Tanganyika!

What a wonderful day at Tanganyika! It seemed like everyone was having a great time. 

Some highlights from the day:

Have a wonderful summer and we will see some of you in August!!

Pilots in training MWF

I pulled out the airplane simulator from the closet - as requested by a preschooler. This week the children can travel to Africa, Australia or South America to visit different wild animals. Some chose to travel to Florida or Wisconsin. Those are exciting places, too! And we have pretend airline tickets to add to the fun.

Wanna fly somewhere?
We have room in first class! We even had a flight
attendant providing snacks and drinks. 

Buckle up folks!

I love the serious focus here.
Flying a plane does take concentration.

Stick Caterpillar

For real. They do exist. I had to google it. We were enjoying playground time yesterday and I happened to look down and noticed a stick that was moving. Hmm. That's interesting. So I looked closer and realized that the stick was alive - it was a caterpillar. I pointed it out to a few children and that was the focus of the rest of outside time. It was pretty fascinating and cool to watch (and hold).

This gal seems to enjoy nature-y things.
She held this caterpillar most of the outside time.
She may have stuck it in her pocket to take it home?

Very curious about this critter.
It did go to the bathroom on her hand.

The stick caterpillar was crawling down the side of the
stump. Impressive. It didn't fall off.
 The children got
the biggest kick in watching it move.

This is a picture of a stick caterpillar from google.

Greenhouse - TR

Round #2 of the greenhouse visit. Today it was a little cooler outside (and cloudy) so it wasn't so hot in the greenhouse. The children were really fascinated with all of the plants that were growing in there.

Look at all these plants!

Roots are pretty interesting to observe.

A look at the big college mower!

Just about her size! :) 

Greenhouse - MWF

Right next to the preschool playground is the college's greenhouse. Since we have been learning about seeds and plants, we visited it today. Earlier this year they replaced the roof of the greenhouse to let more light in; this was very a fascinating thing to watch (they were doing this project while we were out on the playground one day). This gave Ms. Larisa an idea  -- learn about seeds and plants and take a look inside the greenhouse. And the children were intrigued with one of the worker's names - Woody. 

The groundskeeper, Mr. Woody (no joke!) does a wonderful job keeping the campus (and our playground) looking like a park! He talked to us about what a greenhouse does, how he plants seeds, and allowed us to put the seeds we planted in the greenhouse too. We will watch them over the next few weeks and hopefully something will grow!!!

It was hot and bright in there!

There were lots of plants growing. 

Here are the roots of a plant.

And then....Woody showed us the college's lawn mower.
It is a Hustler made at Excel. He even let us take turns
sitting on the seat. (No joy rides though....)


That's one big mower!

A Wedding

This week the house area was transformed into a flower shop. It started out as a flower shop and then....a wedding. Chairs were lined up and flowers were spread out for decorations. Children got dressed up, cameras and phones were gathered. There was a lot of work to get everything prepared for this big event. Finally, it came to the big moment. 2 children pretended to marry and hugged, and there you have it. At least it wasn't an expensive affair. They didn't even feed the guests cake, which a disappointed attendee told me later. :( 

It is so delightful teaching young children  -- you just never know what will happen in a day.

The guests are ready for the wedding!

A big hug!
The groom has a dapper hat I'd say. 

Oh Happy Day!

Rain

We have been learning about a lot of science concepts this week-- rain, evaporation, and condensation. Pretty abstract concepts, but we read an excellent book that put these concepts in simple terms so the children could understand. The sensory table has been a science experiment this week. First we added water, then shaving cream ("clouds"), and lastly, drops of liquid watercolor (rain). What will happen to the colors? The "rain" slowly pushes through the clouds and colors the water underneath. The group on Tuesday added lots of colors to the shaving cream - it kind of looked like a rainbow. (Ms. Rachel and Ms. Naomi came up with this idea and implemented it). 

This is the book we read during circle.
The author did a wonderful job
of explaining how rain and hail forms in simple terms.
The book is a little lengthy, but we shortened
it. It is a library book.