April 14th - This week the children enjoyed listening to the story Over in the Grasslands. This was a story about animals and their homes. We worked on letter sounds. We introduced the letter V. We finished our crafts this week: Easter chicks (which are hanging in the room) and Easter baskets (which went home). We also painted eggs with glue, sugar and watercolors. We painted on our new easel (I love this!). And we had a beautiful day outside. Check out the pictures below and see how much fun we are having!
March 24 - Last week we had Dr. Schaefer from the Walcott Vet Clinic talk to us about the importance of taking care of your animals. His assistant, Miss Lindsay, brought in her furry friend, Lily. Lily was so excited to see the children.
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| Lily and Miss Lindsay |
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| Dr. Schaefer |
We have been learning the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep. We also do a another rhyme about Baa Baa Black Sheep and say the different colors (ex. Baa Baa Orange Sheep, etc).
In small groups this week we colored different types of pasta. We used food coloring and a little rubbing alcohol and put this inside a baggy along with the pasta. The kids shook their bag to mix the colors and pasta. We put the colored pasta into the sensory table for the children to explore.
We have been singing the songs, My Energy and Drive My Car, by Laurie Berkner.
March 10 - Today we had a big celebration. It was Miss Kathy's birthday. Miss Abby, from Miss Katie's class, made her a very beautiful birthday crown to wear. Whenever Miss Kathy would take it off, Matthew would say, "Miss Kathy, where is your crown?" So Miss Kathy ended up wearing it for most of the day. To help celebrate her birthday we made cow mask. It was pretty noisy for awhile with all the "mooing". It was a good day.
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| Miss Kathy is Moovalous! |
Our Hibiscus plant has finally taken off! It has grown 6 inches in 1 week! We are amazed at the growth. We are enjoying watching our Hibiscus so much that we decided to plant herbs. We planted parsley, chives and sweet basil. We can't wait to put some of those fresh herbs in our food! We also placed our bird feeder outside our window and we are waiting patiently for some birds to come and eat.
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| Wow! It is getting tall! |
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| Preparing the soil for our herb garden. | | |
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| Examining the different kind of seeds. |
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| We needed to plant 15 of each type of seed. |
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| Add caption |
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| Adding water and food every day to our garden. |
March 3 - We had a very exciting week. On Wednesday we had a very special visitor for Read Across America Day! His name was Bulldog Beard the Pirate. He read us the book titled, How I Became a Pirate. The book was enjoyed by all!
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| Pirate Bulldog Beard |
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| AAARRGH! |
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| Our new Children's Village Hayes T-shirts |
We received our new Children's Village at Hayes t-shirt. They are a beautiful blue color that the kids loved. They tried them on right away. Our school song is on the back of these shirts. You should have received a CD with the song when your child started. Our school song was written and composed by the Myers Brothers.
Today the children enjoyed singing the nursery rhyme, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. They each took a turn singing in front of the class.
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| A live ladybug was discovered in the gym. |
February 25th - Today we had a special visitor,
Officer "Friend" Lee. He is from the Davenport Police Department. He talked about some of the duties a police officer has. He talked about the uniform he wears and that his uniform is special because it has patches on each sleeve that says Davenport Police Department. He read a book titled
Gloria and Officer Buckles. 
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| Flannel Board Bingo |
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| There was a farmer, had a dog and Bingo was his name 0. |
In Second Step this week we are learning a very important skill for preschool - WAITING. Some children can be very patient, but others have a very hard time waiting. We continue to talk about ways to calm down, such as; Say calm down, take deep breaths, and count to 4 out loud.
February 17 - The Caterpillar Creeks kids had SUPER FUN on Valentine's Day. We started off our day by delivering Valentine Grams to Bumblebee Boulevard, Cricket Corner, Firefly Freeway and Ladybug Lane. We had Valentine Grams specially delivered to Dr. Klipsch, Nurse Kathy, Miss Kris (Elementary Secretary) and Miss Theresa (office para). One student wanted to make sure that we thanked Miss Kris for letting our parents in the school, so the kids did not have to spend the night here. :)
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| Making our Friendship Mix. |
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| Writing in our Literacy Center. |
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| Making Valentines. |
Next we had three different activities going on. One group "made" their Friendship Mix. By the way, thanks for all the donations! Another group made Valentines for their special person. The third group signed the Valentine Cards that were donated to our Literacy Center.
In the afternoon we watched a short video names We Love Our Friends and they ate their Friendship Mix. It was a very exciting day!
February 10 - The children have enjoyed making Valentines for Miss Katie’s class, the Firefly Freeway class. We have pretended to be postal carriers and mail and deliver their Valentine’s to their mailbox. They are also doing the same for us! Both classes have really enjoyed this experience! We will continue this through next week.
During our brain breaks this week (transition time after math and before Handwriting without Tears) we have been practicing some Yoga moves. It is hard to fit all of the children on the carpet, but it has been fun. And surprisingly they are enjoying it so much they are requesting certain Yoga moves.
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| Delivering mail at Firefly Freeway. |
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| Delivering mail to our friends. |
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| Patterning...Can you guess our pattern? |
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| Getting ready to write the letter B. Let's have a little fun with some Bubbles first! |
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| More Bubbles! |
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| Check out our cool mail from our friends! |
January 29th - It is hard to believe it is the end of January already. The last week of January has been full of illnesses for the Caterpillar Creek Kids. Please remember to keep your child at home if they are sick.
On Friday students brought in airplanes and helicopters. They each took turns talking about what they brought, then we sorted them into groups.
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| Deciding which group the helicopter belongs in. |
We also planted an Amaryllis bulb. Over several weeks we are going to watch the growth of this plant and keep track of how quickly it grows.
This week we have been reading the book Bear About Town. This is a story about Bear taking a walk each day of the week and visiting many places; such as a bakery, movies, the gym, toy store, etc. Today we wrote a story about bear coming to visit preschool.
We are also learning about the letter F. We are learning American Sign Language for the letters as well as the Tucker Signing.
Our flannel activity for this week is "Have you seen the Snowman?" This focuses on colors. Hopefully, we won't have too much snow coming within the next couple days for snowmen!
Don't forget to sign up for conferences.
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| Delivering mail to Firefly Freeway. |
