According to the groundhog, spring is on the way!  The weather this week was certainly spring-like, with pouring rain and above freezing temperatures that melted the snow and ice into puddles and streams all over the play yard.  The children had a lot of fun running through the puddles, scooping up the water, and watching it flow from one puddle to another.   They were super excited to have an indoor recess on Wednesday, when they got to play with some of the toys that are not typically out during the school day.
Monday students enjoyed their monthly visit to the library with Tammy while some potential students visited for a play date.

For art we explored pointillism, using dots of color to create pictures, a technique used by the painter Paul Signac.  The children created their own pointillist pictures to display on the wall, though they decided that it was a lot more work than just making lines.
We had an art rich week with two art tables.  Children continued to make paintings with the rubber pom-poms, like last week, but we used pink, red, and white paint for Valentine’s day.  They used these and other papers to cut out hearts to glue onto their Valentine mail bags.
At a second art table they colored, cut out, and assembled ground hog finger puppets.  Some of them were quite colorful!  Later in the week children made heart mice, using a pattern shared by Gerrie Scott.
In the sensory table the children made and played with a new kind of play-dough. They combined corn starch (2 parts) with hair conditioner (1 part). It was so smooth and soft and cool! They really enjoyed scooping, molding, and forming it. We covered a lot of topics during circle time.  We learned about Ground Hog day and what a shadow is.  We talked about Valentine’s Day, when we give cards and gifts to those we love and care for.  We continued to discuss food and where it comes from, specifically food from plants, such as fruits and vegetables.  We talked about the various parts of the plants that we eat, such as the roots (carrots), stem (asparagus), leaves (spinach), and fruit (tomato).  We sorted some fruits and vegetables, which is tricky, because some vegetables are technically fruit, but we sorted by what grows on a tree (sweet) vs. what grows in our garden (savory).

On Thursday we took out the instruments and played some music.  Each instrument was introduced by name, then everyone chose one to play.  We clapped the tune “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” then played our instruments to the tune.  Then we got really tricky and tried clapping and playing “Skidamarink,” which has a lot of eighth and quarter notes, so we had to play quite rapidly.  We also increased and decreased the volume of our instruments like a jet flying by and like a rainstorm starting, increasing, and petering out.
For Friday science we explored the final of the five senses; the sense of smell.  The children closed their eyes and took turns smelling a variety of food scents, including, peanut butter, garlic, chocolate, pasta sauce, vanilla, banana, cinnamon, and lemon juice.  They were able to identify most of them right away, though the garlic was a tricky one.
New Books we read this week:
The Vegetables We Eat by, Gail Gibbons
Gregory’s Shadow by, Don Freeman
We Need Mail Carriers by, Lola M. Schaefer
Berries to Jelly by, Inez Snyder
Fancy Nancy Heart to Heart by, Robin Preiss Glasser
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by, Laura Numeroff
Froggy Goes to Bed by, Jonathan London
Harold’s Circus by, Crockett Johnson
Smelling by, Rebecca Rissman

New Songs we sang:
Skidamarink
A Tisket, A Tasket
Mail Myself To You (first two verses)