Plants and Gardening...let's watch them grow!

OUR NEW PLAYGROUND!! WE ARE SO THRILLED WITH THIS GENEROUS DONATION!!!
THANK YOU!!!! 

What a fun week...We finished the alphabet, we are now reviewing numbers 0-10...and learning about the life cycle of plants!

Monday:

Gumby is almost done visiting with his new friends! 

These 2 had a blast!

What are the parts of the flowers? These kiddos are so smart!

Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed.
This book comes in handy for our independent activity and for learning about how flowers grow!

First the kiddos had to have a place to plant a beautiful flower.

They used their best and most artistic skills to paint their own flower pot!

Now that is pretty!

He was really into his work!

Time for some soil! 

Look at the roots on this flower!

They had to dig a hole and then plant their flower...

We know that a flower will need, "dirt, water, and sun" to live!

Time to sequence the life cycle of a flower...

Perfection on the scissor cutting and holding! I think she has done this before!

Awesome work sweet girl!

Our independent activity that goes with, The Tiny Seed...by Eric Carle.

They used dotters to make their artwork look like his!
http://fairylandcare.blogspot.com/2012/04/tiny-seed-craft.html

Tuesday...

coffee filter flower...

After they added all of the colors they wanted they... 

Used droppers to smear the maker ink...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/84794405458872650/

We then used their awesome hands to make leaves for our flowers.

Time to learn about the letter, Z!! And what better way than to have a "Zip that Zipper" race!

 

And it is a tie! Great job! But...Also...yup...you hear it coming! Zipping zippers is great practice for their fine motor and hand strength (as well as hand/eye coordination). All I did was latch it at the bottom and they did the rest themselves! Boy can these kiddos zip...and they had a blast!

You guessed it...more of my favorite fine motor skills: Paper Tearing. I can't get enough of this...and boy have they progressed!

What great zebras...Great job sweet friends!

labeling the parts of a flower. Did you know labeling (after just an illustration) is a kiddos first form of writing?

hard at work! Great job sweetness!

All done!

OK...well several of my pictures were not available. I am going to try and hunt them down. We planted grass by using grass seed and were going to monitor its growth. The pictures from planting it were of course priceless...so I will continue to look for them.

Also...while being gone all of my links were closed. So I may not be able to upload all of the activity links....if there is a specific one you are looking for let me know and I will hunt it down!

Easter

What a fun and powerful week! As I taught about the true meaning of Easter it amazes me how much these sweet buddies know about Jesus and what he has given us!

Monday:

I just love "Pete the Cat" books.

Shaving cream, paint, and glue to decorate eggs of our own...Just like Pete the Cat did... 

The kiddos swirled the ingredients together,

We then placed their egg in the mixture...

And perfection!
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/84794405458831330/

As I introduced the letter "E" we made them with our bodies! Great team work!
You can even have them attempt this individually with the letters of the alphabet!

This ended up being kind of messy but fun. I cut potatoes in half and make Easter egg patterns on them (using a knife to cut them out) the kiddos then painted them.. 

And stamped them in their papers! Just in case you were wondering "What in the world is this!?"
http://www.woohome.com/diy-2/24-cute-and-easy-easter-crafts-kids-can-make

Our letter E,e 4 box sheet!

They have gotten to be so independent with this activity.

I found this cool website that has made all of the letters into racetracks. The kiddos had so much fun "zooming" cars around...and this is educational and fun!

Here is the link in case you would want to print the cards. They also have numbers and shapes!
http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/RacecarABCcards.htm

We then used googly eyes to trace the capitol and lowercase Ee...A great fine motor skill too!
http://www.abcand123learning.com/search/label/Letter%20E

This sweet girl is making her name by rolling out play-doh 

Math...we counted the pictures aloud and then had to find the number that matched it!

Next we rolled a cube that had spring pictures on it and graphed it...

We took turns coloring the boxes...It was neat to see those light bulbs go off then they finally realized that the end product was how many times we rolled that picture. We discussed math words like: the more, same, least
http://ironicadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/spring_fling_preschool_pack_iA-2013.pdf

Tuesday:

Today we focused on the true meaning of this holiday.

We then made crosses and recited, "Jesus is Alive!"
Their paintings weren't dry at the end of the day...so you can add that to it!

I had used masking tape to make the cross and the kiddos filled up their paintings with all of the colors they wanted!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/84794405458854513/

Today with our bunny poem each child to to come up and locate a letter e. This is a great way at home to check their knowledge of letters...as you read ask them to find certain letters (you can even do this in the car as you drive while they look out the window). The understanding that letters make words is an important step to learning to read.

Stink...I forgot to take a picture of their final products...but these were super cute...and you know me and my LOVE for fine motor skill work! 

Library time! Reading books is one of my biggest passions! It makes my heart glow to see how much these kiddos LOVE to read too!

What comes next...Patterns is something we will touch more on before the end of the year. This was challenging for them. At home you can do simple AB or ABC patterns.

Great scissor holding!

A few more books we read!

Parents have a wonderful Easter! May we all remember the true meaning of this blessed holiday! See you next week!