Preschool: N for Night and Numbers

So here is what I did for the continuation of the moon into night time. First I read "The Night is Like an Animal" by Candace Whitman. It has pretty illustrations done in water colors but I think the idea was a little to abstract for the kids. However, I don't know what's going on in their heads and do know they have good imaginations.

After the book, I had then put glow in the dark stars on their night sky that made their moons from last time. To stick the stars on, they need to pull off the back paper which is a fine motor skill that they did well on. I know last year Hailey was not able to do that.
They kept putting their stars on the moon instead of around that moon which I found intriguing.

Robert had fun poking at his puffy moon.

Next, we raced back to the couch for "Chick Chick 1, 2, 3" since numbers also starts with the letter N. Hailey can count 1-10 without any problems. She has most of the numbers for 1-20 except she can't pronounce 13 and generally skips 16 and 17.

Then I pulled all my old scrapbook alphabet stickers and cut the numbers stickers away from the letters so they can put it on their "N's".

In this picture above, Hailey is telling Hannah that she is counting wrong. Hannah is counting how many numbers she is putting down while Hailey recognizes which number it is and is trying to correct Hannah. Hailey got frustrated but the situation is cute and a little out of character for Hailey. It shows her assertive side.

Audrey did a nice job putting the numbers on her N and got the most done. Hailey was just too distracted by Hannah to put much on hers.

Preschool: M for Moon

I really wanted to do something with a Moon for M because I thought it would be cool and different but had a hard time finding activities to do.

So, after the kids arrived and we sang some songs, I read "The Moon might be Milk" by Lisa Shulman. I really like this book. It's about a little girl who asks different animals what they think the milk is made of and then they all go to her grandma to find out the real answer. Well, her smart grandma pulled from every one's guesses and made sugar cookies and cut them into a crescent moon shape. The really cool thing about the grandma is that she didn't tell anyone that they were right or wrong but just helped the little girl make up her own mind on what she thinks it is.

Then I found puffy paint at notimeforflashcards. The "paint" is made up of 1/2c of glue and 1 1/2 c. of shaving cream which makes a lot. I thought the kids would really get into it and use their hands to paint, which Hailey, Hannah and Robert did. Audrey does not like getting messy so she asked for a paint brush (which I had handy, I just wanted to see what she would do). And we had Briella over who did not touch hers at all.

So here is a picture of the two extremes; Briella's-not touched and Hailey's -thoroughly enjoyed.
After they dry I'll cut circles out for the moon.
Then I was afraid of not having enough time, which was the case. They immediately wanted down and to play with the toys after the moon painting. So, after quickly cleaning up hands and the table, I bribed them back to the table with marshmallows (which starts with M).

Then I had enough time to get the paint ready for them to color their moon rocks. I got this idea from DLTK which basically said since no one knows what a moon rock looks like, just give them different material and let the kids at it. Then sprinkle sand or glitter for moon dust.

So I gave them blue and white paint.

I didn't give Briella or Robert any brushes or paint to help a little bit with the craziness of kids painting.

I didn't have any glitter, so for the moon dust I gave them sugar and sprinkles.

So here are their moon rocks.

And this picture has their moons drying so we can use them for the night sky next time.