What do you see??

Can you guess what our theme of the last week and a half has been?

  If you guessed the beloved book Brown Bear, Brown Bear you are correct! I have always loved this book but I have read it so many times this week that I actually feel like I am dreaming about Brown Bear. We took on the fun task of creating "What do you see" books for each of the kiddos. This includes a hand or foot print for each animal in the book. At first we were a little nervous about how they would turn out but I am super excited about the end results. The kids had a blast "reading" their books today during story time instead of the actual book.

I would like to thank Pintrest for all the amazing activities that we were able to find and use for Brown Bear. Along, with the fact that it was a huge hit to have the felt board pieces for the story that allowed them to help them take part in telling the story as well.

*Painting their cover pages for their own story books! I LOVED the way they all turned out.

 * My favorite page in their book is probably the children page

~Stephanie

Spring has sprung

With the flowers blooming on the cherry blossom trees and the blue skies with a light breeze I would say that spring has sprung here at New Hope. So it was only fitting that this past week's theme in preschool was spring!

We enjoyed reading our new book Mouse's first spring and filling our week with spring filled crafts. We made windsocks and we even got a slight breeze for the morning classes and were able to take the kiddos outside and let see their creations blow in the wind. They are now proudly hanging from the ceiling in the preschool room where they are pointed out at least 5 times a day. My favorite craft that we made this week had to be our snails! They are all so stinking cute and proudly hanging up and covering our glass door.

They all love the doppers

Spring frames that they all decorated

Aren't these the cutest ever!

Every Friday is outside play day for preschool weather provided and this week it would gorgeous! I made up some edible "mud".......lets just say that trying to convince preschool/toddler age kiddos that they can't eat something that smells like chocolate is fun. We had a few that tested it but overall I think they had a lot of fun playing in our "mud".... I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

 

We end also went on a hike over the "mountains" or the slight hill behind the preschool playground. But the kids had fun exploring new areas and picking flowers and looking for sticks.

With the start of spring weather also brings "white fluffy stuff" season. These little white flower puff things are everywhere and I will try and get a picture of them in full force because it looks like big fluffy snowflakes. I am personally very thankful for having my seasonal discomfort oils on hand with all of the new things in the air.

Thank you all for your love and prayers.

~Stephanie 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar week

We have had lots of fun in preschool class with the bunny ears that I brought over here is just a collection of the pictures. As we wrapped up Easter in class we moved on to a very fun week of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. I took the basic idea of doing Five in a Row and brought it to life with the kiddos. We also started using our new circle time board ( Thank you ).

 I have loved the idea of Five in a Row for years and we have used it with my siblings many times. One thing I wasn't really thinking about is that we would be doing five in a row times 6 classes! Let me just tell you I can read that book now more so then ever in my sleep. But at the end of the week when the older kiddos are saying "still hungry" at the end of each page and they yell "BUTTERFLY" at the very end it makes it all worth it. We had lots of fun mixing it up and using the new felt board and story pieces to make the story come more to life. The kids even made their own felt caterpillars one day and were excited to put them on the board.

My favorite craft day by far was the day we made caterpillar hats....each hat is slightly different as the kids placed the eyes on their hats. Some are super closed together while others are totally crooked. My favorite was taking group pics of the kiddos wearing them. They all looked so stinkin cute.

We also did a food testing day with the older kids since were were able to find all the fruits the caterpillar eats his first 5 days and the kids got a big hit about eating snack at the same time we were doing story. The strawberries were a huge hit while the plums were not as much.

We closed our week up with making butterfly hand print paintings which of course I loved because I could do handprint art all the time.

Next week we are moving on to a spring themed week of fun!

~Stephanie

Easter fun!

Wow, it has been a busy start to my stay here at New Hope. I arrived the Wednesday before Easter and hit the ground running in preschool classes. Saturday we had a big Easter celebration with the kiddos including an egg hunt which I am pretty sure the nanny's enjoyed just as much as the kids did.

Afterwards, we went inside and had cupcakes!!!! The kids were very excited to see that we had made flowers out of m&m's on top of their cupcakes.

Then out to the bounce house we went. Some of the kiddos had been out earlier in the morning but this was the first time we were all out there and really got the kids on and jumping. They loved it and the bounce house was massive! Thank you all for your wonderful support and making it possible. As you will be able to see from the pictures below it was one of the highlights of the day.

Easter was spent with the Hill family at their wonderful church which I have attended each of my trips. It was a beautiful service and a day filled of remembering that He has Risen!!

~Stephanie