Pictures from police officer visit

Police officer visit

We had a great day in preschool today! We had another community helper visit us today. Chase's dad is a deputy sherrif and visited our classroom this morning and afternoon. With the nice weather outside we gathered out front on the steps and got to see the police car, talk about what police officers do and how they can help us and even got to hear the sirens a few times. We also got to take turns and go up to the police car and take a peak inside. Did you know that the backseat in a police car is just a hard plastic bench? We all learn something new every day! :) Thank you very much Mr. VanDellen for visiting us and sharing stickers, tatoos and junior sherrif badges with us! Chase was VERY excited to have his dad visit him and all of his friends today!

With the great weather we took advantage of the opportunity to get lots of fresh air! It sure does make for a smoother day when we can step outside for a little while!

This week we have been reading Dr. Seuss books in honor of Dr. D's birthday this week. We have been doing lots of fun activities related to these books including water coloring painting fish after we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and played with blue goo and laced on paper socks after reading Fox in Socks. We will be reading Green Eggs and Ham on Thursday and will be making green eggs and ham on Friday!

Tomorrow we are looking forward to another community helper visit by a paramedic (Claire's dad....one of Miss Sara's friends).

More Community Helper Visits

Kaden, Ian, Noah, Ava and Michelle enjoy their sundaes

Kaden uses his muscles to scoop his ice cream

Noah adds some syrup to his ice cream

Chase's chocolate syrup with a little ice cream too :)

Ava scoops her ice cream

Kylie scoops her ice cream

Last week we had two more community helper visits. On Tuesday we had a fire fighter visit us in the afternoon. He brought lots of equipment with him and talked to us about things that are not safe to play with and what to do in case there is a fire in your house. We learned it is very important to have a family meeting place outside your house and to crawl down low to the ground if there is smoke in your house and if you can't get to a door then go to a window so the fire fighters can find you. We also watched the fire fighter put on all his uniform and equipment so we could see the transformation from regular person to a fire fighter in full gear and start to understand that it is still the same person even if he looks a little scary in his gear. He also brought us Junior Fire Fighter certificates and coloring books that went home that day.

On Wednesday we had a chocolate maker come visit and tell us all about how to make chocolate and where it comes from. She had a great treat for us when we all go to take turns dipping a graham cracker in white chocolate. Yum yum. They were quite tasty!

We also spent the week pretending to run an ice cream shop in our classroom which was great fun! We had pretend ice cream, sprinkles, bowls, cones, spoons, menus and money. We had a lot of fun talking about our favorite ice cream and seeing how many scoops we could pile on one cone. We ended the week with a speical treat on Friday afternoon of making ice cream sundaes. First we smelled all of our ingredients to see what we though they smelled like. Then we tasted a little bit of everything to make sure we liked it! The chocolate sauce and cool whip were for sure favorites. The cherries were liked by some. Then we started the ice cream around the table and scooped our own then added toppings as they came by. I think some students might have had a little ice cream with their chocolate syrup :) Above are some pictures of our fun afternoon!

Next week we have several more community helpers coming to visit. On Tuesday we have a nurse coming (Jennifer, Miss Amy's sister). On Wednesday we have a police officer coming (Chase's dad). And on Thursday we have a paramedic coming (Claire's dad (she is in Miss Sara's room)). We are looking forward to learning all about these jobs as well!

Fruit Salad....Yummy Yummy!

Ian is thinking about the orange


Camden and Michelle enjoy their fruit salad


Chase and Ian also enjoy their fruit salad


Look how hard Michelle is working on the pear!


Ian gives the apple a try


Now doesn't that look tasty! :)


Chase perfects his banana peeling technique


Camden enjoyed licking the oranges!


Camden works on cutting oranges


Michelle works on cutting pears


Ian is working on the apples


Chase is picking grapes off the vine!

