety of fasteners to manipulate.  Some are quite hard requiring you to do two moves to open them.  To the kids, it's just fun!

Viewmaster

Remember this from childhood?  Guess what!  It's still around and kids love it.

Let There Be Light

We have begun talking about how God created our world.  We read the story in our preschool bible and over the next several weeks we will express our understanding of how God created everything by being creators ourselves.  To represent light and dark, the children rolled golf balls dipped in silver and neon yellow paint onto black paper.  Harris was by far our most vigorous and enthusiastic creator.  I'm pretty sure God is very pleased by that!

The Office

Is this art or is this literacy?

What you see on the table looks a little like art - markers, scissors, colorful paint chips being glued onto equally colorful construction paper.  Believe it or not, this is literacy development.  The children are using office supplies and writing with markers.  Can we read what they write?  Rarely, but that's beside the point.  All of the marks they make that look like scribbles will continue to refine and refine until they resemble the marks we make for letters in our language, then they'll actually resemble letters.  It's a long slow process and lucky for these kiddos, we give them plenty of time and opportunity to develop.

The Name Game

We've been playing games so the children can learn each other's names.  It takes a long time!  One day we brought our name strip into the room and found our places.  We also have a matching game of name to photo.  I expect that to take quite a while for some so we'll practice it a lot.  Photo rosters are ready to be copied and distributed so you'll be able to practice the Bunny Rabbit names at home. 

The Sweet Serenity of Books

We are so delighted to have a class of book lovers.  In the few days of school we've had together, we have noticed every child in the book center at some point.  Each day there have been more books on the floor than on the shelf at the end of the day.  (Yes, we'll work on putting them back.)  How wonderful to have a room full of little ones who value books!!

Parent Orientation

Tonight is Parent Orientation at school.  Come to our Bunny Rabbit class to hear plans for the year, meet the other parents, and figure out who Benjamin Bunny is.  (He's coming to your house soon!  Don't be nervous.)
Heehee!

Mmmm Smelly Markers!!

Look who reaaallly loved our smelly markers!

Potty Patrol

Bunny Rabbit Parents:  At the end of the day, once we have dismissed your child to you, if you find that your child needs to use the bathroom, we kindly request that you find a bathroom elsewhere in the building, such as in the hallway by the gym or the hallway by the office.  (How's that for a long sentence!)  We realize it may seem silly, but we have good reasons.  Thanks!

First Day Fun

Our first day of Bunny Rabbit class was big fun!  The children had opportunities to check out the room and each other with only half of the class present at a time.  What a lovely way to ease into the year.

These bunnies built with pipes.  They attached pipe pieces of different sizes and shapes to create structures on a base.  We will always have an activity to do on this little table.  Notice the children are standing up.  Playing while standing requires totally different muscles than playing while sitting. 

These bunnies had no trouble locating the paper, markers and scissors.  See those envelopes on the table?  Those are for holding all the little snips and bits so they can arrive home safely.  We'd really be disappointed if those got lost blowing down the porch in the wind.  Get ready for lots of envelopes!!

Look how busy these friends are!  Every week we'll have several games and/or puzzles out for the bunnies to solve.  These offer opportunites to think, to problem solve and to develop fine motor skills.  There are lots more where these came from.  We have TONS of fun stuff in our closets.  Stay tuned!

Snacks - Think Small!

Here is our snack basket full of tasty treats.  Um, frankly it's a little TOO full.  Some parents sent a little too much food - if so, we tried to put a little note on the leftovers.  Our motto for next week: Think Small!  Please send only one baggie with a handful of snacks and label it with a sharpie before you arrive.  Thanks for being flexible while we all learn what works with our new snack policies at school.

First Day Reminders

Our first day of school is Monday, August 30.  The children will come for an abbreviated day - either 9:00 to 10:15 or 10:45 to 12:00.  No snacks are needed on Monday.  The children won't have time to eat. 

Tuesday, August 31 will be a regular day.  The children will come from 9:00 to 12:00.  The children will need a snack in a zip-loc bag and the bag labeled.  If you need examples, scroll down to the post below.

