Apples

Johnny Appleseed was a man who loved planting and growing apple trees.  He wanted to share his love of apples with others so that they could enjoy the tasty treats as well.  He spent his life planting apples across the United States.  In honor of his birthday on Monday, September 26th, we learned about apples this week!  The children tried to guess about how many seeds would be inside an apple.  Once the apple was cut open, they did an experiment to see how lemon juice keeps apples from turning brown so quickly.

There were so many fun art projects going on this week with apples!  Here's a few:

Creating a beautiful picture by doing apple stamping!

We can even make apples using our hand prints!

Practicing counting to our number of the week
by adding that many apples to their tree!

Such a cute interactive apple that the children
could move their worm through.

Creating an apple tree using cookie cutters!

 The 1 year olds did an apple hunt in their room and then counted how many apples they found.

 Towards the end of the week, the children made their very own mini apple pies!  They turned out to be pretty delicious!

Cutting out the crust of the apple pie

Adding the apple filling

Carefully putting on the top

YUMMY!

 We can't forget about our letter of the week- H!  The children made "H is for Hippo" as an art activity this week.  They also practiced writing the letter, making the sound, and some even used blocks during centers to make the letter H. 

Dinosaurs

Everyone had a blast this week with Dinosaurs!  It's so neat to think about what it was like so long ago!  The children did so many fun learning activities this week!
They made a Dinosaur glyph by decorating their dinosaurs based on their favorite color, which dinosaur was their favorite, and if they would like one as a pet!

He likes T-Rex and would like one as a pet!  YIKES!

The children also made many other dinosaurs this week.
The 3-5 year olds talked about dinosaur bones and made their very own dinosaur skeleton!

Very carefully working with toothpicks and glue to construct his skeleton.

Of course, a dinosaur theme requires a lot of imagining.  The children did such a great job of pretending this week!

Our Pre-K class played a game pretending to be and move like different dinosaurs. 
Some of them really got into acting like a dinosaur!

Looking for "Dinosaur Eggs" on the playground!

Practicing counting with the number of "Dinosaur Eggs" she found!

Pretending to be Paleontologists digging in the sand for bones and fossils!

Good digging guys!

 We also made fossils!  The children made the imprints on Friday so that we can let them dry and harden over the weekend.  Come by and try to guess what is imprinted in their fossils!

It was a little gooey!

Making his imprint in the fossil

 Our cooking activity this week, pulled together the dinosaur theme and the letter of the week.  The children enjoyed making "Gumdrop Cereal Dinosaurs" for the letter G!

To reinforce the letter of the week, the children made a goat! 

The 3 year olds also made a Groundhog!  You might have seen our furry friend in the parking lot as we see him just about every day now!  The teachers have talked about making him our mascot! Sunflower Station Groundhogs?!

Whew!  That's a lot to squeeze into one week!!

Butterflies

Wow!  It's been a busy week at Sunflower Station Preschool!  We are learning about butterflies and their life cycle.  We started the week out by putting caterpillars into cups so that we can watch the lifecycle as they turn into beautiful butterflies!  The children had so much fun with this and were amazed to see so many caterpillars!

Moving her caterpillar into her cup!

Watching carefully!

The children continued to observe the caterpillars
throughout the week as they got bigger and bigger!

 The one year olds made caterpillars and butterflies as their art project this week.

Nice work!

We also made our own caterpillars that turned into beautiful butterflies!

The children learned about symmetry this week as they painted butterflies.

 Our Pre-Kindergartners did a special activity to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.  They created this neat representation by using different types of pasta!  They had so much fun with this and did a great job in learning all the stage of the cycle.

After reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", the children made Fruit Dip to eat with their fruit for snack.  The caterpillar learned that it was much better to eat fruit than junk food- let's hope the children did too!

Mixing it up!  Looking yummy!

Of course, the week wouldn't be complete without a letter of the week!  This week we focused on the letter "F" and the children's craft was F is for Fox!



Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to observe our caterpillars!  We can barely keep food in the containers for these hungry little caterpillars!

My Family

In honor of Grandparents' Day, we talked about our family.  The 2 year olds made houses and turned shapes into the different members of their family!

We spent a lot of the week doing extra special things for our Grandparents.  They are so important to us and we wanted to do something to show them how much we love them!  The children created some flower art to give to their Grandparents using their hands and feet. 

So cute!

Not so sure about getting messy!

For our cooking activity this week, the children made "Granola Bars for Grandparents" to enjoy as a snack with their Grandparents. They turned out pretty delicious!

The 2 year olds putting in all the ingredients!

Mixing it up with such concentration!

So proud of their final product!

 On Friday, we had a Grandparents' Day Celebration.  It was so precious to watch the children's faces as they were so suprised to see their Grandparents walk through the door!  Thank you to all the Grandparents that were able to share such a fun time with us!

The children were so cute as they sung a special song for the Grandparents!

A Great-Grandmother and 2 Grandmothers- how neat!

Enjoying their Granola Bars!

Such a sweet moment!

 We are so glad we were able to provide a special morning for these Grandparents.  We know that each and every one of them are absolutely wonderful!  We hope some great memories were made at our celebration!

Community Helpers

In honor of Labor Day, we learned all about the different Community Helpers.  The children learned how important these people are in our community.  They talked about everyone from librarians to scientists!  Our Pre-Kindergarten children made police outfits and pretended to be police officers! The 2 year olds made their very own police badges!

Don't they look tough?!

One proud "Police Officer"!             

 For the cooking activity this week, the children pretended to be construction workers and build a house (a yummy gingerbread house, of course)!  Some children really took their time in building their delicious snack while others got right to eating it!


Great team work guys!



YUM!!!

Our letter of the week was "D".  The children made an adorable duck for their craft.

D is for Duck!

To connect Language Arts and Science, the children experimented with turning dirt into mud!  Yes, we let them play in the dirt!  They used magnifying glasses to try to find different things in the dirt.

Hard at work!

What a fun filled week!  We hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day weekend- even though it was so rainy!