Past and Future

We finished up this week with a wonderful swimming time at the Y and with learning firsthand about three musical instruments.  Carolyn, one of our wonderful Occupational therapists, took her three daughters out of school for a few periods so that they could play their instruments with us and allow all the children to play them as well!  We learned about the keyboard, the bells, and the flute.  They each explained a little bit about their instrument and then played a few songs.  They were very patient with the children as they took turns playing each instrument.  It was a very musical time and we have many future musicians in our classroom! 


It's so exciting to see the swimming abilities of the children strengthen as the year progresses. Their confidence in the water is increasing as they enjoy themselves and their classmates by 'just playing' in the water!  It's such a great skill for them to possess!


We have started a new discovery unit on Spring, plants, and seeds!  Our onion sets are thriving and our marigolds are growing.  However, our tulips and crocuses aren't growing as well. We'll dig them up on Monday and get out our magnifying glasses and our tools to see if we can determine why they're not growing.  We just planted our own individual lima bean seeds to see how quickly they sprout and to see what that looks like.  We'll use our magnifying glasses to see the different parts of the seed and how they sprout.

Dates to Remember:
I'll also send home a paper with all the dates and events.

Thursday, April 7th-AHA Museum Field Trip-I will send permissions slip home on Monday.  Click here for a link to the AHA Museum in Lancaster.

Wednesday, April 13th- Playing Tball with friends at Pioneer School.

Thursday, April 14th-Swimming at the Y.

Monday, April 18th-Logan Elm Girls Basketball Team will come in and show us some moves and let us play with them!

Tuesday, April 19th-Circleville Key Club sponsors an Egg Hunt with our children.

Thursday, April 21-25th-No School-Spring Break, school resumes on Tuesday.

Tuesday, April 26th-Shawn Brown's SuperFun Show Community Concert for the Young Child at New Hope at 6:30 in the evening and it's free!  He's a wonderful entertainer and his music is sure to make you move and laugh.  If you can make it with your children you won't be disappointed!  Click here for a preview!  

Thursday, April 28th-No Preschool due to staff training for Barb, Gerry, and myself.

Kindergarten Registration

Dates are quickly approaching to register your children for Kindergarten next year.  I will send home a paper with your child that has complete information for you but here are some dates:

Circleville City Schools Registration will be Thursday, April 7th from 9:00-12:00 and 2:00-6:00 pm and packets are available in advance.

Teays Valley has registration at S. Bloomfield Elementary on Thursday, April 14 from 5:00-7:00 pm and on Friday, April 15, 9:30-3:00.

Westfall has registration, I believe on April 13 and 14 but you need to call Ginger Beard for an appointment at 986.2911 ext. 2232.

Looking Forward-Spring Time

The children loved following the leprechaun's footprints and finding their own pots of gold.  They also made leprechaun hats and some of them were still drying and we'll send them home on Monday.  For snack we made leprechaun pudding, better known as pistachio pudding, and pigs in a blanket. 

Now, we're moving into spring time with new songs and activities to learn all about spring and what it entails.  We'll start off with dirt and seeds and move into bugs and insects.  We'll put dirt, shovels, pails, cars, and farming tractors into our sensory table so the children will be able to play in dirt.  Currently, we have marigold seeds, onion sets, crocuses, and tulips growing in our classroom.  This week we'll add tomatoes and during our reading this week of spring books we'll discuss with the children what else they would like to plant.

Dates to Remember:

Swimming-Thursday, March 24.

AHA Museum in Lancaster- Thursday, April 7th- I'll send home a paper about it and a permission slip but I wanted you to know the date.

Swimming-Thursday, April 14

Spring Break-No School from Thursday, April 21-Monday, April 25.  School starts again on Tuesday, April 26

St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans!

We're having a blast this week looking for Leprechauns!  Everyday we're adding green footprints around the classroom and today we're adding them in the cafeteria and the gym.  So far we haven't spotted any.....at least not yet!  We're painting our rainbows and pots of gold today and tomorrow we're making green hats to wear as we look for our little friends!  On Thursday we'll make green pudding, better known as pistachio pudding, for snack!  We have a recipe that will allow each child to make their own pudding and they love cooking.

Musical Guests This Week

We've had some musical guests this week and the children are loving it!  So far we've enjoyed the saxophone, the flute, and the trumpet.  Jen, one of our speech therapists, brought in her saxophone and the children were able to play notes on it as she blew through the reed.  Karla brought in her flute and she had an extra flute that the children were able to try and blow through. That was a lot of fun as the children tried to get out at least a sound and several of them were able to and they all clapped for each other! Today, my daughter, Grace, came in and played her trumpet.  The children played the three valves to try and get different sounds as Grace blew the air through the trumpet. She showed them a mute and they heard the different sound the trumpet makes with that attached. 

We had an opportunity to play with different types of cooked noodles in the sensory table.  The children liked playing with it as an addition to their pizza shop.  We started out using our fingers and then we added pasta spoons and tongs to 'serve up' spaghetti dishes! 

Dates to Remember:

Monday, March 14-No School due to a training day for staff.

Thursday, March 24-Swimming at the YMCA.

Food, Food, and More Food

This has been a fun week with all the food that we've been cooking!  We started out the week making Puppy Chow.  That wasn't from one of the countries that we studied but it was on the back of the cereal that we ate at snack and it suggested by several students that we make it so we did and it was delicious.  We did look at food from Italy and we chose to make pizzas today.  We each made our own with an English muffin.  Then we added pizza sauce, mini pepperonis, and shredded mozzarella cheese.  We made them about mid-morning and played for a few minutes while they baked and they were a hit to make and a hit to eat!  We have wonderful cooks in our classroom!

We also made letters and numbers in cool whip with graham cracker sticks this week that involved a little eating and little creating!  We talked about the letters with straight versus curved lines.  We practiced our letter making skills while we used the graham crackers to make the lines or to write in the cool whip.  It was great fun and delicious too.

We watched our last segments of the instruments of the orchestra this week.  We finished with the string section and the percussion section.  We also played in our flutophone band and learned of different ways to make sounds come out of our instruments.  We each had a chance to play a solo in front of our friends and then take a bow as their friends clapped for them!