Snacks

Here are some examples of acceptable snacks for this year.  Now that the kids will bring their own snacks from home, we want things to be simple for parents and for kids.

Grapes, cereal, cheese, apple slices and crackers are great options!

Classroom Visits

This week we will have classroom visits. The new Bunny Rabbit children will come to school to meet Mrs. O'Connor and Mrs. Magee and get the lay of the land. We find that coming to school for a quick visit reduces anxiety and eases the transition for children on the first day of school. In the quick visit, we will take pictures, share information (and maybe a hug or two) and meet some of the other kids and families.

The first day of school will be Monday, August 30. We call it Get Acquainted Day, and it is a reduced schedule. We'll go full speed ahead on Tuesday, August 31.

Can't wait!

Time for School

It's hard to believe school starts in just a couple of weeks!

This blog is the perfect place to see exciting ways young children learn. I will be posting pictures (lots of pictures!) and brief explanations of what happens in our Bunny Rabbit classroom. I think you'll be amazed at all that goes on in three short hours!

Welcome to a fantastic year of Bunny Rabbit class!!

Bunny Love

It was an honor and a pleasure to have these darling Bunnies for a year. Watching them grow in God's love is a gift! Mrs. Magee and Mrs. O'Connor are so very thankful for the lovely gifts, sweet notes and the hugs! We had a great year!!

Gingerbread Day

Gingerbread in May? Certainly! We read several versions of the Gingerbread Man and spent some time comparing the events in the different versions. We then decided to make our own gingerbread man. We made the dough, rolled it out and decorated our gingerbread man with raisins. Noah's mommy helped us by taking our gingerbread man to the oven to bake. While he was baking, we read the Gingerbread Girl. Her story turns out quite differently than her brother's. She's a smart cookie!

After the story we went to get our gingerbread man from the oven, but guess what?!! He was GONE!!

Our gingerbread man left us a clue to find him. We chased him to the big blue barn on the playground, but we just missed him. We continued to follow the clues around our school and ultimately found him waiting for us on the table in our room! Of course we gobbled him right up. Delicious!!

Bunny Visit

Big excitement...a REAL bunny rabbit came to visit us at school!

Our friend, Anne, from the Nature Discovery Center, came to read a bunny story and show us a real bunny. Of course we all got to pet the super soft bunny. This particular bunny is very accustomed to being handled and petted by little hands. Everyone was brave enough to touch the rabbit. Who could possibly be afraid of such a gentle bunny?!

Outdoor Day

Outdoor Day was a super fun experience. Our playground was transformed into a water play zone. There was so much to choose from, it was hard to know where to begin! There was fishing, bathing babies, painting, shaving cream on bubble wrap, car washes, water slides and face paint. Owen and Weston R spent almost the entire day together in the little pool. Those boys had a blast as evidenced by their soaked-to-the-bone selves.

We wrapped up the day with popsicles on the porch - the best part of course!

Triangles and Circles

The Bunnies have been talking and learning about shapes. First, triangles and circles. The children painted some 3-D triangles with paint and of course, a little glitter. This group loves 3-D stuff in art! Also we read the book Ten Black Dots focusing on all the things you could make with circles. Then each Bunny made their own page for a class book. Owen was just beginning his page of four balloons in the photo.

We'll continue learning about shapes next week with squares and rectangles.

Mouse Paint

Earlier, I referred to the book Mouse Paint which is great for exploring color mixing. We did a bit of our own mouse paint in art. We dipped little mice (they look real, don't they!) in red, yellow and blue paint and then walked them across the white paper. Super fun!

Vehicles

I'm thinking that a few Bunny Rabbit moms have car floorboards that look like a little beach.

