Preschool Quacks and Quilts

I know the week technically isn't over yet, but I've already posted about our Celtic guest teacher and for history, although we have started Ancient Rome, I haven't got much to show for it. We're working on another lapbook and I'll probably through in a few projects here and there but knowing I was teaching my last week of preschool (YEA!!) I didn't plan anything stressful for regular school. Instead of doing any science this week (our Tuesday and Thursday afternoons) we filled that with our guest teacher and then the regular morning stuff (math, writing, spelling, and grammar) that we weren't able to do in the morning because of the preschool.  I did, however, have Joshua use this poem for his copywork this week, which slightly fits in with our science theme of botany. Sort of as a funny note, I usually go straight to the internet when looking for ideas for poetry and such but lately I haven't been having any luck. Then I realized back in the old days when I was young we used to look in actual BOOKS for poetry. So I pulled out my old Childcraft How and Why book and found a couple of gems.  This poem comes from one of those books.

Trees

Trees are the kindest things I know,

They do no harm, they simply gorw

And spread a shade for sleepy ocws,

And gather birds among their boughs.

They give us fruit in leaves above,

And wood to make our houses of,

And leaves to burn on Halloween,

And in the Spring new buds of green.

They are first when day's begun 

To touch the beams of morning sun,

They are the last to hold the light

When evening changes into night,

And when a moon floats on teh sky

They hum a drwosy lullaby

Of sleepy children long ago . . .

Trees are the kindest things I know.

Harry Behn

Alright, so back to preschool. 

The theme for the week was "Quack!" the nursery rhyme, although technically this isn't one, was 5 Little Ducks, the number was 6 and the sound was "qu." Or if you would rather see that in photo form, here...

Alright, on Tuesday two of the kids were sick, which made me sad but I think in the end it was probably a good thing since we were working with acrylic paint and permanent markers! First we reviewed the sound and the nursery rhyme. All the kids got to hold a plastic bath time ducky as we reenacted the little ducks running away and then all coming back at the end. One child brought a little duck that quacked when you pushed his belly so instead of singing "quack, quack, quack" we just pushed the little ducky and let it do it for us.  Then we read a few books about ducks. The first was Little Quack and this was the favorite, and then Giggle, Giggle, Quack, which is one of my favorites, and then Duck for President which was above the kids' heads. You know, duck was riding in parades, kissing babies, playing the saxophone on late night TV and giving speeches that only other ducks could understand. Unfortunately, I understood it all too well.

Then we went up to our forbidden items - the acrylic paint and permanent markers - and made our five little duckies with their mammas.

Snack was, of course, cheese and quackers. Big success.

And then we played "hide little quack" and we took our smallest plastic ducky and each child got to hide it in the play room and then the other kids had to find him. But the key was they had to do it QUietly because the baby was sleeping, literally. The kids were having so much fun that they didn't have anytime to "play" before their moms came to get them, which disappointed more than a few.

Thursday, today, we revisited duckies and quack. We worked on a Q q worksheet which I was surprised to find the kids had a hard time with. Abigail and another boy who is already reading could write it just fine. But the other little kids really struggled. I'm not sure if it is because Q is such an infrequently used letter or what, but even the other kids who could read already commented on how hard it was.

Then finally I handed them a paper with a mama and 5 baby ducks and they got to color them as crazy as they wanted, with disguises, costumes, whatnot. These were their inspirations.

This is what the children drew.

Then we switched gears to quilts. I had two quilts to show them. One that I had made (well, my mom mostly made it) out of all my old jeans from when I was in high school, which is just squares, although technically I arranged them into sort of a pattern. And then the other is one my grandmother quilted. I have two of them as a set to but on double twin beds someday - after the children are gone so they don't ruin them!

We read a really cute book about a pioneer girl collecting scraps of fabric along her way west to Oregon and then making a quilt. We talked about how quilts can tell stories of people's lives and adventures. And I sat in front of my big US map so I could point out which state the girl was walking through as we read about it in the book and we could follow her journey.

For snack we had cheese and quackers again but with different crackers and this time it was a huge failure. One kid just dumped his in the trash (not malignantly, he honestly didn't see anything wrong with just throwing perfectly good food in the trash) and another kid shouted out how gross the crackers smelled so I picked up his snack and said, that's fine, you don't have to eat it. Go wash your hands and you can play downstairs until the rest of us are ready. No snack for you! But he, I think, was relieved. Then while he was downstairs the other kids and I reviewed how you don't have to like the food or even eat it, but you still need to be polite. I know, now none of you want me to be your kids' preschool teacher for fear of them not being fed. Don't worry, I was very polite the entire time. Although kind of ticked off.

Then we made our own quilts out of squares of scrapbook paper. The kids really loved this and spent a lot of time on their quilts. One little boy even made two! One for him and one for his older brother because his older brother "really likes awesome stuff."  Bravo.

And then we were done.

And my favorite part of it all this time, was cleaning up my playroom downstairs. It was so nice to put the toys away, through away the scraps of paper, bring back our distracting toys I have to hide for preschool, and put the furniture back together. My room was my own again. *sigh* I really liked that part. And especially knowing it was my own again for at least another year and half, until Lukas is ready for preschool. I've liked this experience for Abby and I know she has enjoyed it as well. It hasn't been bad for me, and I've enjoyed it too, some parts more than others, but I am happy that I am done teaching for a while. Abby still has 3 weeks before graduation though. That should be cute and I'm looking forward to that too.

Next week - Ancient Rome and Leaves!