Plants, plants, plants!

We have been all about plants for the last two weeks.  My cuties are experts at all things plants!

For our centers, we added a flower shop to the dramatic play area

In our writing center, we created a paper garden with labels.

Blocks center was transformed into a garden bed building area.

 

Our science center allowed us to experiment the job of the roots.  Students buried the roots and turned on a fan to see that roots hold the plant in the ground.

We also recorded our plants' growth everyday in our plant journals.

We practiced what plants need to grow with a song and motions from my plant unit.  (My cuties were little seeds for the song and grew as I added what they needed to them.)

We created this mural to show what plants need to grow.

We labeled the parts of the plant with this craftivity.

You can get these ideas and so much more in my 67 page plant unit!

Constructive Playthings Product Review

Happy Sunday!  I was recently contacted by Constructive Playthings to review a product from their on-line store.

My order arrived very quickly and my cuties were excited to see what goodies arrived for them.

We received the Caterpillar Counting game and they loved playing it!

 The game was simple and fun for my pre-kindergarten kiddos.  To play the game, students rolled two dice

then followed the directions on the dice.  The color dice tells students what color caterpillar to pull and the caterpillar dice has a number to tell them how many pulls you can give the caterpillar.  One side of the dice has the letter J (pictured above) which lets the player pull the whole caterpillar out of the tree.  The goal was to count and get caterpillars and that's what they did.  They loved playing it!

Check out Constructive Playthings by clicking the pictures below.

 

Thank you Constructive Playthings!

"Chick" us out!

Happy Friday, everyone!  We have been anxiously awaiting our chicks in our classroom and they arrived yesterday and a few more today!  We have six so far and a few more were pipping when I left school today.

Before these cuties arrived, we predicted how many would hatch with this little prediction chart.

Of course much of the week was spent learning the life cycle and using things from my unit on TPT.

I used the vocabulary cards to make this life cycle chart.

My cuties also created a life cycle puzzle from the unit.

Yesterday was the due date of our chicks, so we made these little hatching chicks and I gave my cuties a little egg with a tiny chick inside for them to keep.

Thanks for "chicking" out our chicks!

A little butterfly and froggy fun!

My last post mentioned that we have an oviparous zoo in my classroom!  It's been so much fun to enjoy the creatures growing and hatching and to learn about life cycle through real experiences.

This week was focused on butterflies and frogs and next week is all about chicks, since our chicks are due next Thursday.

To start the week, we learned about oviparous animals.  I showed my cuties my Ikea egg and we named things that might hatch from an egg.  Then I opened it and we learned that the animals inside are all oviparous because they come from eggs.  (Don't little LOVE saying BIG words?!?!)

 We then read Shuna's book from her oviparous animals' unit.

Of course butterflies were in the egg, so we started learning the butterfly life cycle and that it begins with an egg.

Throughout the week we created this life cycle wall.  It took all week, but it really helped my littles learn the cycle.

It's hard to see because we used pencil, but we wrote facts about each part of the cycle on the pieces that have an index card in the middle.  Our butterfly tree map helped us.

The tree map pieces, hallway labels, and vocabulary cards are in my butterfly unit as well as these ideas:

 We have been loving these beautiful creatures!

We also learned about frogs and their life cycle.  Look at our tiny tadpoles!

We used many ideas from my Frog Life Cycle unit.

In our sensory table, I added water bead to look like eggs and the pieces of our frog life cycle.

   

My littles loved acting out the cycle and singing songs from our play we are working on - The Wide Mouth Frog.  (We are performing on May 8th!)

We also enjoyed a guest from my church who came and taught us the difference between frogs and toads.

Butterflies, Chicks, and Life Cycles, Oh my!

This week is Spring Break here in Texas.  Before we left for Spring Break, we started incubating our eggs and snagged some caterpillars to watch their life cycle.

My littles LOVED sitting and watching the eggs and caterpillars!  

Since it's a season of life cycles in my room, I started making some life cycles units for my little store.  I finished up the butterfly unit.  (Which is free until Thursday!)

I always love going to school on breaks (and Saturdays) because the school is so quiet and I can get so much done.  I plan on going later in the week to get things ready for our two weeks of life cycle fun!

I also need to change out some centers and get some things organized.  Before our break started, I did get our dramatic play center changed into a flower shop.

 We also enjoyed a visit from a special hat wearing kitty.

Just a whole lot of random, spring filled fun in pre-k land!

Oh, and look at the yummy (sprinkled!!!) donut one of my littles brought me.  Sprinkles to Spring Break!

Happy birthday Dr. Seuss!

Today is officially Dr. Seuss's birthday!  What a talented author we get to celebrate.  My week is planned and ready for Seuss-tastic fun!

If you're celebrating Dr. Seuss next week like my cuties are, here is a little freebie glyph for you!

I hope you enjoy it!