Rr Robot day- preschool style

Robot day was so much fun!   We have so much fun at preschool anyway, and my pre-K class is really delightful, but this was an extra enjoyable day.  We spent most of the time building our robots, but here's a little game we sent out on the table at arrival.  I found these robot erasers at Target last summer and picked them up in anticipation.  The kids ended up stacking and sorting the erasers in stead.

We also had out the bolt toy.

We read one robot book, If I had a Robot by Dan Yaccarino. 

We did the same craft from last, red rectangle robots.

Then I divided the kiddos up and explained the procedures with the materials and supplies.  My co-teacher, the parents, and I brought in boxes and recycled type materials, water bottle lids, plastic bowls, paper towel tubes, yarn, ribbon, stickers, etc.  All the teachers had stayed after one day and wrapped the boxes and pringles cans in bulletin board paper of various colors.

Our leader for the day brought both her mom and dad, so with my co-teacher, we were able to have 3 teams of robot builders.  This freed me up to deliver supplies and assist when needed.

We went through a lot of packing tape while they built and built.

In the end, we ended up with three pretty cool robots.

I had hoped to get to the Rr journal page at the end of class, but for whatever reason we didn't.  I used it the next morning though and they all drew their robots.

Here is one of the other classes robots... Take a look again out ours... then theirs.  Hmmmm.  There's have a certain prettiness that our don't. 

We didn't have this snack this year, but here's the snack I took for Lou's leader day last year on Rr day.  It's two boxes of raisins, a juice box, an applesauce, and two pretzel rods.  It was more food than the kids needed and more costly than a preschool snack should be, but it was too cute!

hurt shoulder

Bee and Lou had to fend for themselves for a few days.  They cooked a lot of scrambled eggs. 

I hurt my rotator cuff in a mystery injury.  Really I just woke up one day and it was so painful I couldn't move it.  Extreme sleeping.

Thankfully the kids and I had the day off school for a make up snowday.  We spent the whole morning at the orthopedic surgeons office. 

They sent me home with a prescription for some steroids and a sling.  Those steroids!  Oh my, I felt better in two days and had a lot of energy.  I stayed up late, got up early, cleaned the house and organized closets. I got a whole lot done.  Then the bottle was done and I needed sleep again.  It was good while it lasted.

back off ladies

Be careful ladies.

You may not have seen such a good look'en baseball player.

I'm smitten.

Baseball players are my favorite kind of boy.

That's where I found Hubby, playing baseball.

 
 You'll have to find your own ball player, this one is mine. 

violet jelly

This is the prettiest jelly I've ever made. It was pretty the entire making and I took so many pictures. It's wild violet jelly. 

Yep, made from those pretty spring violets that grow in the yard. 

I had two lovely pickers.  Bee and a neighbor picked and picked. Then they got bored and went to play with their horses.  They have imaginary horses that live on the pool deck.  They dutiful feed, water and exercise them.

You'll need a lot of those lovely violets, about 3 cups.

You'll also need the juice of a lemon, 3 1/2 cups of sugar, and a box of sure jell.

Pick the stems off the flowers.  You don't have to get crazy about getting off all the green, it won't matter.

I rinsed the flowers, but I suppose it doesn't matter.  We have a dog, thought it might be best (have you met him, he's lovely).

The flowers get 2 1/2 cups boiling water poured on top. 

And left to steep. 

And get prettier and prettier.

It's best if you work in the smallest corner of the kitchen.  I dream of big open countertops!

While the violets are soaking, squeeze the juice of the lemon. 

You should totally use what's left of the lemon to make lemonade.  Sugary, delicious lemonade.

The violets turn the water such a pretty blue.

Strain them, saving the wonderful blue water for cooking.  Toss those mushed violets in the compost.  They smell a little funk at this point.

The violet water turns from the deep blue to...

a bright pinky purple as soon as you add the lemon juice.  Turn up the heat.  Add the package of sure jell and bring to a rolling boil.  Add 3 1/2 cups sugar.  Bring back to a boil.  Boil for a minute or two.  Stir well the whole time.

