Imagine

K is for kindness

2012-01-27T12:16:00.001-08:00

We painted "kindness sticks" this week.

What's a kindness stick, you ask?

A kindness stick is a colorful, sparkly treat.

You get to take home one of these beauties if someone witnesses you doing something kind.

We talked a lot about what it means to be kind and what it means to be unkind.

So if your child comes home with one of these you know why!

J week!

2012-01-19T12:16:00.000-08:00

We started out the week painting big beautiful pictures on our easel.

The "seniors" painted the letter J.

We made "juice" out of carrots and apples. It was delicious.

We also made "jellyfish" out of egg cartons.

They are so cute hanging over our table.

Icky and Insects

2012-01-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

Icky

Squishy, soft,cold,smooth,drippy, yucky and mushy are all words the children used to describe our cornstarch and water mixture.

Learning to write the letter I

Insects

We learned that insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts; The head, the thorax, and the abdomen .

We observed insects and then drew them with colored pencils.

Happy Winter!

2011-12-31T07:16:00.000-08:00

The holiday season is busy at Imagine.

We use this time in our classroom to talk about Winter, the Solstice and the New Year.

We made decorations and gifts for our parents.

Our senior class learned to count by two's.

The children made peace doves for our beautiful outdoor mural.

We made picture frames out of cardboard and scrapbook paper.

Beautiful gift cards were made out of paper and the tops of ferns that grow in our yard.

Happy Winter everyone!

Home Sweet Home

2011-12-05T12:31:00.000-08:00

Our home is an important place.

Our home is a place that gives us shelter from the weather.

We live in our home with our family.

We made cute houses out of paper.

The children picked out "matching" windows.

We talked about the different rooms in our home. There are bedrooms and a kitchen,rooms to read books and play with toys. The children drew some of their favorite things inside their homes.

They look beautiful on our wall under our thankful tree.

G is for Gratitude

2011-11-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

I live in Florida

2011-11-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

We live on a planet called Earth,

in a country called the United States,

in a state called Florida.

We traced maps of the United States and Florida

The kids made an awesome map of town.It has roads and a park,a hospital and an airport.Everyone has a house they live in with their family.

Excellent Eggs!

2011-11-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

Did you hatch from an egg?

Children: "no"......lots of laughter. Silly question!

What hatches from an egg?

Children: "birds, dinosaurs, snakes, turtles, lizards and spiders!"

We made paper mache eggs and used tissue paper and paint to decorate them

Outside we made a big nest for our eggs.

The children talked about what kind of creature might be coming to sit on this giant nest.

A big crazy looking bird?, a prehistoric dinosaur?

It's fun to pretend.

D is for decorations or We Love Halloween!

2011-11-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

We all worked together to make our Halloween party this year a great success.

The children made all of the candy for our candy castle.

The lollipop forest

Painting the castle

The children made jack-o-lanterns out of paper bags.

Our spooky tree.

Learning to write the letter D.

Completely Cute Caterpillars

2011-10-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Birthday bees,baking bread....

2011-10-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

We made beautiful bees for our new birthday wall.

The bees body is broken into 3 parts: the head ,thorax and abdomen.

Bees' have 6 legs and wings so they can fly from flower to flower.

They collect nectar from flowers that they turn into honey.

We counted bees.

We also baked bread.

Yeast,flour,honey,salt and warm water are the "ingredients " in our bread.

We made our "B" collage. We learned that other words that start with the letter B are:

baby,blueberry,bug and bird.

A is for Apple!

2011-09-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

Beautiful apple prints on newspaper

Counting Apple Seeds

We read books about apples and learned about how they grow.

The "seniors" drew pictures of apple trees.

Our Amazing "Welcome To Imagine" sign for our open house

We wanted the tree trunk to have a "real" tree look.

We looked around for what might work and then one morning I was sitting at the picnic table and the answer was clear. The children rolled brown paint across the table and pressed the paper on the table. We had our tree trunk!

Delicious Apple Pie and Apple Bread

Here's a link to the recipe for our yummy bread.

http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/apple-cinnamon-bread/

Smelling and Touching

2011-09-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

Two more senses that we have explored in more detail are smell and touch.

Some of the words the children used to describe what they felt in the box:

fuzzy,squishy,bumpy,hard,rough,sticky,heavy,soft,fluffy,long and lumpy.

