Sensory Day

Sensory Day was SO much fun! We created two different sensory bottles, and made cloud dough to take home. We made cinnamon bears, explored colored ice and water, and got all messy with shaving cream and water beads!

These are ice cubes that were mixed with a little washable paint.
I like using paint over food coloring because the food coloring will

stain clothes and hands. Then the children each get a squirt bottle

of warm water, some tools. Don't forget some little containers,

it doesn't take long for the children to discover they can

mix colors and make new ones by isolating a few cubes together!

We made a rain stick sensory bottle by placing popsicle sticks and

toothpicks into the bottle, then adding a little rice. The extra sticks

cause the rice to trickle and clatter as the bottle is turned. We also

made a visually interesting bottle with neon (and glow in the dark!) pony

beads and corn syrup. Glued on lids are a must!

And water beads and shaving cream.

Pretty self explanatory, but lots of fun. We worked
on a couple other things too, but I missed the pictures on them!

Black Out!

Your preschooler is invited to Whole Child Preschool's Black Out, Parent's Night Out!

Our 'not too dark' party will include tons of awesome black light and glow in the dark activities.

We will also be making crafts and cool glowing projects to take home.

Also included is cooking class and dinner!

July 7, from 5-9pm.

Ratio is 2:5, there's not many spots available, reserve early!

 

Hands on outside fun!

A beautiful morning to be busy exploring!

Welcome to Circle Time

After a little meet and greet time, and some free exploration of carefully prepared hands on centers, it's time for circle time! Come on and sing with us. . . "One, two three, come learn with me. Four, five, six, calendar and weather picks. Seven, eight, nine, it's circle time!"

It's our Little Helper chart! Meaningful task help

keep our day running smoothly. Children love picking

from things like 'snack helper' and 'fish feeder.'

 Weather time! Let's look outside and see what the weather is like!

Our weather helper picks the weather sticker and puts it on our poster.

 Next, it's time to decide how we should be dressing for today's weather.

We have new clothing options each month.

We're always excited to see what's in store for our weather friends!

Our birdhouse is both the display area for our friendship feathers,

and also holds our clothesline for our color birds.

During circle time we discuss the charector trait we are working on currently.

The children always have great suggestions on how to be a good friend!

 

Our color birds sit on a clothesline by our birdhouse.

We work on both color, and color word, identification.

We review the shapes in our shape basket!

Along with traditional preschool shapes, we work

on shapes like trapezoid, crescent, and three dimensional shapes like cube.

 We use hands on numbers and letters to explore their shape

and how they are created.

 Each month we focus on one food group and explore

topics that lead to lifelong healthy eating habbits.

 Our phonics flowers are planted in our letter pot.

Along with our Zoo-Phoics, we concentrate on a few specific

letter and sounds each month during circle time.

What surprise has been left in our phonics garden today?

 We also sing our Zoo-Phonics song during circle time!

Zoo-Phonics allows the children to easily learn the letters and

their sounds.

As you can see, our circle time is also hands on, educational, and lots of fun. 

Our day starts with this very interactive learning experience and it really makes the children excited to see what else their preschool day has in store for them!

"Take home learning materials"

If you've ever come across any advertisements for Whole Child Preschool, you probably read something about our awesome 'take home learning materials.' If you've ever wondered what exactly that meant, here's an example!

Our theme tomorrow is Ladybugs and Fireflies. Aside from some hands on and engaging activities, including making fireflies to take home, we'll be working on this ladybug math activity.

Ladybug pockets attached to pots full of counting fun!

  Numbers 1-10 and their corresponding counting stems. 

Velcro makes the learning stick!

The ladybugs store neatly in the pocket up front!

It's perfect for in the car and on the go!

And because all learning here is custom built, each set is perfectly suited for each child.

These sets will be taken home with the student to help reinforce the skills we're working on in class. 

Our take home learning materials are always fun, engaging, hands on activities, that parents and children can work on together!

And isn't that a lot more fun than a counting worksheet!

Sneak Peek

We're gearing up for another week of hands-on learning fun!

Awesome water play

Individual honey apples in cooking class.

Who can say no to a rainbow waterfall?

Piano time!

Our lettuce seeds are ready for transplant!

Our flowers are starting to sprout!

We're making these SUPER cute fireflies!

We're growing . . .

We're working on a lot of really interesting things this week.

We made a mosaic of the sun.
We created a sun and earth to demonstrate how the earth rotates around the sun.
We learned about passive water movement.
We created an experiment that replicates the movement of water in a plants xylem.
We used water and chalk to make artwork.
We are making a rainbow of colored carnations.
We are going to make paper tomorrow, adding flower seeds so it can be planted and grown.
We are sorting, counting, and making estimations about bean seeds.
We are creating fun Mother's Day gifts.
We are planting seeds in transparent greenhouse bags to grow at home.

But the best moment of the week was this.

   

Friends deep in conversation on a hazy spring morning.

"Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend." - Plautus

There's a lot of growing going on at Whole Child Preschool, and it's not just seeds.

Growing Gardens

This week we have switched over from our dinosaur theme, and started working on a gardening theme. Our gardening unit will be fairly short, 12 classes, but packed full of fun! Here's some of the activities we're working on this week.

Our indoor gardening center has been a blast! We have pots and mulch for planting flowers and seeds, gardening tools, gloves, watering cans, and a little brush and pan for clean up time.

















We have several science activities that involve plants. On our magnetic board we're learning about the parts of a flower and matching up the word labels. At the table we're learning how seeds grow and sequencing a growing bean plant.

       

At the writing station we are working on fine motor skills and letter identification with this fun letter sorting activity.



















We have a fun food cutting station.

  

And in our math area, we're using our beehives to work on relational concepts like over, under, and beside.

Dinosaur Discovery

Our dinosaur unit will conclude on Friday as we celebrate with a dinosaur party. 

We have learned so much about different kinds of dinosaurs and Jurassic life. One of my favorite days was early on, as we recreated different ways that paleontologists discovered dinosaurs.

In Amber

 

 

 

In Earth

 

 

In Ice

Now we'll be finishing up and moving on to our Growing Gardens theme. We'll be setting up plant experiments, learning about water movement, exploring parts of a flower, meeting some garden friends, and discovering the secrets of Growing Gardens.