Can I Help You?

We can't help everyone,

but everyone can help someone.

Ronald Reagan

Make a resolution to help someone in 2016!

Snowmen and Dinosaurs 2016

Yesterday was a very productive day at MCP putting away all of our Christmas activities and setting up new centers for the new year.  This should give you a good idea of what will be happening in our room the next month...

DINOSAURS...

Our art center will have dinosaur stencils that the MWF classes can trace, color and cut and add to our bulletin board.  We will make tally marks, count and press 'the easy button.'  For more ideas on bulletin boards or to see past dinosaur boards, check under the 'Bulletin Board' label.

Dinosaurs are BIG so they need BIG numbers.  Our MWF classes will have dinosaurs numbered from 12-20.  Children add stickers, a teacher checks and then students can press the 'easy button.' The TTh class will have snowmen and snowflakes numbered 4-10. This activity is located in our Discovery Center.

Sensory tub and center activities---
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2012/01/preschool-paleontologists.html

How to draw a dinosaur---
http://www.metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2015/01/dinosaur-drawings_11.html

Digging for dinosaurs in the classroom---
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2011/01/dinosaur-dig.html


SNOW...
January means all things snowy in our classroom.  The tree in our garden bulletin board has lost it's leaves, the grass is covered with snow and waiting for students to create snowmen.
 

The lacing basket in our Discovery Center is filled with snowman lacing cards.

Snowman ABC/123 games and activities---
http://www.metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2015/01/snowmen-abcs-123s.html

Snowflake lacing---
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2012/01/let-it-snow.html

Snowmen, dinosaurs and a whole lot more will keep us pretty warm and toasty in January.  Hope you and your child are finds lots to keep you busy!

Transformers

We need more transformers for Christmas.

"When you educate a child, you transform communities and when you transform communities you can change the world."

Debra Broughton

Principal

Whitney Achievement Elementary School

Memphis, Tennessee

Cake Boss

Although Mrs. Claus' Bakery has closed for the season at MCP, I wanted to share this idea.  We added a piping bag and I was amazed how many kiddos knew how to use it correctly.  I purchased the bag for a dollar at my favorite dollar store, filled with fiberfill and ran a stitch across to the top several times to close.  The piping tip is super glued.  The kiddos piped icing on cookies, cupcakes and more!

Have a fun filled holiday with your child!

Happy Birthday, Wassily Kandinsky!

 It took two class periods but our Kandinsky pieces are complete.  Our first class the children covered the canvas with colors of their choice.  We encouraged them to place colors 'next to' each other and not on top of each other. 

We love it when the children request more paint for their palette!  We have introduced lots and lots of vocabulary during this unit! 

Here are some of the finished pieces after day one.

On Monday, we looked at Kandinsky's work and talked about straight and curvy lines, dots and circles.  We gave each child black paint.  On the tables, the children were able to choose between brushes, Q-tips and marker lids for circles.

We watched some cool jazz!

Herbie Hancock-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAlejqkd-gg

Vince Guaraldi  Linus and Lucy- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1LUXQWzCno

Collection of work-http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/

Mr. Kandinsky would be 149 years old today.  Happy Birthday, Kandinsky!

Christmas Collages-2015

Our art center always has a collage box.  For Christmas it filled with all things red and green. Find and box and fill it with red and green items for you child to glue at home.  

Moose, Elk and Deer---2015

Last week, our MWF preK students learned about moose, elk and white tail deer.  We learned---
*moose are the largest in the deer family
*moose and elk do not live in our area but white tail deer do
*male moose & elk are bulls-females are cows and babies are calves
*male deer are bucks-females are does and babies are fawns and fawns have spots
*Vocabulary-antlers (students learned they are bone), shed, hervivore

We created a Rudolph.

Moose make counting fun and we get to press the easy button.

We watched a short video on moose---https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAZt9CtHrMk  Ask your child what they learned about moose, elk and white tail deer!

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies

We finished up our cookie unit with our TTh 3 y/o class last week.  We had so much fun tasting cookies and making a Cookie Monster and a gingerbread man from paper.  Fun-fetti play dough is in our art center and on Tuesday students will be taking home a gingerbread ornament.  We have playing 'Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?' and that makes everyone laugh and giggle!

For more information and recipes---http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2013/12/cookies-2013_12.html

Baby You Can Drive My Car

 Baby you can drive my car but maybe not the late great Janis Joplin's Porsche. The 1964 custom Porsche recently was sold for $1.76 million.  This is how you get to the School of Rock!

http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/luxury/janis-joplin-porsche-auction/

Christmas I SPY Bottles

Christmas I SPY bottles are in our Discovery Center and easy to create at home.  Gather lots of green and red items (beads, buttons, poms) and  mini Christmas ornaments to make one for home.

How to---http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2010/11/i-spy.html

Mrs. Claus and Her Bakery

 Our dramatic play area is Santa's Workshop and Mrs. Claus' Bakery.  We have our kitchen set for baking and have slowly been replacing our play food and kitchen equipment.  The kitchen utensils are real kitchen items found at our local super store.  They come in a wide variety of bright colors and are easy to throw in the dishwasher to keep clean.  

We have lots of paper cupcake liners (post Christmas sales) and sprinkles for cupcakes and cookies.  Plastic salt & pepper shakers found at our local dollar store are filled with pony beads.  The lid was  super glued  and our busy bakers can shake lots and lots of sprinkles on all the delicious cookies and cupcakes they bake every day.

Hope you and your child are having lots of fun during this most wonderful time of the year!

Down Through the Chimney with Good Saint Nick

We have a sleigh for Santa to deliver all the presents at MCP.

http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2012/11/santas-sleigh.html

Now we have a chimney!  This was a wonderful addition to our dramatic play area. It's two boxes that fit very snugly and is pretty sturdy for our preschool play!

The Grinch---2015

Mean ol' Mr. Grinch learned a valuable lesson about the true meaning of Christmas and so are our MCP MWF classes.  We listened to the story and then made a Grinch craft.  Mr. Grinch is furry so we snipped the green paper.

 Eyes and a nose...teacher added details for a happy ending!

 

Everyone liked the Grinch cookies (we ran out of time to graph our likes or dislikes).  Here is the recipe---http://www.inkatrinaskitchen.com/grinch-cookies/  You really could use any white cake mix and we added several drops of green food color.  The recipe calls for one drop and that was not enough.  I used a cookie scoop and we also did not place in the powder sugar.  Our assistant director had the foresight to buy our hearts around Valentines' Day but a quick search for Wilton Jumbo Heart Sprinkles shows you can buy through your favorite online store. 

Have some fun with the Grinch with your child today!

Masterpiece Monday---K is for Kandinsky

 We are jazzed up about the artist, Wassily Kandinsky.  We are learning the names of musical instruments (piano, trumpet, saxophone, trombone, clarinet, drums and bass).  We watched the Basie Boogie with the legendary Count Basie and his band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhfygIZSr5M

 We are working with crayons and paper before we paint on canvas.  The children were instructed to choose colors and place their colors next to each other.  

 When we listen to music, we can 'hear' colors!

 After the paper was colored, the children added black lines.  Straight or curvy?  

More next Monday!