Our scent bottles smelled like: cinnamon,peppermint,vanilla,cloves,lemon and coconut.

My Wonderful Skin!

2011-09-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about our 5 senses and this week we starting talking about our skin. Skin is very important because it keeps our insides inside of us and allows us to feel different things by touching, like rough and smooth.Skin comes in many colors, so we decided to look at our friends and see how many colors of skin we could find in our classroom. Each child was asked to draw a portrait of their friend.

Faces have:

2 eyes to see,

1 mouth to taste,

2 ears for listening,

1 nose to smell,

and skin to hold us in.

"So whenever you look at your beautiful skin, from your wiggling toes to your giggling grin...

Think how lucky you are that the skin you live in, so beautifully holds the "you" who's within.

All About Me

2011-08-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

This week we explored all the amazing things our bodies can do.

Our hands are important and do so much.

Our hands can " build, wiggle, wave to people, splash, draw, play with toys, help me eat, pick up things, clap, paint pictures, help me swim"

Feet are pretty important as well.

Our feet can; " wiggle, jump, run, walk, stand, paddle, kick balls, dance, spin around, walk on tippy toes"

Friendship Paintings

2011-08-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

At imagine we always start the school year off by talking about friendship.

What is a friend? How do I make friends? How do I keep friends?

The main art project for the week is "friendship paintings".

The children are given a partner and side by side they paint a picture. When they are done painting the wet paintings are rubbed together creating two, new, unique paintings created by friends.

We love making new friends.

We love the ocean!

2011-07-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

One of our wonderful parents put together an amazing see and touch ocean exhibit for the children.

There were shells,coral,fish and sea creatures of all kinds.

We decided that our art project this week would be fish swimming in the sea.

Bathroom art

2011-07-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

Pendulum painting

2011-07-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Stepping stones

2011-07-22T12:44:00.000-07:00

Sidewalk Paint

2011-07-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

I found a great recipe for sidewalk paint.

It looked like fun so we decided to give it a try!

Corn flour

Water

Food dye

Watercolor butterflies and collages

2011-06-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

Snap art

2011-06-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

Water Day Fun!

2011-06-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

We made awesome book marks for our amazing Imagine fathers.

Preschool Graduation 2011

2011-06-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

With just one small voice

singing out a song.

With just one small voice

singing sweet and strong.

One by one they'll grow

and together sing along

and then soon all the world will be singing.

Jack Hartmann

X,Y,Z scavenger hunt!

2011-06-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

We cut x, y and z's out of construction paper and hid them all over the playground.

The children had a great time finding them.

Yoga Time

2011-06-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

Tall mountains

Strong sturdy trees

Slinky cobras

Solid rocks

We love yoga!

Wonderful Watermelons

2011-06-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

We painted bright, beautiful watermelons.

Prints and Bread of the Vegetable Variety.....

2011-05-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

We made vegetable prints ...

Carrots, asparagus, corn and broccoli.

All are healthy for our bodies!

Zucchini is a yummy vegetable. We thought some delicious zucchini bread might be just the right way to end our vegetable week.

The children measured, poured and mixed.....

Warm, tasty zucchini bread!

What a treat!

A Terrific Tea Party!

2011-05-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

One fine day the preschool had quite a lovely tea party.

It was a formal affair of course,

all guests were required to wear a tie.

Ties and Tea , we are learning about the letter T!

Tall Trees for Mother's Day

2011-05-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

Beautiful framed watercolored trees for all of our amazing mothers.

We used a paintbrush for the first part of the painting; blue for the sky, green for the grass.

We used a straw to make the trees.

The cards were made from paper the children made during "P" week.

Everyone signed their name, all alone or with a bit of help.

We hope all our Imagine mothers had a very special Mother's Day.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful children with us.

VPK journal writing

2011-05-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

The VPK students made journals. We talked about the kinds of things we might write in a journal. We read a book that explains what a memory is. The children all picked a memory and wrote and drew about it in their journals.

Ssssssnakes!

2011-05-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

The children made snakes out of paper plates.

We spent the week talking and learning about snakes.

First we talked about what we already knew about snakes:

"Some snakes are poisonous, you should leave them alone, they can bite, they are different colors, they have fangs, snake starts with the letter S."

Next we talked about what we would like to learn about snakes:

"Do snakes hibernate?, where do they live?, can you bring a snake to the vet?, what do they eat?, how is a snake born?, how long do snakes live?"

