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Pictures...take 'em or leave 'em?

My alarm went off at 7:30 am this morning, but I did not roll out of bed.  I lay awake for awhile thinking about getting up but my throat was sore and my nose stuffy so I decided that some sleep may do me some good. 

My sister is a nurse and knows I have been fighting this sickness for, like, ever and suggested I try allergy medicine.  Perhaps I am not sick but have allergies.  I bought the wrong type of allergy  medicine...lol of course, so I have yet to buy the correct kind and see if my problem will go away.  

Even though I did not wake up as early as I would have liked I was still able to start preschool at a good time and get everything I needed done. 

Stations
Reading station- this station got good attention in the morning hours when the kids enjoyed cuddling up with a book and favorite stuffed animals. 

Clothes line- I strung a piece of yarn between two tables and set out clothes pins and pieces of paper with clothes from The Hat printed on them.  Here the kids could hang clothes on the clothes line just as Lisa did in the book.  
Not the best picture.  But I didn't have time to position everything for a great photo. 

Truck and Peanuts- Spencer is really big on trucks right now and asked for me to set up the trucks with the packaging peanuts again.  Why not? 

Color- This station was not for 'coloring' but for 'colors'.  The Discovery Pack I borrowed from the library focused on colors.  So I set out the color specific books and play items in one area for the kids to explore.  There was one particular book about bugs I thought was cool and supplied a magnifying class so the little dragons could really examine the colorful pictures of insects. 
What Spencer is holding in this picture is a small dyed piece of plastic.  The kids could read or walk around with these and see things in different colors. 


Preschool 
I planned on starting a new Bible lesson this morning but Spencer didn't get dropped off until 11:30. :( and I didn't want to do the Bible lesson without him.  
I came up with this math lesson on the spot.  I had a couple things planned but knew Spencer would benefit from them too so I didn't want to start them today.  
I have these pattern strips I found to correlate with The Hat that we have been using during circle time.  Instead of giving them the strips I only gave them the cards.  I told them they had to come up with patterns, if they came up with a pattern that was on a strip they collected that strip.  This really had them exercising the different ways to create patterns and both did an amazing job. 

Before preschool, while waiting for Spencer, I asked Athena and Liam to help me cut out the clothes line clothes.  Athena is always asking to cut and was more then happy to help out.  Liam, having nobody to play with, agreed to help cut.  Because of this they had been sitting for awhile once the patterns lesson ended and were ready for a break.  They were allowed to play in the playroom for x amount of time and had to spend some time at a station. This worked great!  Usually they want to 'play pretend' and not visit the stations.  Giving them time and space to do both gave them more interest in the station activities. 

When the dragons flew back to their seats the next lesson was ready to go at their desks. (Another advantage of the playroom.)  They made Letter H books.  This activity gave practice in handwriting and reading. 

The end of the day was art.  I planned for the kids to make bookmarks but none of them were interested :(.  


Instead they made mini The Hat books! 



Once finished with the mini books I traced their hands and they painted pictures of things that started with the letter H on their hands.   This brought up a lot of discussion between the kids. 


Circle Time
We read The Little Hippos Adventure and My Many Colored Days
Then the kids wrote out colors on white board cards from the discovery pack.  
Then we played a game. 




These bowls and bean bags came in the discover pack.  The kids threw the bags into the corresponding bowls.  After they were bored of this game we played more of a 'pop quiz' game.  I would show them a colored bean bag and they had to name something of that color.  The kids enjoyed both games and it helped get out some energy. 


I don't have as many or as good of pictures today as usual.  When I thought about taking a picture I would wonder 'who really looks at the pictures or cares?'  I love taking photos, especially of my kids but don't want to push away any readers because my blog has too many pictures.  I do enjoy taking the pictures and sharing everything we do with photos.  Any opinion on the pictures would be welcome. :)

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