Our PreSchool Blog

On our Arctic travels today, we discovered lots of new things!  In Ms, Lori’s group, the boys and girls learned about how polar bears stay warm.  With a little Crisco, plastic Ziploc bags and ice cold water, the children got to feel how important blubber is for Arctic animals.  In Ms. Courtney’s group, the children got in touch with their snowman building skills while rolling out some Playdoh to make the letters V, W and X.  The similarities in the “big lines” used to create all three letters helped the children remember how these particular letters are formed.  In Ms. Leslie’s group, the boys and girls created number twelve letter constellations.  Poking tiny holes into the paper made our “stars”.  The children were excited to turn the lights off and see their very own constellations.  We discussed what a constellation is, and the children got to see a very neat video on the Northern Lights!

Studying Greenland this month means learning about different animals in the cold, Arctic habitat.  Today, Ms. Krista, and a few of her zoo friends, came to see us!  We learned about how turtles hibernate beneath the ground during the winter.  We also got to see and touch a chinchilla!  Chinchillas live on the top of cold, snowy mountains, and use their incredibly soft, warm fur to keep them cozy from the cold.  We wish these cute little guys could stay with us all month long!

Practicing our letter formation is fun, but practicing them in Cool Whip is even better!  Today, in Ms. Lori’s small group, the boys and girls practiced writing the letters V, X and W in a small tray of Cool Whip.  Working from left to right, top to bottom, the children enjoyed this memorable experience!

Some like their vegetables steamed, some like them raw.  How about covered in paint?!  Today, the children practiced the letter V by tracing it with vegetable stamps.  While practicing the /v/ sound, we also came up with words that begin with the letter V: vegetable, violin, vet, very, and everyone’s favorite…vvvrooooooommm!

In part two of our snowman building, our snowmen received a blast of arctic snow, along with a face, scarf and buttons!  It was time to get ooey and gooey again with shaving cream and glue as we applied snow to our dry paper mache.  Everyone dug in as we put our finishing touches on our snowmen masterpieces!

The Greenland flag is a little misleading…there is no green!  Today, Ms. Lori taught the children that the white part of the flag represents the ice in Greenland, and the red represents the ocean.  What a tricky little flag!

Scrimshaw is the art of carving pictures into whale teeth.  Using sharp objects, sailors would spend hours carving scenes into the hard teeth.  Today, the children used a bar of soap to represent a whale tooth.  Each child carved a “W” for whale into a bar of soap.  Tapping on our own teeth gave us an idea of how difficult it must be to carve into real whale teeth!

Cooking doesn’t have to involve complex baking.  Today the children took over as each child had their own plastic knife and bowl to chop up lots of fruit and stir in a little Cool Whip to create a delicious Ambrosia Salad.  Those fine motor skills are coming along as some of the children were able to master the grip and back and fourth motion of the knife!  The children enjoyed choosing his/her own fruit and creating their own kitchen masterpiece!

By popular request, we have finally found ourselves joining the online social community.  A number of you have been asking about this for quite sometime.  We will update with blog highlights, events and current school activities.  Simply use the link below and join us!

Beluga Whales live in frigid Arctic waters, but today, they came to life in our classroom!  While working on the letter W, the children used their fingerprints to create an ocean scene.  When the children were finished, we worked on building the letter W using our “big lines” and magnet boards.  While working on the /w/ sound, we also discovered the letters V and X.