They Say It's Your Birthday

Today my "Little King" turned 5!!! He finally got to have his Birthday!! After seeing his friends have their special day, he got to wear his crown and be the helper of the day!! He is such a joy! I am a lucky teacher, as well as Mom!!

Today starts off our short week... only 4 days of school/child care this week. We are off for Spring Break on Friday!! We can't wait to relax and enjoy some quality family time. But, till then... we have a lot in store.

We started our Circle Time off with a book about Easter... The Easter Story by Patricia Pingry... which is a wonderful telling of the Easter Story in words children 2-5 can understand. The illustration was engaging and the kids have enjoyed it. We also started talking about the Easter Bunny this week. Last week I spent more time on the real meaning of Easter, but this week we have brought in ideas on how the legend of the Easter Bunny may have started. So, we decided to read... The Night Before Easter by Natasha Wing... I love her books. They are so cute and since they follow along with the cadence of a story they all know so well, it is easy for them to stay engaged and enjoy the story.

At our Art Center I had an idea I got from my son's Church School Class, I took a copy of a Cross and the kids practiced their scissor skills, by snipping long, skinny pieces of colored paper and gluing it on the cross. A very independent activity. I put the materials out and the kids just went with it. Not needing direction, except for helping the littlest ones with using their scissors.

We added a Monster Truck Ramp to the Block Center today. All the kids enjoyed racing the trucks down the ramp, and after some suggestions, added a Block Wall to crash into at the bottom. This provided a lot of fun for them. I'd show you a photo, but for some reason Blogger isn't uploading my photos today. I hope it is Blogger and not my computer.

We continue to practice our letter Ee. Some of the pre-kindergartners are having some issues writing the little e, so we spent some one-on-one time tracing little e's. We used markers and paper, sand, sandpaper letters, and using the letter builders to practice getting our hands used to the motion. No child is made to participate, if they want to practice I am there at the table, if they want to play... that is fine too. The materials are out almost all the time, so I "catch" a lot of the kids tracing letters quietly when others are off doing something else... sometimes they ask me for help, or show me... but sometimes they just quietly continue on their own. I like that they have that choice.

I also had out an Egg Matching file folder game and the Chicks in the Grass Mystery Bowl, where the kids find the little chicks in the Easter grass and put them on a numbered paper. The numbers are in little egg shapes on the paper... they love the Mystery Bowl games.