We ended the week talking about what we learned about snakes:

There are 3000 varieties of snakes in the world, snakes are born from eggs, they are reptiles, snakes that live in colder climates hibernate in the winter. snakes eat animals, a snakes life span is about 20 years.

Where in the World are Matt And Chris?

2011-04-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

The children made the sweetest book in anticipation of two of their favorite teachers return.When the children asked where Matt and Christina had gone, I explained that they were on an adventure across the country. One day we put a globe on the table and asked the children to draw pictures of where they thought Matt and Chris had gone on their adventure.

Rainbow Marble Run!

2011-04-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

We painted cardboard tubes the colors of the rainbow and made a really cool marble run.

Q is for queen

2011-04-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

In honor of all our Queens, Kings, Princesses and Princes at Imagine we made crowns.

Star Crayons!

2011-04-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

We peeled and sorted all our old and broken crayons.

The children filled the star molds....

We put them into the oven until the old crayons melted.

We let them cool and viola! Brand new beautiful,colorful star crayons!

Making Paper

2011-03-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

This past week at Imagine we made paper.

We ripped up old newspaper and soaked it in water overnight.

The screen you use to make the paper is called a "deckle".

The children scooped up the soggy newspaper and put it in the blender.

We added food coloring to the "pulp" in the the blender.

We used wisteria and azaleas to make our paper beautiful.,

and rosemary and lavender to make it smell good.

We poured the pulp onto the deckle.

We used a piece of felt to squeeze the excess liquid out of the pulp mixture.

We will be using our handmade paper for a very special project in the future.

Sunflowers grow at Imagine!

2011-03-10T12:47:00.000-08:00

All you need is chalk and leaves to make pretty sunflowers.

If you want the real kind you need seeds and dirt.

Don't forget the water and sun!

Look they grew!

We painted yellow,

and green for the "stems".

Brown came next.

Sunflowers have "petals".

The children learned that flowers make "seeds" so more flowers can grow.

We glued 20 sunflower seeds in the middle of each flower.

We wanted the "stems" of the sunflowers to be the "height" of

each child .The children worked together with a partner to "measure" each other.

"This is how tall I am"!

Tall beautiful sunflowers!

We Love Numbers!

2011-03-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

This was an outdoor project the children really seemed to enjoy. It involved collecting leaves,using a hole puncher and stringing the "number" leaves on twine. We made 4 strands with 10 leaves per strand. The kids had a great time learning to count to 40!

We counted sunflower seeds,

and colored beads,

We sorted and counted cubes.

We counted wooden tiles,

and swimming fish.

The VPK kids practiced writing their numbers.

The first sound in the word number is the sound the letter N makes.

M is for Music...

2011-02-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

We filled different sized glass jars with varying amounts of colored water. We arranged the jars from high to low. We let the children "play" the jars with a wooden spoon.We explained to the children that we were going to write a song. We had the children draw circles that represent "notes" along a line.We provided paint that corresponded with the colored water in the jars. The children painted in the circles making a "pattern" of sounds. We asked the children to name their songs.

We were so fortunate to have wonderful musical guests.

They played "wind","string" and "percussion" instruments.

John played the Bagpipes.Mick played the Bouzouki.

Here's a link to learn more about this beautiful instrument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouzouki

I love music week because the children are always inspired to make music of their own.

Some of the children wrote thank you notes to our guests.

Cards and Decorations In Celebration Of Love

2011-02-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

The children made lovely Valentine's Day cards for their parents.

We made fun, heart garland using newspaper we painted red.

Chris made the kids yummy vegan cupcakes with strawberry hearts!

We love Valentine's day!

L is for Love

2011-02-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

Every year the children make something special

for their parents for Valentine's Day.

This year we decided on heart shaped cookies.

We talked about what a "recipe" is and how important it is to follow the "directions".

The recipe uses "measurement" to tell us how much of the "ingredients" we need to add.

We rolled out the dough and used cookie cutters to get a perfect heart shape.

Decorating is the best part!

Chris and I made boxes out of pretty paper for our cookies.

Beautiful and delicious!

Kindness

2011-02-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

We made a beautiful kindness mobile.

I asked the children what it means to be kind.

They gave me answers like:

"being nice" and "sharing with my friends".

We all agreed that being kind feels good

and that when we are kind to our friends they are usually kind in return.

