"Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun"

This morning:
Quincy: "Mom! Last night in my bed, I dreamed that when Corbin is bigger, you're going to have TWO babies! TWO BABIES at the same time! Mom, do want that? I want two babies. I want girl babies, but your babies are going. to. be. like. Corbin babies!"

Before anyone asks,
NO, I am NOT pregnant.
I am not even talking about getting pregnant.
(though that second part is really none of ya'lls bidness, IMO).

But TWO babies?
Two of these?
Well, who wouldn't want two?
Sounds like Quincy had a pretty great dream.

"There's No Crying in Baseball"

Noteworthy:
-All of the other T-ball teams started practices a week ago, but we weren't contacted by the coach until Tuesday evening, via email, after Aaron sent a bazillion emails to the director.
-The coach did not show up last night, either.
-All of the other moms brought lawn chairs.
-While Aaron talked to the other dad's, I got to know "Hooters", the mother of the only other girl on Reese's team. I don't know her real name, yet, but I think Hooters gives her a pretty thorough description.
-Reese's team is the Nationals, which is, according to Aaron, the worst team in major league baseball.
-Naturally, the "Yankees" T-ball team were all in matching uniforms, with a crazy practice regimen, and the coaches just called everyone by number. No...not the numbers on their uniforms, just numbers. Apparently there are 3 "Ethan's" on the Yankees, so the coach just calls them "one", "two", and "three".
-Reese was so excited about her first practice that she napped with her pink mitt on.
-She was devastated when we got to the field and she realized she'd left her mitt on the bed.
-The team sponsor is Kleenex....hopefully not because there will be tears and boogers at every game.
-Reese got a t-shirt, she is number 7.
-The kid that got number 4 cried for 10 minutes because "but I'm NOT FOUR anymore, I'm FIVE, now!"
-I thought this was hilarious.
-but Reese understood how he felt and said, "whoa, I'm glad I'm not stuck with a 4 shirt." Then she went over and introduced herself to number 4 (named Drayden, but I'm just calling him "4" now, because apparently that's how they roll in t-ball) and they played catch with the ball she brought, while parents searched for the directer to get a game schedule.
-Reese's hat fits perfectly on my tiny head.
-it drowns Reese's tiny head.
-in addition to the glove, balls, stand, I need to find Reese some teeny tiny pants, socks and baseball cleats. Really. For t-ball.
-All of the kids/parents on Reese's team just went home after getting their shirts, because the coach wasn't there again
-except for Aaron and another dad exchanged phone numbers and are planning their own practices from now on, because, "we did NOT pay $80 bucks to get smoked by the Yankees."

{Too Much}

I'm drowning in note cards, leftover Easter candy, and sawdust.
Oh, and ants.

I'll catch up on the blog when I've caught up on life.
At least the kids are happy, and the laundry is done, and the house is clean.
...aside from the ants, that is.

Spring is Here

"He Lives, and While He Lives, I'll Sing...."

Wishing everyone a wonderful Easter!

Busy Bees-one more (was I really this far behind in preschool posts?)

What Makes a Rainbow?/St. Patrick's Day
Share: Wear Green for St. Patrick's Day!
Book: What Makes a Rainbow? By Betty Ann Schwartz
Book: The Umbrella By Jan Brett (I love her books...check out the website janbrett.com-great stuff!)

Sensory: Taste the Rainbow (no...not with skittles, with fruit!)
I gave the kids little umbrella (U is the letter this month) toothpicks to their fruit with.
The photo makes this look totally gross, but it really was a pretty yummy snack.
red apples, orange orange slices, yellow pinapple chunks, blueberry yogurt dip, green kiwi (that only Quincy was willing to eat...and I think she ate all of it!) and purple grapes.
Science: Color Mixing
I filled canning jars with yellow and blue water, and gave them pipettes to transfer the water into empty jars and create green.

Fine Motor: Cutting paper strips for art
The children were given several strips of colored paper to cut into squares for our sticky art.

Language: U-Words and U art. We added to our list of U-words (underwear, utensil, umbrella...) and then I drew large pictures on sheets of cardboard for the children to color.

Art: Class Rainbow Sticky-Art
A large rainbow is drawn and labeled with colored pens.
I then put strips of double stick tape down in each of the layers of the rainbow.
The children placed colored paper pieces that they had cut up earlier onto corresponding rows to make a giant rainbow. This center was open all day, and each of them took turns adding to the rainbow. They were impressed with the end result. Teamwork!
Art: Watercolors
The kids painted while I read "What Makes a Rainbow" to them. I'd suggest using card stock for this age group. Some of the artwork got a little soggy, but they had fun exploring with paint and colors nonetheless.
Dramatic Play: Brown Bear Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr
I made (and laminated, of course) silhouettes of the animals from the book and the children acted out the story. This is a good one to act out because the lines are simple and have a call/repeat pattern of lyrics.
Class: "Brown Bear Brown Bear, what do YOU see?"
Child (holding the bear): "I see a Yellow Duck looking at me."
Class: "Yellow Duck Yellow Duck, what do YOU see?"
Child (holding the yellow duck): "I see a Red Bird looking at me"
Class: "Red Bird, Red Bird, What do YOU see?" ...etc

It's the cutest thing ever. I should recorded it.

