We used dinosaur counters from our math center and first observed how putting one dinosaur in the red bucket made the red bucket go down and the blue bucket go up.  This showed us that 1 dinosaur was heavier than 0 dinosaurs.  The class determined that whichever bucket was down was heavier and whichever bucket was up was lighter.  Next Ms. Katie added a handful of dinosaurs to the red bucket.  To determine how many dinosaurs were in the red bucket without counting them, students added one dinosaur at a time to the blue bucket and did not stop until the scale was even.  This told us how many dinosaurs were in each bucket! 

MeiLi comes to us from a preschool in Maui, where she worked in a class with 3 and 4 year-olds. She is very passionate about working with children and understands to importance of recognizing each child’s individual strengths. MeiLi says, “My goal is to think outside the box and approach each child as an individual, and to do my best to encourage them to succeed”.

MeiLi has already been a tremendous help in our preschool classroom, and we are looking forward to adding her creativity and passion to our school. Welcome, MeiLi!

 At the end of the unit, I asked the children to paint a picture of something that is imaginary or pretend.  The children had a blast being able to be creative and use their imagination in what they were painting.  Once they finished with art work, I asked each child individually what it was that they had painted.  Here are some responses: 

We remind Pre-K all of the time that they are the oldest kids in the school and the little ones look up to them.  We talk about what it means to be a leader and to set a good example at school each day.  This was just a great opportunity for our class to practice being leaders and work together with the little ones!

While studying “In the Sky,” our preschool classroom showed an interest in airplanes (we see them all the time in the sky flying over our playground!)  We learned there are many different kinds of airplanes that you can make with paper, so we conducted an experiment and asked the class, “Which paper airplane can fly the farthest: The Dart, the Arrow, or the Moth?”  We created a chart with each student’s prediction, then headed into the outdoor Grove to test each plane.  After several throws, we learned that the Arrow flew the farthest!

Van Gogh's Starry Night

During our “In The Sky” unit, the children were given the opportunity to explore a variety of photographs and paintings of the sky. We hung up a picture of the painting Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. We talked about how Van Gogh was a famous artist as the children looked at the painting and pointed out different features.

Layla: “There’s a big black tree there.”

Carmel: “And there is lots of stars and blue sky.”

Asher: “And it’s kind of hilly.”

Lauren: “And there’s a big, BIG star!”

Morgan: “There’s stars right there.”

After discussing the features of the painting, we gave the children paints in shades of blue, black, and yellow and invited them to recreate Van Gogh’s painting. Here are a few of our paintings:

Ms. Kaitlin says, “I  love all of the children I have met here at The Grove School.  They definitely brighten my days and further my passion for teaching!  One of the reasons why I was interested in teaching at The Grove School was that it provides a blossoming environment for children to be children while learning at the same time!  I wish this kind of school was around when I was in preschool!”