Milestones Preschool

Miss Jill will indeed search for a new phone, half of my pictures were lost on my phone :(.  Above the wontons and dumplings we sampled.  Below, eating ice with a spoon was an activity while we waited for our food.  The children were otherwise exemplary patrons! We enjoyed all of the unusual and different products and packaging all over the store.  The children helped to pick out new foods to try which we will sample at school Wednesday. After eating we walked over to a park.

Arghhh!  Ahoy mateys!  We indulged in some pirate play today, which also presented itself with some skill acquisition opportunities!  Firstly, after reading the fun book below we drew our own treasure maps.  Drawing the "X's" to mark the spot where the treasure is buried is also a good way to cross the midline! We painted "gold nuggets" for our treasure and engaged in lots of cooperative dramatic play which is super great for language development and, of course, social skills... Hazel, as well as Isaac are writing their full names!  AND another special name: MOM. Above, it was fun to wash the rocks before we painted them and below we counted our gold coins. The children discovered that more gold coins were buried in the rice!

We read the dreamy Eric Carle story Papa, please get the moon for me , where a little girl asks her dad to bring the moon to her so she can play with it.  This requires waiting for the moon to go from being full to being a crescent first, and then her dad takes a very tall ladder to get it for her.  We talked about the different shapes the moon takes and how that depends on shadows (a little over their head, but good to start introducing the idea).  We each had a turn to draw the moon (pictured down below) and then we took a long piece a paper and colored a full moon, then drawing the long ladder... and  HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY ISAAC! Isaac brought in delicious home made brownies to share in celebration.  My how everyone is growing!

We practiced painting some more Chinese characters and painted papers red in anticipation of creating "chunlian" the Chinese New Years banners that contain hopeful phrases.   We had a lot of fun dumping and pouring and filling the rice with colanders and paper towel rolls! The children helped me move buckets of rock mulch under the swings to protect us if we fall, thanks kids! We each took a spot on the floor and followed directions from a song. I instructed the preschoolers how to play dominoes and then they taught each other.  A great activity for being visually aware and good exposure to numbers in different forms. Thanks, Drew for helping me clean off the black board!

We talked about Chinese New Year today after I read a story about it.  We sampled some rice with chopsticks and also tried a Japanese rice snack that Kiyo brought in for us to try.  I was impressed with the preschoolers' abilities with the chopsticks! We also enjoyed playing with rice in the sensory table. We are exploring the Chinese "chunlian" banners that decorate homes and streets during Chinese New Year.  I encouraged the preschoolers to copy the characters that symbolize peace, love, strength.  I showed them  how to use the watercolors with a light touch and a tiny brush to make thin brush strokes... I caught Drew reading sweetly to a baby doll... Hank created a great block building and all of the children joined in on it.