Busy Bees ...a Crazy-Long Catch Up Post

Wed: There are Four Seasons: Spring
(Can you tell that the Busy Bees are pretty excited that it's warm enough to be outside?)
Share: Bring something smooth or rough
Book: When Spring Comes by Louis Santrey
Book: Spring by Ann Herriges
These are excellent books. I love the Celebrate the Seasons series. The pictures are totally outdated and from the 70's, which I think makes me love them even more. You don't see pictures of a family flying a kite or picking apples together in more recently published books. The photos alone are worth the purchase.

Dramatic Play: Gardener prop box: shovels, rakes, seed packets, and gloves, silk flowers for “planting” in the yard or cardboard w/ holes poked in it (weather pending), watering cans, buckets. My favorite part was one little Bee telling me she was going to grow "donuts and poptarts" in her garden. My kind of girl ;)
Fine motor: Garden Chart I don’t have a photo of this, but I have a laminated file folder game of a garden. There are signs for various vegetables at the beginning of each row, and slits cut for the children to “plant” to coordinating vegetables. It’s really cute. They loved putting the tiny shovels and rakes in the shed picture, and asking me what each vegetable is.

Sensory: The Feely Bag: I have this hideously ugly/totally awesome bag made from colored duct tape. It is my official "feely bag" for teaching. The children take turns reaching into the bag, and describing the item they feel. This is a great way to build their vocabulary of descriptive words. Today, we filled the bag with smooth and rough items (sandpaper, plastic, hairbrush, rock, Velcro, plastic egg, spoon, steel wool)

Art: There are 4 seasons springtime tree
Now that we've gone through the four seasons, I plan to laminate their art and make them each a little book about the seasons.

Science: Planting Seeds! We recycled old strawberry containers (these make excellent little greenhouses) and planted green beans. I really hope they grow! I guess we'll find out in 7-10 days.

Practical Life: What do plants need to grow? What do people need to help our bodies grow?

Math/Language Arts: Story Sequencing
Tell the children a story about the growth of a flower. Ask the children to retell the story by putting the statements in the correct order. Make an art project to aid them in retelling the story of the seed.

Music and Movement: Spring Songs
Popcorn Popping
Rain is Falling
Way Up in the Sky the Little Birds Fly

AND....
Today: Eggs
Share: bring 6 eggs to hard boil and dye in class
*** wear old clothes that are ok for messy egg dyeing today***
Book: An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston
Book: Eggs by Marilyn Singer

Dramatic Play: We learned from one of the books that alligators have a special tooth on the tip of their nose at birth, to help them break through their hard shells. Curl up in a ball and pretend to be a hatching egg. Are you an alligator? A snake? A chick?

Gross Motor: An Egg Hunt! The Easter Bunny came to preschool and hid eggs for the Busy Bee class! Can we find all of them?
Sensory: Easter grass. All I can say is that I am glad we chose to do this one outside...and I am glad I have a swivel sweeper.

Cooking: Nests
Bird nests with chow Mein noodles, green coconut, candy melts, and chocolate eggs. These were sticky, but the kids really liked them. I decided last minute not to dye the coconut green because I knew it would turn all of their teeth green, and I want my parents to like me still. Also, I wouldn't recommend doing these again with this age group...the candy melts were kind of hot and and by the time they were cooled enough for the kids to form the noodles into melts, the kids were starting to lose interest. Next time I'll probably pre-make the nests with cocoa krispies and then let the kids fill them with eggs and coconut grass.

Cooking II: Let’s bake an Easter Cake!
Bake a cake in a jelly roll pan with the children, then let them frost and decorate it with an unlimited supply of Easter/Springtime themed treats....so basically the end result was a bite of candy with a scant amount of cake on it. Yum. Thanks to HolleeAnn for the marshmallow spring critters, Kendra for the jellybeans, and Kasey for the Easter sprinkles!

Art: colored Easter eggs. 6 kids, a baby, a bunch of eggs, and permanent dye. They LOVED it, and it was not at all the messy, chaotic activity I had anticipated. I have great memories of coloring eggs as a kid. It was fun to share the experience with my class.


Math/Science: Egg matching game. This is a recycled activity from a previous day...birds, I think. The kids were excited to use it again. I don't generally hang onto a lot of these little one-time-use games, but I'm glad I saved this particular one.

Practical Life: What grows in an egg?

Music and Movement: Spring songs
Popcorn Popping
Rain is Falling
Way Up in the Sky, the Little Birds Fly
Baby Bumblebee