My Crayons

We have had a wonderful start to the new school year.  Our TTh class will be having fun with colors and shapes.  Today we listened to some stories and did our first art project with glue.  It was fun to watch the children place 'dots' of glue on their paper and add lots and lots of colored paper.

Here are the books we read...

Look what we made today...

Want to do more?  Talk about the colors your child put on their art. Your child will bring their piece home next Tuesday and s/he can add more paper scraps.

A few years ago, we had a 'Eureka!' moment with our glue bottles.  Putting the glue into condiment bottles has saved us (and the kids) a lot of frustration.   
Glue Bottles

Meet Your Heroes 2012

This Saturday, September 8th (12 p.m.-3 p.m.) head to the Metamora Square for some food and family fun. The Metamora Area Business Association (MABA) and the Metamora Fire Department will be hosting the 5th Annual Meet Your Heroes Day.  

The hose fight is free entry and anyone can enter in the non-professional division. Get a team together!  There will be inflatable slides for children.  Children can meet and greet with firefighters and see inside the firetruck. The Central Illinois Cruisers will be there (weather permitting with a cruise-in). There will be raffles and prizes and all proceeds will benefit the Metamora Fire Department.  See you on the square!

Welcome Back to School!

Welcome back to school!  We are looking forward to the 35th year of MCP!  Yes, MCP is celebrating it's 35th year of bringing quality early childhood education to the Metamora area.  Happy 35th Birthday to Metamora Community Preschool!

Celebrate September 2012!

There is much to celebrate in September!  Who knew?  Cheese pizza, chocolate milkshakes and so much more.  Here is a list and few ideas so you and your family can celebrate everyday like a holiday!

September 5th-National Cheese Pizza Day-Here is an easy pizza recipe..MCP Pizza Recipe

September 12th-National Chocolate Milkshake Day.  I would have a chocolate milkshake with your cheese pizza and then have cheese pizza with the chocolate milkshake. 

September 13th-Scooby Doo's birthday (1969)  Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you? 

September 13th-Roald Dahl's birthday.  Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Watch the movie!  I prefer the Willy Wonka version...it's a good day to watch the movie and eat unreasonable amounts of chocolate.  Here is the official Roald Dahl website  http://www.roalddahl.com/ 

September 15th-Tomie dePaola is one of my favorite children's authors and today is his birthday.  Read Strega Nona and make a big pot of pasta to celebrate!  Here is Tomie's official site http://www.tomie.com/

September 16th-Today is Collect Rocks Day.  I am not making this up! 

September 18th-National Play-Doh day.  We make our own at MCP.  Here is the recipe...Perfect Playdough  and More Playdough

September 19th-Swab the decks and walk the plank!  It is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  Click for some funny jokes and riddles---Pirate Jokes  What Star Wars character is really a pirate?  Arrrrrgh...2-D2!

September 26th--is Johnny Appleseed's Birthday.  Not sure how the apple picking will be but you can have applesauce for dinner, apple pie, apple juice and apple muffins. 

Have some fun with your family!

The Messy Tub

MCP Messy Tub

If you do a search for 'sensory tubs' or 'sensory tub ideas', you can get anywhere between five and seven million results.  Want to know why early childhood programs use sensory tubs? This article in Earlychildhood NEWS is all about the messy fun of the sensory tub.

I have been using a sensory tub for years and years and years!  I have had a traditional preschool sand & water table in previous classrooms. However, space at MCP is at a premium so we have adapted an under the bed storage bin into our messy tub.  It works great! The tub is placed at the end of a table and three children at time can play very comfortably.

You can do this at home for your preschooler.  Don't buy specialty toys---search the kitchen.  You can use empty plastic jars, spoons, funnels, measuring cups, egg cartons and scoops.   Many sensory tub ideas involve a theme---color, story, season, holiday---the list is endless.  These might be fun to create for home.  We do not do themed sensory tubs because of limited time (mine) and storage space.  Pinterest is great source for sensory tub ideas.

What to put in a messy tub?  You are only limited by your imagination.  Here are some ideas to get you started and remember to pull the vacuum cleaner out of the closet!

Rice***Sand***Water***Oatmeal***Flour, Oatmeal & Cinnamon***Pasta***Birdseed***
Corn***Popcorn***Milk Caps (I have some for you)***Snow***Construction Paper & a Hole Punch***Potato Flakes***Feathers***Craft PomPoms***Cotton Balls***Shaving Cream***Corks***Dry Beans (use different colors)***Yarn w/scissors for snipping

As you and your child play, talk about the experience.   How does it feel?  What are you doing?  Is there a smell?  Here are some more vocabulary ideas:

TEXTURE WORDS-smooth, slick, rough, bumpy, silky, slippery, gritty, prickly, crumbly, thick, thin, wet, dry, soft and hard.

ACTION WORDS-pour, bury, dig, find, squeeze, poke, squish, smash, measure, watch, observe, crumble, fill, empty, break, dump and sweep.

SMELLING WORDS-sweet, good, bad, yucky, stinky

MISC. WORDS-colors, shapes, sizes, shiny, dull, full and empty.

Want to go a step further?  Put a piece of paper by your messy table and record the words your child is using. 

Go and get messy with your child!

MWF PreK Classes ABC's & 123's

I am getting so excited for the children to arrive next week!  I have been very busy in our classroom creating lesson plans, building Santa a new sleigh (more on that project another time), cleaning,  vacuuming up glitter (that kind of goes with building Santa's sleigh), cutting, gluing and making sure everything is ready when we open the door for those little smiling (we hope) faces!  

We provide a wide variety of activities using all sorts of materials for all classes.  We work on the alphabet, number recognition, counting, sorting and patterns with the TTh class and the preK MWF classes without worksheets. 

Want to learn more about how we teach these skills?  The links below are some blogs from past years.  If you would like more information or more ideas look under LABELS on our blog and click 'Letter/Number Recognition' and 'Math'.

Sorting, Counting & Patterns

More Counting, Sorting & Patterns

Counting

Alphabet Games
  
Alphabetical Order

Preschool & Kindergarten Skills

Wildflowers

Bottle Cap Art by Michelle Stitzlein

I recently received lots and lots and lots of clean (never been on a milk jug) milk caps.  So where does one go to find creative ideas when one has thousands and thousands of milk caps?  To the place where creative people hang out...Pinterest of course!  Don't you love these flowers?

Michelle Stitzlein is an artist who creates beautiful and unique sculptures with recycle materials.  Check out her bottle cap art and bottle cap art books at http://www.artgrange.com/michelleworkshop.html

Did I happen to mention I have lots of bottle caps?  What a fun project to plant in the yard during the winter months for some color and fun! MCP parents (and alumni)---if you want to create some of these flowers let me know and I will give you some milk caps to get started!