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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Valentine Fun in Pre-K

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!

I wanted to share a few little tidbits from some of our Valentine's activities this week. We celebrate the day with a focus on friendship and family love with a card exchange and a few special treats for snack. 

I asked each family to work together to create a box to serve as a card holder for all those Valentine cards we exchange. Some of the families were VERY creative and came up with some wonderful boxes! 

Valentine Cruise Ship

Rock and Roll Guitar

 Princess Ballerina Box

Valentine Hearts 

 Princess Stickers

 Dirtbike Love

 Ladybug Love

 Mailbox

 Big Mouth Princess

 Pom Pom Collage

 Dora the Explorer Stickers and Smileys

 Glittery Hearts

 Lego Love

 Shark!

 Lots of Hearts

Recycled Soda Bottle Pig

We also had a few really cute homemade Valentine cards.

While I was out one day this week, some of the kids made these cute little love bugs to decorate our classroom door.

My students were VERY generous sharing all sorts of lovely Valentines gifts with me, but this little Valentine heart that one of my students made in art center definitely tugged at my heartstrings! It reads: 

"Dear Mrs. Ayn, You are the best teacher in the whole, wide world.Love, Kaitlyn"

Definitely a keeper for the scrapbook!

Another child drawing in art center made this little picture. "Look Mrs. Ayn, I made a love pattern! It's heart-"I"-heart-"I"-heart-"I"!

We've done a lot of math activities this week with Conversation Hearts. We've sorted, patterned and graphed them. We've read them and practiced reading and writing the conversations. This morning, estimated the number of hearts in a a heart shaped box then counted them out to check our guesses.

Later, we counted the number of letters on our hearts and graphed the results.

We've done a lot of singing and dancing this week. Today, with all the excitement building for the the party, we need to get some serious wiggles out. We put on "Love Shack" and started dancing our hearts out. Several of the kids grabbed a partner and started to do little waltzes. I would have never thought to waltz to "Love Shack", but sometimes, love just happens!

Hope your Valentine's Day was just a special as mine! 


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Celebrating President's Day in Pre-K

As President's Day was last week, we learned a little about George Washington, Abe Lincoln and the early days of our country. Here are some of the activities that kept us busy.


Early in the week, I asked them what they thought a president does. We had read a little about George Washington, but hadn't gotten into Presidential duties yet. I love the answers they come up with!

What does a President do?

• Fights with soldiers

• Works

• Fights

• He's the leader of the USA

• Protects the country

• Speaks into a microphone to all the people

  Specifically about George Washington:

• George Washington rode a horse

• He wore a wig to fancy dances

• Wrote a letter

• Saved the bad guy's dog

We explored the presidents' faces on coins and talked a lot about coins. We did some crayon rubbings and made patterns with coin rubbings. It was fun to watch the presidents appear! We used an eye dropper to drop water onto coins and counted the amount of drops each coin could hold. It was especially fun to watch the bubble of water form over the top. One of our observations was that the water formed a mini magnifying glass of its own! We got out our magnifying glasses to get a better view! (Sorry the photos don't show the bubble very well!)

 

 We got out our microscope and examined a penny. We even found Lincoln sitting inside the Lincoln Memorial!! We cleaned some dirty pennies with ketchup. It was like magic! The coins came very clean with just a little rubbing! One of our favorite coin activities was sorting into piles. Some of the friends made patterns with coins, too!

After reading "Saving the Liberty Bell" by Megan McDonald,  we made these cute Liberty Bell replicas with disposable cups and tin foil.

We measured and compared our foot size to Abe Lincoln's foot. He had really big feet!

"Look Mrs. Ayn, I'm Abe Lincoln!!!"

We used pretzels to make log cabins like Lincoln lived in.

We made cute little George Washington and Abe Lincoln faces.

We had a lot of fun and learned a little about the history of our country!


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