Funny things they say - final round

Lately your kiddos have been cracking us up even more than usual! Because we've been so busy, it's been harder to remember to jot things down, but here are a few good ones:

• One little boy rarely falls asleep during naptime, so we're subjected to frequent questions as to how much longer until wake-up time. When I recently told him, "Just a few more minutes," he smiled and exclaimed, "Oh, a few more minutes is my favorite!"
  
• A lunchtime conversation: "Mrs. LeeAnne, do you like ramen noodles?" I answered that it had been a long time since I'd eaten ramen noodles, but that I ate a lot of them in college. The little girl pondered this for a minute and then said, "I ate them in college too," followed quickly by, "What's college?"
  
• Another lunchtime conversation: "Look--I've got a prune for dessert! Prunes make you poop a lot!"
  
• And finally ... "My mommy has a squishy belly!" No explanation needed. :)

Free time

 As this school year winds down, we've been letting the students have more and more free time throughout the day. Here are some pictures I've snapped over the last few days. It's always neat to see the evolution of their playtime; at the beginning of the year, most of our students engage in "parallel play" -- that is, they aren't necessarily playing with each other but next to each other. Over the year, they definitely move toward actual cooperative play, and it's wonderful to watch!

We got out the water table and this little cutie tried to go swimming!

Silly flowers

I have to share this funny story:

We're currently finishing up some flower/seed crafts that we started last week, and today we asked the students to draw faces (eyes, nose, and mouth) in the center of these flowers that we colored and cut. One imaginative little girl complied at first ...

... but then quickly added her own interpretation to the meaning of "happy" face ...

"Oh, honey, that's not a happy flower, that's a sad flower," I said to her when I saw this red flower. With great laughter she agreed that yes, the red flower was sad. OK, I thought ... that's pretty creative. But I was completely unprepared for what she showed me next ...

"And Mrs. LeeAnne, this flower is DEAD!" she said while laughing hysterically. 

I have to admit, she did a great job of interpreting what a dead flower face might look like! There's never a dull moment with this fun group! :-)

Book swap

We had a lot of fun at today's book swap, sponsored by the HVCS library. All books brought by our preschool students were put into one pile (actually, scattered on tables). The students who had brought books to swap were allowed to pick the same number of different books to take back home. Children who did not bring books from home were then allowed to go through and choose one book to take home. Our kiddos had the best time choosing and then "reading" their books.

After choosing our books, we enjoyed a special snack of lemonade and cookies.

Mrs. VanderHart took advantage of the fact that we were already outside and led us in a game of "Red Light, Green Light" ... in Spanish!

Little seeds

We've had a lot of fun this week learning about seeds and plants. We've done lots of crafts, started growing our special beanstalks, and even acted out what happens to a seed after it's planted!

One of our new favorite activities was this "Planting a Pattern" game. We used dried beans and seeds to make a pattern. Mrs. Connie or Mrs. LeeAnne would start the pattern, and our students would finish it. This is a pretty advanced skill, and we were so proud of the children who grasped the concept!

We also did a counting/graphing activity using the same sorts of dried seeds. We placed a few of each in a cup, then the students poured them onto the table, sorted them according to type, and graphed them on this laminated sheet.