Imagination Express Preschool

President's Day

Because it was raining outside, we played one of our favorite games . . .

Singing "Rain is falling all around" while being squirted with a water bottle :)

In honor of president's day, today we started learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two of our very important American presidents (easily confused by this group with President Monson :) ).

Here's a catchy intro video . . .

These presidents are on coins . . . so we had fun sorting

and learning about money using penny's and quarter's.

Dr Martin Luther King

I loved our discussion today about Dr Martin Luther King.

I loved how the idea of segregation is so foreign to these kids

and seems so completely unjust and bizarre to them.

I told them a story my mom shared with me about being a little girl crossing the street with her father at a crosswalk. They were almost to the other side when a police officer stopped them and made them turn around and go back to the sidewalk and cross at a different place and in a different direction, because they were crossing in the wrong spot.

One little boy asked me, in complete amazement,

"Ms Tamra, is that story for real?"

We finished up our discussion with the following little clip on youtube . . .

And each child painted their own dream to make our world a better place . . .

Have a wonderful long weekend and, in honor of Dr King's birthday,

as a family, do something nice for someone else.

Think Before You Act

Our January Social Skill is "Think Before You Act" as explored through the story of Chicken Little.

Part of our group discussion involved the children brainstorming things both Chicken Little and they could do when upset to show self control. These were so cute I had to share . . .

(it's supposed to be an acorn . . . in case you were wondering!)

Next time your child is in a situation that makes them upset,

remind them of our acorn and maybe they could practice one of these skills.

Great ideas on this list . . . I'm going to have to try some of them myself :)

J is for Jumping Jelly Beans

Wow! Jumping Jelly Beans are fun!

To start our letter J adventures, each child chose 3 Jelly Beans (jolly rancher version . . . so no crazy flavors :) ). We then used them to create a bar chart and had a great discussion on greater than and less than concepts (our Math theme for January).

We ate some and then compared them again after the quantities changed.

I love these egg toppers from the 2 1/2 dozen containers! We use them in so many ways! This is just two of those side by side.

The Jelly Beans we tasted made us want to Jump, Jump, Jump so we took a trip to Jumpland!

(A big thanks Ms Morgan over at Brilliant Beginnings for this fun idea)

We took turns drawing cards with colors on them (just used my Candyland game cards) and jumping to that color until everyone made it to Jumpland. This was so much fun we will positively be doing it again . . . and again . . . and again!

The giggles were so contagious even Ms Tamra couldn't stop laughing!