Color Mixing Experiment

We've been reading books about colors and color mixing. Mouse Paint is a wonderful story that nicely illustrates the three primary colors mixing into three secondary colors. We did a little science experiment so the Bunnies could see colors mixing in slow motion. We used clear pitchers filled with water. I squirted a layer of shaving cream on top of the water and then the children suggested color combinations to mix together. I dripped concentrated liquid watercolors on the shaving cream. Eventually the watercolors trickle down into the water, but the shaving cream slows the process down and allows for easy viewing of the colors blending together.
We watched for a few minutes then went to the playground. When we returned, we noticed that the red/blue combination still look mainly blue, not purple. I asked the children what we might do to make it look more purple. Wow - that took some higher level thinking skills to come up with the solution to add more red. They had to recall what we had already done, evaluate the situation, suggest solutions (more blue!), revise their thinking to adjust for new information (adding blue will make it even bluer!), suggest another solution and observe the results. This is the exact process that a scientist uses when conducting experiments.

We LOVE Books

So the Bunnies are really good at reading and enjoying books. The cleaning up part...umm...not so much.

heehee!

Snowflakes

For a couple of months now, a few Bunny girls have been hooked on making snowflakes. I showed Karis how to make one from construction paper one day. She taught the other girls how to make them, and she even dictated instructions for me to write so her mother could make snowflakes, too. She was convinced her mommy did not know how! After a few weeks of construction paper (which is thick when folded), I gave the girls coffee filters. Whew - they were much easier to cut. Oh my, they've made hundreds of snowflakes!

Tops

Recently we had some really neat spinning tops in our sensory table. Each top had a marker tip on the end so when it spun, the children could see the pattern the top made on paper. As you can see from the marks on the paper, some children could make the tops spin and some could not. No matter. It was fun anyway! One of the Bunnies said the top made a tornado. Do you see it?

Funny Glasses

We have these funny building components in our room. We call them "golfball builders", but I'm sure they have another name. They look like they have a golfball on one end, and the other end has a two pronged hook. They link together like a ball joint. At the beginning of the year hardly anyone could figure out how to play with these. Now that we are in the latter part of the year, these have become more interesting! Weston made glasses for me to wear, and Evan had to try them on, too. So cool!!

Working It Out ...Together

In the Bunny Rabbit class there are conflicts. Conflicts are completely normal. Learning how to work them out can be a challenge. There can be many sources of conflict - possession, jealousy, impatience, curiosity, over-enthusiasm. Sometimes, the conflict is simply accidental. In the picture above Karis had carefully stacked up the people blocks to measure them. Weston came over to check out what was going on and accidentally bumped the table causing, well, you know what! Of course Karis wasn't happy about having her hard work knocked over. Weston certainly didn't mean to knock them over. Hmmm - what to do, what to do?? I happened to be nearby and suggested to Karis that she tell Weston how she had set them up and he could reconstruct it for her. Let me tell you Karis took her role seriously and gave fantastic directions. Weston took his job seriously too, and built it back exactly as she told him. Conflict resolved!

Is it always this easy with young children? Nope. We try to give as many opportunities to resolve conflicts successfully so that when the next conflict arises, each child will have a memory of a positive outcome!

Pet Vet

Pet Vet is always a winner activity year after year. I must say that this group of Bunny Rabbits was particularly in LOVE with our pet vet activities. Our stuffed bunnies and puppies got all the vaccinations they could ever hope to need. Their ears got thorough inspections and they spent a fair amount of time in their crates travelling around the room. Everyone can rest assured that our stuffed friends are healthy!

Howdy Y'all

Celebrating and experiencing our western heritage is part of our culture here in our state. At the preschool level those experiences help form ideas and concepts of history at a very introductory level.

Translation: we have fun with western stuff!!

We had real animal bones to examine - some with super sharp teeth. We had the opportunity to discuss what we thought that animal might have eaten. We painted with ropes of different lengths. Our best painting activity was "udder painting" with a rubber glove filled with paint! We worked farm puzzles, wore cowboy clothes and built block ranches. Mrs. Magee had a special corral for the injured animals. She emphasized the need for the animals to recover in a quiet environment, but no one was buying that story. We test drove a saddle and Noah's mommy came to make cornbread with us.

Super fun - y'all!