Big Energy-Little Learners...Can I do it all?

Creation Day 4 On this day God created the sun, moon, and placed the stars in the sky. Our activity this week made a great addition to our classroom decorations.  Materials:  Black construction paper cut in half horizontally Pictures of stars, sun, and moon tape yarn paint I drew a sun, a moon, and three stars on yellow construction paper and the dragons painted them The Dragons took their time with the project.  They really enjoyed painting these shapes.  They explained the reason for every color to each other while they were painting.  It was adorable.  Once the paint was dry The Dragons cut out their shapes and we taped them onto the yarn pieces.  For some reason they though these would be great hats.  I told them they were meant to be hung up but they insisted.  So on top of the heads they went!  They loved them!  They were great hats for a bit. When they finished playing we hung t...

Creation Day 5 God created the fish in the seas and the birds in the sky on day 5. Our activity for this day focused on birds. Making bird feeders is pretty simple.  Grab a pine cone, peanut butter, and bird seed and you pretty much have a bird feeder. We didn't have a pine cone, nor are there any around outside right now. I had to come up with something else! I remembered briefly seeing that someone made a bird feeder out of a plastic bottle. The Dragons and I went on an adventure to find a plastic bottle suitable for our bird friends. We found one we all liked and I cut a hole in the bottom.  I started small and made it wider on the bottom thinking the birds could use this to stand on while picking at the bird seed. I also totally forgot to take pictures!  We did this activity at the end of the day so I was flustered and my brain was done thinking. As we were filling our bottle bird feeder the bird seed kept flowing out the bottom.  I remembered rea...

Creation Day 6 Day 6 of creation God created animals and man to rule over the animals.  We have kept our focus mostly on animals, last year was more on man, and our theme is an animal.  Our activity for this day was meant for a better understanding of animals.   The Dragons sorted animals by habitat.  For this activity I used sea creatures, birds, and dinosaurs.  Beings God had created all living creatures by day 6 I felt it was fitting.  The animals were lined up above a couple habitat drawings.  The Dragons took turns choosing an animal and placing it in a habitat of dry land, water, garden/yard, and trees.  We reviewed the placement once all animals were in a home.  There were a couple that needed moved.  But our papers were all filled up and every animal found a perfect home. 

The first day of preschool was a bit of a 'set up and review things we know' day.  I will introduce the letter of the week on day 1 continuing forward, but for the first day I wanted the boys to get familiar with our classroom. Week 1  Letter: C Theme: Construction Bible story: Creation part 1 Bible Verse: "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."                           - Pslam 51:10 Each day I hid a letter C magnet and a number 1 magnet to help with memorization.  This was one of Little Dragons favorite activities each day. After he found them he would then hide them for me to find.  I have realized during this exercise that there are not many places in our home to hide a magnet. Start A great start to most days is with a gross motor skills activity to get the kids moving.  On day 3 this week one of the other moms brought an awesome version ...

Creation Day 3 I liked teaching about day three because it really starts to paint the picture of how awesome God is!  The first two days are also amazing, I can't create light or water. Turning on a light switch is how we get light and turning on a faucet we can easily get water, but plants they take work. This activity was for The Dragons to see and understand how our God is a God of order and great creator.  Plants need light, water, and land to grow, we talked about this after our first reading of day 3.  Then we read all  3 days to review how God created what sustains plant life before creating the plants.  He had order to His creation.  Then we shoveled up some dry land into small bags    And pushed some seeds into the dry land Added some water Then taped them to the window where they could get plenty of sun light We will check our bags everyday for plants. It will be some time before we start to see any littl...

Creation Day 2 I have seen many blog posts about this activity and have always thought it was neat !   I was very excited to share the rain experiment with my preschoolers. I went out and bought a clear container and shaving cream and was ready to make rain! Fill the container 3/4 full of water and cover the top with shaving cream.  Mix food coloring with water and let the shaving cream set for a minute.  While you wait you can talk about how the shaving cream represents clouds.  And how clouds hold water until it rains Then use a eye dropper to add drops of food coloring on top of the cloud Keep dropping and soon you will see the color start to fall from the shaving cream.  This was not as dramatic as I have seen before.  I think partially because we used a light colors.  We also didn't wait for the shaving cream to set for a minute.  3 boys are quiet impatient.  The color would streak down for a second th...

Creation Day 1 To demonstrate bringing light to darkness we first painted the inside of a shoe box black.  We put a hole on each side of the shoe box, not parallel.   When the box was dry we covered any other holes there may be with black paper. Little Dragon looked in the box.   What do you see? Nothing..... Reaching around the box shine the flashlight in the opposite hole.   Now what do you see?  Light!  God said 'let there be light' and there was.  God saw that it was good. He called the light day and the dark night. 

We started our super hero week today and started off with some creation. We did an activity that will set the stage for a couple other activities during the week.  A project, per say. We built Super Heroes!  To start this project we first had to talk about the super heroes that we know and love, what they do and why they are heroes.  This didn't take to long, we are a Marvel family and we love our super heroes. After we were familiar with superheroes we started creating. I found a print out on education.com   that was great for the first stepping stone Creating a costume I can see why creating a costume would come after creating your super hero, matching your costume to your powers.  I did talk to The Dragons about what powers they would want first, but they are young and after decorating their costumes changed their minds.  Therefore, matching the powers to the costume.  Either way could work.  When the costumes ...

Another Monday, another letter. This week brings the letter a, Adam and Eve, and circles. Spencer left early again Monday to go to a Steelers game (bleh) and today I spent an unexpected 7 hours at the grocery store.  Who spends 7 hours at the grocery store?!  Me and my mother-in-law to be.  We really enjoyed ourselves and took time to look at every item the store carried, literally.  There was more then groceries at the store too.   Bible Story We did not read the full story of Adam and Eve Monday.  The story is being split up over the week.  We will add a little bit at time to help remember the story. Monday morning it was the story of the Garden of Eden.  The Bible explained it's purpose and it's rules.  The end of the mini-story was God giving Adam a partner, Eve. I Googled Adam and Eve felt board pieces and found the Adam and Eve I am using on the board.  The other pieces I have had for other projects. Tuesday w...