This week we visited China.
The kids colored their final flag for the flag wall.
We talked about the Great Wall of China.
We learned that this year- 2012- is the year of the Dragon.
They each got a fortune cookie to eat.
The kids had a great time playing a game with chopsticks and cottonballs.
We learned about some of the things that people eat in China and the kids also learned that the people in China don't use forks or spoons to eat with.
The kids had a fun time making a chopstick craft and learning about the symbols of the Chinese.
We were even able to watch a little bit of "Mulan" during snack time.
Started off this week with an "emergency substitute." Thanks to Kirsti, I was able to drive my 2 year-old down to urgent care where he received 5 stitches- and it all happened during PM class on Monday.
This week we visited France and Egypt.
While learning about France, we looked at pictures of museums, castles, cathedrals and of course, the Eiffel Tower. The kids enjoyed coloring pictures of their own Eiffel Tower and counting how many Eiffel Towers they could find in the preschool room.
On Friday we visited Egypt. We talked about pyramids and mummies, but don't worry, I didn't go into detail about that. I actually just asked if anyone knew what a mummy was. There answer was, "yes, someone who is wrapped in toilet paper." :) We also talked about King Tut and learned that he was only 10 years-old when he became king. The kids had fun decorating pyramids with different Egyptian pictures and trying to write their names using hieroglyphs.
Our wall of flags is filling up! We only have one country left to visit and then the kids will be able to take home their country flag books.
We started our last unit of the year "around the world." We learned that there are 7 continents and many, many countries. We discussed how people are different throughout the world. We might look different, eat different foods, play different games and talk different too. The kids learned that they must have a passport to travel to a different country.
The kids loved looking at a globe and finding the different countries that we will be visiting.
On Wednesday and Friday we "visited" Mexico so the kids each got a stamp in their passport. We had a fun time learning about Mexico and the kids even learned to say 'Hello' and 'Good-bye' in Spanish. They were able to paint maracas to take home and color a picture of a pinata. We are also making a wall of flags representing each country that we will visit.
Next week we will be going to France and Egypt!!
I can't believe we are on the last letter of the alphabet! We had a fun week talking and learning about the different animals we might find at the zoo.
Here are some pics of this week...
We started out this week by learning about deserts. We talked about what makes a desert a desert, animals and other things we would find there and what we must always bring with us if we go. (water!) The kids enjoyed making a desert scene with cactus, desert animals and real sand! We also reviewed our numbers 1-10 by playing a number cactus game.
On Wednesday we talked about what animals live in the desert and how they are able to survive. The kids did some sorting with different size lizards.
Since Earth Day is on Saturday, we had our Earth Day at preschool on Friday. We learned about recycling and why it is important for our planet and what might happen if we don't take care of our Earth.
The kids are becoming pros at painting! They painted and colored their Earth Day paper and enjoyed threading yarn around for a border.
On Monday we learned about farms. We talked about the different animals we might find on a farm and each ones purpose. We did letter matching for some farm words, tried to find matching boots for our farmer and we even played "Old MacDonald!"
Here are the kids practicing their "letter of the week" on our little chalkboards.
Wednesday was our pig day. We talked about why pigs love the mud- and then the kids were able to paint some "mud" on their pigs. They also loved making pig noses and making pig noises. :)
Friday was our field-trip. It was SO fun. The kids had a blast jumping off haystacks, drinking yummy milk, petting a cute lil' bunny, going on a hayride, learning about cows and what they eat, feeding some sheep and a donkey and....I think that's it. :)
What a great Easter Party we had!!
On Monday we decorated the eggs. We also did some letter matching (upper case and lower case) with some "broken" paper eggs. We continue to work on recognizing letters and also handwriting.
We started out Wednesday by making some bunny ears. Then we did our first egg hunt with our colored eggs in the backyard. The kids had a great time searching- they also had to find a special egg with their name on it.
We ate a yummy Easter snack and then hunted for more eggs. This time the eggs were plastic and had a few treats inside. We also played a fun racing egg game.
