Ducklings Art: Making Circles with Cucumber Pieces and Green Water Color

We introduced cucumber by showing flashcards and videos last monday, and listened to the new cucumber song. For the art activity we did cucumber and carrot stamping painting with cucumber and carrot pieces. We learned the colors orange and green and the children used both orange and green water colors to paint on a piece of hard paper by stamping big and small circles with the vegetables. The children loved touching the vegetables and colors as well as drawing with them!

We have been working on the following Lpfö goals:

To develop their creative abilities and the ability to convey impressions, thoughts and experiences in many different forms, such as play, pictures, song and music, dance and drama.

To develop their motor skills.

To develop their curiosity as well as the ability to play and learn.

Fun with Phonics

Activities: 

The children practiced their Jolly Phonics sounds and ability to blend and segment this week by participating in many fun games and activities.  They went on a sound scavenger hunt in which they located objects that began with a specific sound target and drew a picture of that object in their sound book. They played a game in which they rolled three dice with different sounds to create words (real and nonsense).  They also built words while playing "word search", an activity in which word endings such as: ig, an, it, etc. were placed on the floor.  Each child was given an initial sound and asked to find an ending that created a word.  

Purpose:

* to develop the children's ability to recognize initial phonemes in words

* to develop the children's ability to identify the individual sounds in CVC words

* to develop the children's ability to combine individual sounds to create words

Connection to the Lpfö-98:  the preschool should strive to ensure that each child....

* develop an interest in written language and an understanding of symbols, and their communicative functions

Penguins Making cucumber juice

Making cucumber juice

Today we had science, we talked about the growth of cucumbers and what we can make/cook,eat and bake out of cucumbers.

We decided on making a cucumber juice, out of cucumber of course and water. All the children helped out to chop it up in smaller pieces and put it in the mixer.

All the children tasted the juice,it had an interesting flavor, we agreed that we like the vegetable whole/chopped or sliced and not as a juice.

Purpose

Develop their understanding in science.

Develop their motor skills.

Lpfö Revised 2010

• Develop their understanding of science and relationships to nature, as well as knowledge of plants,vegetables and also simple chemical processes.
• Develop their understanding of location and direction as well as change.

Cockatoos-Outings and training for the vasaloppet

We cockatoos have been training hard for the Swedish tradition of vasaloppet which we will have soon in February. The children have been going on three outings this week alone outisde the school. We feel that we will be ready when Vasaloppet comes our way! We been through parks, forest, pavement and more!

Purpose: Vasaloppet

To enjoy the winter weathee

Lpfö: to celebrate traditions

To develop their gross motor skills

Kiwis - How water helps the plants to grow

Kiwis learned how water travels up the roots of a plant in a walking water activity. We also learned what the absorption is by performing the same experiment. We filled one glass with water and added food coloring. We folded a paper towel in half multiple times to make a long skinny strip. We dipped one end of the paper towel strip into the glass with colored water and other end into the glass that was empty.

Children's interest: All the children were captured by the experiment.They helped Ritu to prepare the materials and observed continusely how colored water travels from a glass to another through the tissue paper.

Purpose: To give the children a basic idea about absorption and learn about physical changes.

Connection to Lpfö: 

“Develop their understanding of science and relationship to nature, as well as knowledge of physical phenomena.”

“develop their curiosity and enjoyment, as well as their ability to play and learn.”

Flamingoes: Snow Experiment

In the science room, we thought it would be a wonderful idea to do an experiment with the icy snow . We took a few children out to gather some snowy ice.The snow was then put into five different clear plastic containers,out of which one was a control container. Each one of containers was added with the following : salt, sugar, baking soda and baking powder.The children had to predict  which added material will make ice melt fastest. After some time, they could see the results and they were fascinated to see that they had made very accurate predictions.They loved to make the predictions and observe the piles of melting snow !!!

Purpose:

To build critical thinking skills 

To investigate, make predictions and observations

 To be inquisitive about the world around them and find solutions to problems.

Connection to Lpfö:

Develop their ability to distinguish , explore, document, put questions about and talk about science

Develop understanding of science, chemical processes and physical phenomena 

Flamingoes: Fish Mosaic Art

In the Art Room the flamingoes painted recycling material and cardboard cut in the shape of a fish .They added some orange lentils  to give the finishing touches to the fish mosaic art !!! 

To add to the ocean creatures scenery , the children also made jelly fishes by

coloring on the paper plates and finishing it off with different colored crepe paper.             

They decorated paper plates fish with pom poms, beads and straws and made amazing designs and patterns on them!!! They really enjoyed decorating the paper plates fish and creating the fish mosaic art!!!

 Purpose:

To learn about the different habitats.

To develop awareness about the environment

To build vocabulary and learn new words.

To develop fine motor skills

Connection to the Lpfö:

Develop their knowledge of plants and animals

Develop their creative abilities and the ability to convey impressions in many different forms such as play, pictures,song , drama and music