West Richmond Preschool

The children in our Four year old class recently had fun in the sun and sand. On this particular day, the warmth of the sun could finally be felt and that sense of Spring was most definitely in the air.     It had rained the night before and the sand was prime for sandbox play. There was loads of sharing, team play, and strategizing happening this morning.     We all know it takes plenty of skill, strength, and trial and error, to flip over the bucket of sand without losing the bulk of the sand in the process!   A simple puddle in the sand was icing on the cake, and was well utilized by the children.   Hands can't always and shouldn't always be clean. Being allowed to get down and dirty is an important excercise in play. With the anticipation of more sunshine and warmer weather, Spring is an exciting time of year. We look forward to many more sandbox days ahead! Barbi

 After many days of rain we began to notice that alot of worms had made their way onto the playground floor.  Our curiosity was piqued! In order to bring this discovery into the classroom the teachers brought in bins of soil to play with.  After some digging around we found some real, live worms in the bins!  That was when the questions began.   What do worms eat? How do worms see? Can a worm live when it has been cut in half? We took a book out of the library to find some answers. Here are some of the things that we learned about worms: they don't have eyes they can grow a new head or tail, but will not survive being cut in half they eat leaves, grass, dead trees (and roots), and food scraps they do not like the sun and will die if they are exposed for more than an hour or two their poop is ok to touch there are no "girl" worms or "boy" worms - all worms are both! the reason that worms squirm around in your hand...

In our classroom we are always looking at how to incorporate the outdoors into the classroom. One of the ways we have been doing that is by bringing in the planter boxes from the deck and discovering what happen to the bulbs we had planted back in the fall.       We showed the children the bulbs they had help planted back in the Fall to remind them what they looked like. We then showed the children the planter box, most of the children were amazed at how the flowers had grown from a bulb. How did the petals fit inside the blub? How did the flower get to be yellow?             We thought to further our observation of the planters box we would put some material that would inspire the children to create their own art with the planter box inside the classroom.     Christy is inspired to make a daffodil as she sees in the planter box.   Chloe is inspired to make a tulip....

It all happened one day when two of our children found some mysterious bowls in the play kitchen area. They tested the bowls by placing them on their faces. Suddenly, they were aliens! Other friends joined in the conversation and fun, wondering about aliens, space, and beyond. As the week went by, we had some inventive alien looks in the class using things they found in the classroom. We then imagined and explored what outer space might look like and how people might travel through space.       Bringing in books and pictures about planets and galaxies, we noticed there are many planets, but each very different. By understanding the distance of the planets from the sun, we learned that some planets are hot (as they are closer to the sun) and some planets are cold (as they are further away from the sun). We wondered what other planets look like - is there land, water, food, and toys?   Imagining what space might look like Pretending we...