Welcome to a Wonderful New Year

Mrs. O'Connor and Mrs. Quinn are excited to begin a great year with the Bunny Rabbits.   Hop on in...

Thank You

Thank you for a wonderful year!  Mrs. Magee and Mrs. O'Connor had a great time with your children and we are grateful you shared them with us!
Have a wonderful summer and please remember to come visit us in the fall.
Bye!

Water Play Day

Water Play Day is a fun tradition.  We have one day in May when the children wear bathingsuits and play outside all morning.  We have a variety of activities for them including fishing, car washes and shaving cream.  We wrap up the day with popsicles on the porch.

Ladybugs

We grew ladybugs in our room.  Exciting!  We observed them in 3 stages of development before we released them.

The Bunnies really liked using the magnifying glasses to get a closer look at the ladybugs that started out looking a little like ants.

We released them in the courtyard and watched them crawl away. 

Mail!

After much waiting and wondering, a very exciting thing happened!
WE GOT MAIL!
The Seahorse class wrote letters to us!  Yay!

Each Bunny received a letter and a beautiful butterfly made by their Seahorse pen pal.

This was a big day.  The smiles on the children's faces were priceless!

These activities about mail were so fun primarily because they were completely driven by the interests of the children.  I certainly had not made elaborate lesson plans about the mail, but as soon as I saw how interested the children were in mail, I jumped on it.  This is the beauty of a school like ours where teachers have plenty of time and materials to let children guide their own learning.

More Mail

The Bunnies' fascination with mail continued on through the spring and we decided to take on an ambitious project. 
We created mail for our friends in the Seahorse class behind us.
Each Bunny got to choose a Seahorse friend to write to.  They selected a picture and glued it at the top of the letter.

Then they drew a picture for their friend and dictated a little story to tell about the picture.

They signed their name at the bottom and put the letter in an envelope and added a "stamp".

They took their letter to the mailbox for mailing.

Last, we added a letter to the class and delivered the whole mailbox to the Seahorse class.

And then the waiting and wondering began.
Would they like our mail?
Would they write us back?
Fingers crossed!

Color Mixing Experiment

We had a fun time learning about mixing colors.  We read great books like Mouse Paint
and we simply had to try mixing our own colors.
A great way to watch colors blend is to fill a clear cup with water and squirt shaving cream on top to cover the water.  Then choose two colors to drop onto the shaving cream.  The shaving cream is thick and slows the progression of the color into the water like slow motion, yet the original two colors remain on top of the shaving cream.

The children could really see what happened. 
The next day they painted with their new color.

The Bunnies thought it was really cool that they made their own paint!

Story Time with Parents

In the spring, we had parents come to class each Tuesday morning and read to the children.  What a blessing!

Parents generally brought books from home so the children got to hear the stories their friends like to hear at home.

The size of the crowd varied, but the enthusiasm was always high!  Thank you, parents!

Sorting by Attributes

Sorting is an extremely important preschool skill that gets successively more refined as children age through school. 

Here is a very simple example - sorting by color.  Most children can do this when they arrive in Bunny class at the beginning of the year.  It's a very early form of sorting.  Generally, they really can't think of any other ways to sort, so we spend time exploring other options as a group.  Then the children have repeated opportunities to do their own sorting independently.  They come up with exciting things!

In the photo above, the items are sorted into shape AND size.  Sorting by two attributes is for more complex than just sorting by color.

Sometimes the sorting seems to elude the adults, yet makes complete sense to the children.  Fair enough!

Problem Solving

One thing we really focus on in Bunny Rabbit class is problem solving.  In a single day we have all kinds of problems (mostly small!) and those problems can have a variety of successful solutions. 
Here's a perfect example: a torn paper

Kate came to me and asked me to fix it for her.  I knew good and well the she was perfectly capable of fixing it herself, so I vaguely directed her to the shelves of office supplies we have in the literacy center.  I really didn't know HOW she would decide to fix it, but I had complete faith that she could.  Wait until you see how Kate solved this problem!

