Go! First Day of Preschool!

You never know what to expect on the first day of school.  Especially when your class is made up of 5 one year olds!  Will they cry all day?  Will they like school?  Will they like you?  And after 7 years, it's always the same at the end of the day.  They are great, the day was great, I am hopelessly in love with each and every one of them! 

I always start each day with shaving cream.  It's just something I don't think little kids can ever get enough of.  I put it in the sensory table sometimes, and cover the table with it occasionally, but every day I start the morning with a picture made in shaving cream on our big toddler friendly mirror.  I like to see their expressions as they watch themselves playing in the cream!  I placed several maniplitables around the mirror, and instantly the kids were playing in it!  Some used the toys, and some immediately put their hands in it!  Several tasted it! One child "smushed" her face into it immediately!  None of them stayed away, telling me we are going to have a very creative year!

During snack, which was animal crackers, we read the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", and a book about colors.  I think one of my animal crackers was a cow, or at least resembled a cow, so we talked cows, which no one seemed to know what I meant.  I even showed them our classroom toy cow, no interest.  Then I remembered that I had a Chick-fil-a gift card in my purse with a picture of a cow on it!  Wow! You should have seen how quickly they made the connection, then!  Talk about commercialization!  But even recognizing the Chick-fil-a sign is a pre-reading skill.  They were then happy to make cow sounds with me.  We moo'ed in the class for about 5 minutes.  We pretended to eat grass, since cows don't eat crackers.  We crawled around on the floor and a few got carried away and hopped, but it was still imaginative!

It was a beautiful morning to go outside and play! Beautiful in that it was cloudy with a nice breeze, although it was already in the mid 90's.  We just let them play today, have fun and get acquainted with our playground.  They played in the sand box and on the slide.  One of my girls collected sticks, which I just love!  I lifted a little boy up to pick a leaf out of a tree.  He just studied that leaf, then turned it over to see the other side. 

Back in our classroom, we made a MESS! It was great!  One little girl took a blue crayon to our reading center, and colored our books.  I think it's completely age appropriate for this age to color on books, boards, anything.  I just want to encourage them to color and "write".  She also took out our puzzle pieces, colored underneath and then replaced the pieces. 

In our blocks center, our curriculum (we use Wee Learn) called for rolling toy cars down a ramp.  I set the ramp up and started rolling the cars down, and quickly was joined by all five children.  We worked on taking turns rolling our car down, and I tried different slopes to keep up their interest.  After two went on to other centers, I let the remaining 3 play on their own.  They laid the board across 2 chairs, making a bridge for the cars to drive across.  Then they got out our farm animals and walked them across the bridge.  On Thursday, I am going to take the board and cars outside to roll into the sand and grass.  Then we can also roll the cars down the slide. 

Have I told you how much I love my art center?  We have an easel and a designated table for art.  I had laid paper on the table before class and of course they used markers, crayons and watercolor paints on it.  They seemed to favor the watercolors, which were big cakes of primary colors.  One curious boy took out a yellow cake, and took a big bite out of it, thinking it was a cookie!  He immediately began spitting out the paint all over the floor!  I always encourage them to use all their senses, taste being an important one, but that surprised me!