Heart starts with H

I am fighting off 'the sickness' again but didn't let it get me down on Tuesday.  We had a good productive day in preschool.

We started our day with a prayer.

Heart starts with Hh lesson

We concentrated mostly on our hearts and Valentines day.

I did not buy boxes of Valentines for the kids.  They will be filling those out for years in elementary school plus the little dragons only have a few people to hand Valentines to.  I decided we would hand make all the Valentines to make them more personal.  

I did not wake up as early as I wanted to but did not lay back down.  I poured myself coffee first thing so I would get some good Bible reading in and a good start on preschool.  I have been feeling really good about our preschool progress for 2 weeks now. 

While I finished my hair I had Liam, Athena, and Spencer make Valentines cards on the computer at pbskids.org.  I searched for some Valentines games on a couple of my favorite sites but could not find any. 

Stations:

Stamp Valentines

Reading 

Coloring

The coloring was the ABC mural we have on the wall.

Preschool: 

We sang the good morning song then started on Valentines addition.  The addition and practicing writing the letter H went quickly. 

I thought the stamp station would hold their attention and they would continue visiting it all day.  It lasted 5 min!  They stamped a ton in that small amount of time but with two pieces of paper I thought it would have lasted longer.  

 But the Valentines ended up looking great

In stead of just folding the paper in half I cut heart shapes out of the areas of paper that had multiple stamps and glued it to pink or red construction paper.  This made the Valentines look more like cards.  The kids were intrigued. 

After circle time and lunch the little dragons were ready to spread their wings and stomp around a bit.  I turned on some high tempo kids music that they danced too.  They are responding much better to mid-day music then morning. 

Circle Time

We sang a Valentines song, recited our Smoke is Bad poem, and learned a new heart poem.  We briefly talked about our hearts again and the kids were able to answer all the questions correctly.  

Hannah, the mail women community helper puppet, visited today and read a book about people in the community.  

I read The Hat and we did a reading activity that correlated with The Hat. 

The kids had to remember the order the animals entered the book

 Then match the letter magnets to the card. 

I had Liam and Athena work together on this activity to encourage team work.  I had each child find every other letter.  I was surprised to see that neither stumbled on which letter came next  both were able to keep track of the order. 

After preschool the kids were still looking to be entertained.  Luckily I had a Valentines treat I wanted to make and found this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I cleaned up preschool and sat the kids down.  They watched me bring all the ingredients to the table and were giggling and talking about each one after I set it down.  

Mini Heart Pies

I saw a picture of these on Pintrest but the link took me to a picture display website.  So I winged it.

You need:                                                      

Pie Crust                                      

Strawberry's or Raspberries              

Cream Cheese                                              

Sugar

I do not have a heart cookie cutter so I cut the hearts out with a butter knife and gave the scrap dough to the kids.  I spread cream cheese on the bottom crust, topped it with strawberry, the sprinkled sugar on top.  Then I covered it with the top crust and went around the edge with a fork. I then sprinkled a bit more sugar on top before putting them in the oven.  I baked them according to the directions on the pie crust box; oven preheated to 450 and bake for 11-13 min.

The kids made some of their own and enjoyed feeling and tasting all the ingredients.  They played with it long after the baking was done.    

I tried one after the first batch but with 'the sickness' can't taste anything and made the second batch the same.   I should have filled them with more cream cheese.  At least I know for next time. 

They still look lovely....mostly.