Jaybird Street

Calendars and magazines with large photographs of birds give our preschoolers a fun way to use scissors.  A black line around the bird provide an outline for cutting.  Blossoms on  our tree will soon turn into spring leaves!  We will see you soon.! 

Art Makes You Smart

Why is Masterpiece Monday important?
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music-arts/the-importance-of-art-in-child-development/

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=113

Build STEAM!  Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math

Are You Being Shy?

http://readysetgrowmag.com/shes-so-shy/

Cherry Blossoms

Our MWF classes enjoyed a short fun filled trip to Japan to see Hanami-the cherry blossoms.  We learned children all over the world celebrate many types of festivals with their families. 

We sorted, made patterns and counted yen-

Cherry blossoms make spring beautiful-

Ask your child about their 'trip' to Japan!

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell

Our TTh 3 y/o class had fun with Martin Waddell's book Owl Babies today.  Our project was creating one of the owl babies.  Children used scissor to snip around an oval.  We added eyes and a  beak and these projects will be ready to hang in family gallery on Thursday.

 

We also are putting birds in birdhouses to practice our counting!

Hello, Spring!

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant"

Anne Bradstreet

We'll be 'travelling' to Japan this week to celebrate Cherry Blossom Festival. We will add pink blossoms to this winter tree.

Why do we travel with our preschoolers?  It provides us an opportunity to share that children all over the world celebrate holidays in many different ways.  We talk about if the children are awake, at school or sleeping.  They know that the children all over the world can get a Happy Meal at McDonald's! 

Here are a few things we have planned---

http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2016/04/japan-2016.html

http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2015/03/mcp-cherry-blossoms-2015.html

What Eggs-actly Did We Do Today?

We piled 20 books on 4 eggs!

You can easily do this at home with your child! 

How to---

http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2015/03/today-was-egg-citing.html

Some of our friends walked on eggs (this is a lot more fun than walking on eggshells!)

I found this one on Steve Spangler's website---

https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/walking-on-eggshells/

I love, love, love Steve Spangler's approach to teaching science.  For more ideas---

https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/

(Also, lots of videos on YouTube)

Letter U

We will have the letter U under the art table today

for some unexpected fun!  Tape some paper under the table for your child to color!

Dining on the Space Station

Crew Quarters Tour Inside the Space Station

Scott Kelly Plays Ping Pong in Space

The End of the Rainbow

May your sky be filled with rainbows,

May no dark clouds hide the view...

May your joys in life be many and

your troubles all be few.

This week our MWF preK will be traveling to Ireland to celebrate St. Patrick's Day!  Here are a few things that are happening in our room...

http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2016/03/st-patricks-day-2016.html

The Outer Limits

We will be continuing our exploration of space and the universe with our preK students.  We have several activities in our science center---
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2012/03/deep-space.html

All classes will enjoy some space travel the next few weeks---
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2011/03/to-infinity-and-beyond.html

http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2012/10/firemen-scuba-divers-and-astronauts.html

Number recognition and counting---
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2014/03/spacethe-final-frontier.html

Our preK students also had fun learning about craters, the planets and the sun.  Ask your child about our solar system!

Fun Food Friday-Tasty Teeth

Yummy gummies for Letter T

and

Fun Food Friday!

Everybody Cut Footloose!

I have a bin of ideas, future projects and new units for our program.  This book has been in the bin for a few years...

Then last fall this book was released and I had to have it.

Rewritten and perfect for preschoolers, this book includes a CD and our 3 y/o class are going to have a fun filled week with feet.

Today each child was given a card with a picture of feet.  I held up the animal and we matched the feet.  Some animals have two feet.  Some animals have four feet and some animals do not have any feet! 

Our project this week will be painting with our tootsies!  This is optional for the children but we had lots of tickly toes painting today.  Some friends even did it again!

 

 

Cover the floor.  Get a bucket of water.  Kick off the Sunday shoes and paint with your child!

Pablo Picasso 2017

I was thrilled to spend several hours at the Art Institute this past weekend (wouldn't that be a fun field trip?)  I was able to see all the masters that we study in our Masterpiece Monday program including Picasso.

Last week, we started learning about Picasso's cubist period.  More info...
http://metamoracommunityprek.blogspot.com/2016/03/pablo-picasso-2016.html

We will talk about two and three dimensional art and introduce geometric shapes. This week we will begin to create sculptures. 

Aloha!

Although every day is fun at MCP, last week on Thursday and Friday we heated things up a bit.  Our annual  Super Summer Seashore Safari to celebrate the letter S was over the top this year! 

We have sixty five jellyfish hanging around in our room.

The idea started when a friend gave me hundreds and hundreds of large cupcake liners.  A quick search of  'easy preschool crafts with cupcake liners' and the jellyfish were born. 

The following weekend, my husband and I did a road trip to St. Louis to see this display in the Living World at the St. Louis Zoo and my brain started spinning.

I gathered a variety of plastic bottles we have and cut them down.  We provided markers, stickers, tissue, glue sticks and ribbon.  The MWF classes were able to create their jelly fish from start to finish.  Teachers added the tentacles for the TTh 3 y/o class. 

Each child was greeted with a lei.  We talked about vacations and the children chose a 'souvenir' from our treasure box.  Each child also has a colorful crayon and had their picture taken at 'the beach.'   Our rock band guitars put a dance party at the beach.  The only thing missing was a bonfire! Our MWF classes learned a lot about Hawaii and our Fun Food Friday snack was pineapple and poi (vanilla pudding).  Fresh pineapple is juicy and sweet and they devoured the whole thing.  No spoon to eat poi!  Lots of giggles when friends started scooping the poi up and eating it with their fingers. 

I'm a little tired of listening to a ukulele and  the Beach Boys but that's the way it is at the end of a vacation...you're ready to go home.  Check out the webcams posted the other day and you can visit Hawaii with your child today!