Process now as you would any jelly.  Pour into clean and ready jars. 

I used my tattler reusable lids.  They are a two piece lid.  They work great for jelly.

Process for 5 minutes. 

Allow 24 hours to set up, but it you can't, it's fine.  We ate ours about 2 hours after I made it.  I cut up a whole chicken and we had fried chicken and mashed potatoes and biscuits.  We needed the jelly.  It has a light flavor, almost grape.  It was sweet and yummy and we gobbled it up. 

Hubby mowed the yard that same night.  We hope to get one more picking of violets and make another batch of jelly. 

preschool quilt day

Here are just a few little things from Qq day.  It was my co-teachers turn to teach, and she did a quilt theme. 

The kids really liked having this sticky quilt project out all week.  They designed, and took down and redesigned.   I love projects when they want to keep on resetting and repeating.   This is just contact paper taped to the table sticky side up with a collection of fabric cuttings from my stash.  We've used this same idea for other sticky projects through the year (like turkey parts,  fish).

This was a great circle time activity courtesy of my co-teacher.  She said it took a lot of time to get it organized and together but it was really sweet.

Each child got a sheet of paper divided into quilt blocks and numbered.  Each child also got a little baggie of squares with the other children's names.  She had the kids spread out the names a little and then gave clues of what name to find.  She might have just said the name or said it's a girls name that starts with A.  Enough clues were given for everyone to correctly identify the name and then she told them where to glue it.

At the end, they all went home with a paper friendship quilt with each friend's name.

Here was our craft. The kids glued pretty scrapbook paper cuttings to a page.  It would have been great in their journals too, but I didn't see any reason to repeat the activity just for that.  

L craft- lobster

I found this stay photo hanging around on my camera.  It's from Ocean day at preschool.  Love this lobster!  Crafts with the kiddos hands and feet are always cute, but time consuming.  The little girls are always wearing tights on the days we need their feet too. 

This reminds me of the ocean animals quilt from Bee's class fundraiser last year.

popcorn day- preschool style

Here are a few items from popcorn day, which has been awhile back now.  I'm getting caught up though and that's the goal.  School is out in like 5 weeks, goodness! 

 

 

This is one of those themes where I wish I could write a children's book.  I just couldn't find the right book for popcorn day.  This book, The Popcorn Shop by Alice Low was better than what I've used before though.   Here are a some out of order activities from popcorn day with my youngest friends.

 

 
Last year (see the end of this post) we did something a little different with this popcorn paper.  This year, I used it as a color bingo.  This class of 3s and 4s needed this. 

 
Here's a little courting backwards song.  I put the paper pieces up on the feltboard and we counted backwards.  I wish there were more counting forward songs, so we just make sure to stop and count what is left (in correct order) during our song.

               5 little kernels sitting in the pot, one got hot and it went pop.  (keep counting backwards) 

At the end, we had the pot got hot and it went pop.

We also danced to Laurie Berkner's Popcorn song, Popcorn Calling Me. The kids love the part where we 'sizzle sizzle sizzle sizzle sizzle .... and then POP.'  I also have Raffi's popcorn song written down in my plans, but I think I just played it while we played. 

 
Here was our craft.  You'll find last years below.  We glued popped kernels to paper corns on sticks.

 
We popped ping pong popcorn on a sheet.  The kids love popping things on a sheet.  It's a diy parachute but just the right size for a little group of friends with tiny hands.  We popped the balls off, picked them all up and repeated.   We pop things all year on the sheet. 

We did a little taste test and then graphed our favorite flavors.  I love graphing with little people.  It's a great  math skill and can be done so easily.  All types of questions and information can be gathered when we look at our results.

This was fun, we took the kids to the gym and let them blow a piece of popcorn across the floor.  This kept them very focused for several minutes.  I think we almost had a few pass out though!

Again, here's last years stuff