Last Friday morning we set out on our latest cooking adventure of making fruit salad. Of course the activity had to be proceded with watching the Wiggles Fruit Salad song/video first, just to get us warmed up. Then we all got our hands washed and sat down at the table. I showed the kids pictures of the ingredients we would use (green apples, red apples, bananas, grapes, pears, oranges) and had them go find each item on anther table. Then we handed out plates and plastic knives (with plenty of supervision!) and away they went. There was some very creative cutting and slicing going on or in the case of the bananas....Chase decided just breaking them in half would work too! And all the yummy fruit got tossed in the bowl, mixed up and down to the tummys! We had lots of satisfied customers with our little project. Given the amount of handling the food experienced :), us teachers just took the kids word for it that is was yummy! :) Above are some pictures of our activity!

Pizza, pizza, pizza

This week in preschool we have been setting up and running our own pretend pizza shop. We have been playing with pretend pizzas, rollers, pizza boxes (from Pizza Hut, even the real thing), a variety of toppings and setting up a table complete with a red/white checkered table cloth to serve our yummy pies! The students are really enjoying this activity. We are concluding our concluding this week by making our own mini pizza's on Friday....yum, yum!

Next week we will be continuing with the restaurant theme and serving up ice cream in our ice cream shop! What flavor do you like? I think my friends' favorite part might be the sprinkles!

For snack on Wednesday of this week we made pudding pies and boy were they tasty. As a group we read the recipe box to make two big boxes of chocolate pudding. Everyone got a turn at pouring and stirring and waiting (that was that hardest part). We smelled the pudding and decided it smelled really good! Then we scooped it into mini pie crusts, plopped on some cool whip and topped it with.....you guessed it.....sprinkles! Doesn't get any better then that! I had to be out of the room when my friends ate their creations but I hear they enjoyed them alot. They saved one just for me which I had for my lunch time dessert today and it was pretty tasty!

On Tuesday we had a special visitor to continue our community helper visits. Lea Krannawitter, a friend of Miss Amy's, and a great eye doctor, visited our classroom to share with us what you do when you go see an eye doctor. She brought along an eye chart and we told her what letters we saw. She also brought some other cards that had drawings of a house, circle, apple and square and we had to see if our eyes could see them....I think we all passed! :) The coolest part was two special books that she brought. One tested our color vision and the other had special glasses that went along with it and helped us see things in 3-D....kinda cool! All of my friends were very nice during her visit! She brought along her own little assistant, her 3 year old daughter Mia, who helped her pass around the books and glasses. My friend Kaden was super sweet and suggested we all tell Mia our names so she knew who we were! :)

We have welcomed two new friend to our classroom this week. Bri and Erick started on Tuesday and are with us in the mornings right now. We are happy to have them in our classroom. They are doing a great job of learning the ropes and figuring out all the fun things we do in preschool!

I want to send a BIG thank you to all parents who attended Parent Teacher Conferences! I very much enjoy meeting with each of you and sharing all the wonderful things your children are doing in school this year. We are having a very successful year and I'm very proud of each of my students and their accomplishments! Thank you for coming!

Valentine's Day Pictures

Chase is delivering friendship notes into a friend's mailbag

Michelle is showing off her heart frame

Kylie worked very hard on her heart frame!

Kaden is working very hard on his heart frame

Chase has decorated his jacket with Sponge Bob stickers!

Camden is using a marker to decorate his heart frame and Noah is working with Miss Diana on his heart frame

Michelle came all dressed up....foot loose and fancy free....for our Valentine's Day party....love it!

Here are pictures from our Valentine's Day party!

Pictures of making cookies

My friends (Michelle, Ian, Noah, Camden, Chase (front)) in the morning sitting at the table as we put the cookies in the oven!

MMMMMM....tasty! Makes you want a bite doesn't it! :)

A few weeks ago we made cookies on a Friday morning as our Friday cooking project and then decorated them as a class in the afternoon. As you can see from the pictures they are very creative cookies, but when you have 3, 4 and 5 year old cooks in the kitchen you are for sure going to get creative things! The students really enjoyed decorating the cookies with frosting and fruit for friendship fruit cookie pizzas!

Pictures of my friends

Look close you can see that Ian wrote his first and last name and how old he is!

Here are a few more pictures of my friends working hard at school!

Kaden wrote his friends name and is not getting ready to write his own name very nicely!

Ava is waiting patiently at the table for the next activity