Shoveling, scooping, pouring, dumping, digging, chopping, baking, celebrating, wishing, blowing, serving, chomping, hiding, spying, chasing, running, racing, piling, pushing, pulling, sliding, sledding, climbing, jumping, kicking, throwing, passing, pretending

Shaving cream, glue, liquid water colors, hands, and paper made for some fun puffy art making on Monday.

The children created Saturns for their planet mobiles and beautiful water color paintings at the art table.

Big Bad Bruce by Bill Pete helped us examine the four R’s of reconciling – Recognize and take responsibility, Reconcile by apologizing, Resolve by working together on a solution, and make Restitution by repairing damages as able.

In our study of the 4 gas giants, the question of whether air takes up space was asked. The children had hypothesized that air does not take up space, so some water, air, jars, and balloons helped us test that out. First we touched a balloon filled with water then one filled with ice. We examined a flat balloon and agreed there was nothing in it. We decided to put something in it, so Lyn blew it up with air. Does air take up space? Yes! We then examined a large glass jar half full of water, and a second jar filled with air. We placed the jar of air mouth down and pushed it into the water. The air in the jar forced the water up and around, demonstrating that the air does take up space!

During sign language with Rose, after warming up our fingers to be ready to sign and practicing all the signs we already know, we learned 5 new animal signs. This week we learned the farm animals cow, horse, pig, sheep, and chicken.

We were excited to have Susan back on Wednesday! We loved having Michelle with us, but we also missed Susan. We introduced the final planet, Neptune, a giant blue planet of wind storms, and the furthest planet from the sun. We played “When the solar winds blow” and the children were blown to the different planets. Susan shared the Greek myth of the god Neptune, who did not like being up on the high mountains, so he dove down into the bottom of the sea and became the god of the water and sea. When a student commented that it was just like the Little Mermaid, we learned that king Triton (from the movie version) is Neptune’s son.

We celebrated two four year old birthdays. After passing out unicorn horn fruit kabobs and some healthy vegan cookies, each birthday girl took a turn sharing the month and season they were born. We counted the years as they dashed around the sun, then sang happy birthday to each one before enjoying their birthday treats. Happy birthday new four year olds!

During Thursday morning spanish with Zeanny we reviewed the colors, parts of the body, positions, greetings, and family members with songs, stories, and games with scarves and egg shakers.

Zeanny returned later in the morning to introduce how dairy products keep our bones healthy and strong. We discussed what food items we eat that are made of milk, such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. We learned that bones can repair themselves if they get broken. We talked about how astronauts need to exercise at least 2 hours each day to keep their bodies healthy and fit and Zeanny taught us a fun song about astronauts exercising. We pretended to be astronauts who put on our space suits, climbed aboard the space ship, blasted into space, then landed on the moon and floated around. We talked about how astronauts eat a lot of dehydrated food that they combine with water or milk to rehydrate, then we made our own astronaut food by mixing dry pudding mix with milk.

The cold winds and temperatures kept us in on Thursday, but we had fun with the special indoor recess materials.

Friday students examined their skin and shared all the important things our skin does, such as touch and feel, keep all our parts in, and protect against germs and disease. We looked at our hands and observed that they have lots of lines and wrinkles and ridges. We learned that everyone’s lines and wrinkles and ridges are unique. We became detectives to solve the mystery of the missing lunch box story and used clues from the story to decide where to look. We tried “searching” in several locations, and one of our clues finally lead us to the missing lunch box. We then talked about our fingerprints and how they can give clues about where we have been. We tried making and lifting fingerprints with powder and tape, but it was not particularly successful so we took out the stamp pads and made colorful hand and finger prints all over our papers.

Friday students also had fun playing a letter identification jumping game. We put the first initials of the student on the rug with tape, then the children took turns jumping off the trampoline onto the named letter, then back on before jumping to the next letter named. They are looking forward to our astronaut fitness center in dramatic play so they can use the trampoline and other fitness equipment after break!