I absolutely adore this!  It looks like stitches!  What I love most about this is that she crafted this solution on her own, and it's not even close to what I would have suggested.  I'm so glad I stayed out of it!

Yee Haw!

We spent a few days in March celebrating our western heritage.  We had fun activities such as making our own mud paint, practicing writing letters of cowboy vocabulary and picture matching.  We even had a horse and real saddle to sit on!  The children could easily get on and off by themselves and they took full advantage of their independence.  We had a few children dress in their cowboy/cowgirl duds, too.  Even if families are not originally from this area, the children love learning about these culturally significant themes.  Our culture is steeped in western roots of ranching and farming and livestock.  Learning more about them gives children a sense of place, plus it's fun!

The Mailbox

Let me introduce you to this year's most requested toy.

This mailbox is so wonderful.  First of all, it's super cute.  Secondly, it is sturdy wood with a collection door that swings open.  Thirdly, the slots to accept mail are different sizes.  Along with this mailbox are postcards and letters, each with a matching stamp that velcros on.  The thickness of the mail determines which slot it fits into.

I cannot begin to tell you how much time the Bunnies spent with this mailbox the first few days we had it.  Children were interacting with this mailbox every minute they could.

We found children who do not normally pal around together, really enjoying each other's company here at the mailbox. 
Since we first had this mailbox in the room, we have had requests to have it again and again.  We are happy to oblige!

The Box

We had a wonderful visit from Pastor Tori who is one of the church clergy persons.

She shared a book called Henry's Freedom Box.  It is based on a true story of a man who gained freedom from slavery by having himself mailed in a shipping crate to a state in the North.  Conceptually, the story is difficult for this age group, but Pastor Tori did a wonderful job of making a complex subject matter relevant to preschoolers.  She gently pointed out unkind actions throughout the story and highlighted the importance of treating EVERYONE fairly and kindly.

Pastor Tori brought a box and let each willing child get in it.  Getting in and out of the box was great fun for the Bunnies, but in the end they agreed that they wouldn't want to stay in it and certainly wouldn't want to be mailed in a box.  Even with a challenging topic, this simple prop gave the Bunnies an opportunity to experience empathy.
We hope Pastor Tori will be back to visit us again several times before the end of the year.

Patterns

Here is a simple, yet challenging puzzle we had in our class.  It is a file folder game.  Know what that is?  It's a game or task that is completely contained in a file folder.  They are flat, portable and fun!

In this game there are 8 hearts each with an ever so slightly different pattern on them.  Half of each heart is already attached to the folder and children must match up the other half of the heart.  The patterns on the hearts are so similar that the children have to really look hard.  I love how one Bunny reached over the table to help out her friend.  Two heads (and hearts!) are better than one.

Love

Celebrating Valentine's Day at school is something the children really enjoy.  We don't make a big deal of the commercial aspects, but we certainly take time to talk about God's love for us and our love for our families and each other. 

We had a good bit of heart art.

We had some beading with red, white and pink beads.

The most fun of all was exchanging valentines.  Each Bunny got to pass out his or valentines by placing one in each bag around the table.  This is not as simple as it sounds, by the way.  It was an excellent and motivating way to practice one-to-one correspondence.

We had darling store-bought cards, cards lovingly made at home, and cards with bible verses reminding us of God's love.  Each Bunny was very excited to take them home and read them.  As adults we can certainly remember that fun feeling of sitting down to look at all of our valentines.  We hope the Bunnies always know how much they are loved!

In the Background

Sometimes little, yet important things slip past our vision.

The most important thing about this photo is not the super cute Bunnies eating their snack...

...it's the two Bunny boys in the background referencing our alphabet poster.  We have never seen the children even notice that poster, and here are two kids clearing interacting with what they see depicted there.  Yay!

Creatures of Habit

These two do this....

every single morning.  First thing.