Singing In The Rain: Learning About Weather in Pre-K

Our Pre-K class has been learning about the weather. We've learned quite a bit through fun activities and experiments.

Counting Raindrops on Cloud Mats

I made these little cloud mats from blue paper. Originally, I made them as a small group game where the children either roll a die or draw a numbered card and count out the number of glass raindrop beads onto the cloud. The children have also delighted in just playing with the mats and beads, making up their own games or designs as they play.

TV Weather Station
I transformed a little area of our Science Center into a tv weather station. One evening I gave the children "homework" and asked them to watch the weather portion of the news. They really enjoyed pretending to be a meteorologist. 

Weather Wheels
We made our own little "weather wheels" by drawing on a paper plate divided into sections. We talked about what type of weather we usually have in our area to decide which conditions (rain, sun, clouds, snow, wind, etc.) to include. As we did this with several small groups, different groups included different weather on their wheels.

Weather Magazines

Disclaimer:   The publishers over at Scholastic's "My Big World" preschool classroom magazines sent us a class supply of the magazines to try out. (While I did receive the issues for free for classroom use, I am not being paid to promote or endorse Scholastic or their magazines. The opinions expressed below are strictly my own based on our class experiences with the magazines.) 

We used Scholastic's "My Big World" preschool classroom magazine as a small group activity, reading together and doing the activity on the back. Thank you, "My Big World" magazine, and especially Janice, for sharing these with us! We really enjoyed them and we learned a lot! 

I was really tickled to see some of the children getting their magazines out later on and having a little "small group" of their own! The magazines are very easy for children to follow and "read along", even if they can't independently read the actual text yet! 

If you'd like more info on ordering "My Big World" magazines for your class, please visit the Scholastic website or click here.

Art
As it often happens, our learning focus often creeps into whatever the students are creating in art center.

Flying Kites
Kite making has been a very popular activity in our art center and flying the homemade kites has been the highlight of our outdoor time!

Singing About Weather
We LOVE The Learning Station's music in our class. They have a wonderful version of "Singing In The Rain" that really gets us moving. If you are not familiar with it, you should check it out! They also have a wonderful youtube station filled with great children's music videos.




Weather Experiments
We've conducted some pretty cool weather experiments in our class. You can read more about the experiments and kite making/flying, plus get a FREE printable weather recording chart on PreK+K Sharing: Exploring Weather With Science Experiments in Preschool.

Books About Weather

These are some of the books we've been reading about weather!

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Pet Week Play in Pre-K

Since we've been learning about pets in our class, we decided to set up a pet shop in our dramatic play center and a veterinarian's office in our science center.

We've had some great play going on in both centers!

The "doctors" are in!

Some of us like to play pretend on a smaller scale.

We have also had a lot of fun with our movement activities, moving like various pets---we even played a partner game in which each partner set was an animal trainer and animal! Seeing these kids doing pet tricks was definitely one of the highlights of my week!

 

 

 

We love the Hap Palmer song, "Sammy", Greg and Steve's "Animal Action" and The Learning Station's "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?"! 
(Sorry, a link to The Leaning Station's "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?" was not available on YouTube. I highly recommend checking it out--it includes a variety of pets!)

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"Every Day Dramatic Play" Linky Party

On Tuesday, we'll begin our pet unit. We'll transform our dramatic play area into a pet shop. Part of our Science center will be transformed into a mini Veterinarian's office. After that, we'll have a post office. 

I'm always looking for new ideas and cute ways to implement change in our centers. Teach Preschool is hosting a fabulous linky filled with loads of ideas called "Every Day Dramatic Play!". 

Pop on over to Teach Preschool join in the "Every Day Dramatic Play!" linky fun, or to check out all the other exciting dramatic play ideas!

A"peeling" Fun With Apples

Last week, we learned all about apples. We managed to work in lessons that met standards in all our domains.

I told the story of "Little Bear's Star", and cut the apple to demonstrate the "star" inside. (See pics of the flannelboard pieces here.) We let the cut apples dry out a bit, then used them in our art center for apple printing.

We used watercolors to paint apple outlines and used collage materials to decorate apple shapes.

On another day, cookie cutters and paint were laid out to make treetops for apple trees in art center.

Our life cycle booklet helped us understand the stages in the apple life cycle. We glued an apple seed to a little dirt for the first square. The next two life cycle squares gave us lots of fine motor practice, by cutting tree shapes from green and brown construction paper. We added crumpled pink tissue for apple blossoms and and finally, for the last square, an apple die cut shape for the "apple".

We wondered if apples would sink or float, then tested to see if apples of different colors had the same floating properties. For a little added fun, each student picked a small classroom item to test to see if it, too, "floated like an apple".

There were several fun games available in our math center. In one game, children rolled the dice or drew cards (depending on the focus skill needed) to place the correct number of red pom pom apples on the apple tree.

In another game, they placed the correct number of chenille stem worms on the apple.

 

For this version of the game, they matched the worms to the number on the apple. Also, instead of chenille stem worms, these little lure worms from the bait & tackle section of our local store provided extra sensory sensations. They are wiggly and fun!

 

I found these little apple wreath decorations that were perfect for sorting and one-to-one correspondence in our ice trays.

We measured ourselves and our friends in apple units to see "how many apples tall" we were.

After reading "10 Apples Up on Top", we made our own version  of the book for counting practice and then practiced balancing apples on our heads.

We taste tested a variety of apples, had apple slices with caramel for snack and made applesauce in the crockpot.

In our language and literacy, we talked about our apple observations and mad a Venn diagram of our findings. We also made several chart stories, including writing a recipe about how we made our applesauce.

On Friday, Johnny Appleseed visited our class to read to us at circle. I can't believe the kids weren't fooled--they knew it was me the entire time, but they played along anyway! (And I thought I was so convincing!)

  

The Fruit Stand we set up dramatic play was a big hit. The kids loved playing there and pretending to sell fruit!

AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE TEACHER AT PLAY!