Happy Valentine's Day

What a fun filled week! Full of love, hugs, and lots of sweet treats.

On Monday the dragonfly class made 'hugs' using hearts and mittens cut out of paper. The kids always like to do this craft, because I tell them they can give it to somebody special and when that person misses them, they can just wrap the hug around their body. They had a good time talking about who they were going to give their hug to. A couple kids even talked about making more hugs and giving them out to lots of people! We continued working on handwriting, letter recognition and math.

Tuesday was our Valentine's party, we had a great time celebrating. Thank you all for contributing and coming to hang out with us. I really enjoyed celebrating and talking with you all.

Wednesday was the dragonfly classes Valentine's day party. Not only did we celebrate Valentine's Day but we also squeezed in some handwriting and practiced our letter recognition by playing alphabet bingo during the party.

Thursday was gym day. The caterpillar class really wanted to play duck, duck goose. Or as they said "guck, guck, goose." Too cute! We had fun playing and chasing each other - they did a great job.
We decided to play duck, duck, goose with the butterflies as well. They had a lot of fun and man, they are fast little runners! The butterflies had time to do a fun craft for President's day. We made log cabins to celebrate President's day and Abraham Lincoln. I did tell them a little bit about Abe... so ask them if they know about him. A few kids knew who the current President of the U.S. is - I was impressed. :-)

Friday was gym day for the dragonfly class. We decided to run around for a bit and then get the parachute out. At first the kids were resistant because 'we did that last week', but they quickly warmed up to the idea and had fun with the parachute and balls. We also made the log cabin craft for President's day. Almost all the dragonflies knew that President Obama is the current President. Although, a couple kids had cute ways of saying his name... it wasn't quite Barrak Obama - I wish I could remember what they said. I need to start writing this stuff down. :-)
We also practiced our handwriting.

Next week our theme is penguins.

Here are some pictures from our Valentine's Day celebrations. Enjoy!

This week

This week went by so quickly! We packed a lot of learning and of course so big fun into this week.
Here is the video of the kids and I doing Michael Jackson Experience last Friday.

Monday the dragonfly class continued working on writing their letters. As well as number recognition. We also made a really fun craft using puzzle pieces. Some of the kids were so darned cute, I gave each child a heart, the word strip (I love you to Pieces), puzzle pieces and glue. I then gave the instructions to glue the word strip on first and then glue the puzzle pieces on the heart. As I went around the room, I saw a few kids who had glued the words on, but hadn't glued any puzzle pieces on. When got over the them and asked "what's up?" It was the cutest thing ever "Ms. Lisa, I don't know how to put this puzzle together." or "I'm trying, but I can't make the pieces fit together." or "theses pieces don't match" It made my heart sing - they are so awesome!!We also starting listening to a book called The Chocolate Touch on CD.
I honestly can't think of a better way to spend my days! (Unless maybe we move funtime to a beach somewhere... that might be better.)

Tuesday the caterpillars spent time decorating their Valentine's bags. I tried to explain to them that I was going to keep the bags until after our Valentine party when they could take them home filled with Valentine's. It's so hard at this age - they don't always understand... so we had a few tears and a few questions. In the end, it turned out ok and I know they will be thrilled on Valentine's Day when they get to take their bags home!
The butterflies did the same "I love you to pieces" craft that the dragonflies did on Monday. Except without trying to put the puzzle together. They also practiced writing their names.

Wednesday the dragonflies continued with handwriting. We played color and shape bingo for math. We listened to another chapter of The Chocolate Touch. Ask your child what happen the morning after he ate the single piece of chocolate.

On Thursday, during circle time, those cute little caterpillars were talking about gym, as we did our schedule for the day. Already, they were talking about going to the gym and playing with the balls. I said "balls again? Let's do something different."
"No, I like the balls." said a few kiddos.
"Really? you really want to get the balls out again?"
"yes"
"What if we play soccer or basketball?"
"No, let's play with the big balls."
"I was thinking we could do something different. What about the parachute?"
"YEAH" they all chorused
And so it was. We headed to the gym, ran around for a minute to warm up and then played with the parachute. We shook it fast, we shook it slow. We threw some balls on there and shook them back off. It was so much fun!!
The butterflies played with the parachute during gym as well. The kids had a blast - they were smiling and giggling the whole time. The butterflies also decorated their Valentine's Day bags on Thursday.

Today, the dragonfly class practiced the letter Cc. The class as a whole had a tougher day... we had some trouble listening and following directions. This happens every so often... it's not a big deal, but these little interruptions eat into our time. So, we did not have time for math today and our craft (decorating our Valentine's bags) was quite rushed. We did manage to get to the gym and play with the parachute. The kids even took me for a little ride on the parachute. It started as an experiment. Makaylyn said "I bet if somebody was on there, they would go way up and up." I said "Let's try it and see. I think that if somebody gets on there, we wouldn't be able to lift them." So I got sat down in the middle of the parachute and try as they might, they could not lift me. So I said "but, if you all walk in the same direction, you can spin me round and round." They got a kick out of spinning me and making me dizzy. We also had our snow ball fight that we didn't get to last week. We used giant marshmallows and threw them as far as we could. (just for fun, we put some of these marshmallows on the parachute too)
Here are some pictures from gym day today.