Jungle Animals

Mommy and Me was held at Andrea's house today--while Danielle was out of the country! Andrea worried that she wouldn't have enough to do, so she thought and thought....

For arts and crafts, we painted a paper plate that was later cut in swirls to make a jungle snake. Everyone worked so hard to cut along the lines!













































After art, we went outside to run through a jungle obstacle course! It was cold, so we bundled up and headed out. While outside, everyone got to jump like a monkey (hopscotch), fly like a bird, leap like a gazelle, walk like an elephant and ROAR like a lion! We ran through the obstacle course many times (what great Africa animals!) and then came in to play in the living room with lots of animals that might live in Africa.

We had lots of fun!

Safari Animals

Roar! That's a lion for you. Safari animals can be such fun to learn about. We made lion puppets for our gathering activity.

During circle time each child pretended to be a safari animal, and the rest of us tried to guess what they were. Corbin was an elephant.
For art, we made some binoculars to take on our safari walk around the neighborhood. On our walk we saw butterflies, beetles, and grasshoppers, but no safari animals were hiding in the tall grasses.
We also tried to use a straw like an elephant's trunk. This is actually quite difficult. The children would have to suck up the water and then spit it out through the straw at the tree.

Safari animals are fun!

Desert Animals

Today we learned about desert animals. We read Stellaluna, and looked at pictures of desert animals. We liked the bats, and road runner, and the tortoise.


For art, we made a big cactus with thorns, and a rattlesnake resting under the cactus.
Gross motor was quite fun today. The children placed a ball between their legs and walked like a penguin. (The arctic is a desert.) And then I put a blue blanket on the ground to symbolize water. I had the blanket folded thin, and then had the children broad jump over it. The water would gradually get wider and wider. The children did really well with the challenge of still broad jumping over a wide river.

We ended with a fun matching game of all the desert animals. We even had to play it twice. They were much faster the second time through, they learned they had to remember where all the pictures were.

Farm Animals and First Preschool day at Corbin's

We had preschool at Corbin's house today! What fun! The children put together a floor ABC puzzle. They took turns very well, and did a great job. They liked looking at it, so we left it put together for the rest of the day.

Miss Aenea did circle time today. She had a farm and different animals in a bag. The children pulled out an animal and said if it lives on a farm or not. If it lived on the farm, they placed it in the barn or near it, if not, they held onto it. They really enjoyed it. We read Click, Clack, Moo and other stories.

For art the children colored a rooster and glued feathers on its back.
Then the children covered big horseshoe shaped pieces of cardboard with aluminum foil and we went outside to play horseshoes with a baseball tee.Then we played games such as, duck, duck, goose and red light green light, but they have to move like an animal.


While we were outside, a big truck came and brought shingles to the house that was being built. The children got to take turns sitting in this cool piggy back forklift.

Meow, Meow, Meow

Andrew had the Alphabet Box at his house this week. He brought it filled with letter "E" items. Some things that start with the letter E are: elephant, engine, egg and Easter bunny.

Our theme today was about Pets. We had Rufus the dog come and visit us today.
The children really seemed to enjoy Rufus. We learned that Rufus would really like to find a cat to chase and play with.
We read The Three Little Kittens and then the children helped retell the story on the flannel board. We also read Have you Seen my Cat? and Millions of Cats. What fun.
For art, we created Stain Glass Pets. The children had cats cut out from wax paper and stuck tissue paper on the cat. Once dry, the cat can be hung in the window, for a stain glass pet. (Sometimes the glue was extra sticky.)

We pretended to be cats for part of our gross motor time. We stretched, pounced, pretended to eat and lap up milk, and then we pretended to take a cat bath.