This is one of our favorite circle time songs:

Here are some rules for you and me.

See how important they can be!

Always be honest,be kind and fair,

always be gentle and willing to share.

These are the rules we all should know.

We follow these rules wherever we go.

All About Shapes....

2011-01-25T11:45:00.000-08:00

We are learning about 2-dimensional shapes.

The children made shape collages.

We are also learning about 3- dimensional shapes.

J week!

2011-01-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

The children enjoyed painting orange J's .

J is the first letter in the word juice! We also find the J sound in words like jump,joy,jellyfish and jam.

We made carrot, kale and apple juice in our juicer.

The juicer "extracts" the "liquids" from the vegetables and fruit. The children loved seeing "solid" fruits and veggies turn liquid.

We talked about fruits and vegetables and how good they are for our bodies.

We made several different combinations. The children tried them all but hands down preferred that the juice be mostly apple. So if you do this at home and want the nutrition of the carrots and kale make sure there is mostly apple and just a little bit of the others.

How many j's can you find in the elephants body? There are 3! The children found one in the trunk,one in the ear and one in the tail.

"J" the elephant needs paint!

We used sand to change the texture from "smooth" to "rough".

Beautiful J!

Insects

2011-01-13T12:58:00.000-08:00

We had a big week learning about insects.A magnifying glass is a way that we can make small things look larger.

We talked about how the word insect starts with the letter "I".

The sound that "I" makes is also found in the beginning of the words: Inside,igloo,interesting and imagination.

The children drew beautiful pictures of bugs.

We had a guest come visit our class. He is a man who goes to college to study insects.He talked about how some insects are friendly and some are not.

We also learned that all insects have three body parts and six legs. Spiders are not insects because they have 8 legs.

Holiday Happenings

2011-01-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

Gifts for our amazing parents.

Decorations for our classroom.

Happy Winter to one and all.

Happy Hooping!

2010-12-13T11:44:00.000-08:00

H,H,H what begins with H? Hula hoops of course!

Our Town

2010-12-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

Gainesville is the town we live in.

A town is also a community. "A community is a group of people who live or work in the same area".

Towns have "buildings" and "parks", "roads" and "houses".We can buy food at the "grocery store", visit the "doctor",see a" movie" or go to "school". Our town has "restaurants" and a" library". The most important place in our town is a place we like to call "home".

We created our town out of cardboard boxes and paint.

Gainesville is great!

We have so much to be thankful for....

2010-11-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

Our beautiful thankful tree

We live in Florida

2010-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

E is for elephant

2010-11-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

We love making pretzels!

2010-11-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

Lovely Autumn leaves

2010-11-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

A branch, painted coffee filters and newspaper.

So simple, so beautiful.

More Halloween fun

2010-10-31T14:41:00.000-07:00

Carving our jack-o-lantern

Baking pumpkin bread

Halloween!!!

2010-10-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

We made Spooky spiders for Halloween decorations.

We painted brown lunch bags,

and then we stuffed them with newspaper,

How many legs does a spider have?

Non-fiction books tell us facts. We looked in a book about spiders to find out the answer to our question.

We counted out 8 sticks to make the legs of our spiders.

Colorful Caterpillar Cookies

2010-10-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

We made the most delicious caterpillar vegan sugar cookies.

We thought you might like the recipe.

Oven Preparation
Preheat oven 350 degrees.
Spray cookie sheets with non-stick oil spray or line with parchment paper.

Ingredients
5 cups organic unbleached flour
4 teaspoons Bob's Red Mill Baking Powder
2 cups sugar organic white sugar
1/2 cup almond milk, soy milk, or soy milk creamer
1 tablespoon organic vanilla, almond, coconut or lemon extract
1 13-ounce carton of Whipped Organic Earth Balance Buttery Spread

Birthday Birds!

2010-10-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

We made a beautiful birthday wall.

We talked about bird body parts. Birds have wings for flying, eyes for seeing, feet for walking and holding on to things and beaks for eating.

The VPK students did some "matching" work along with learning how to write the letter B.

Bread baking at Imagine

2010-10-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

We made the best, most delicious bread.

The children watched what happens when warm water, sugar and yeast are mixed together.

We added the yeasty mixture to flour, oil and salt.

The children kneaded the dough, and then we baked it.

There is nothing quite like warm bread you baked yourself. We hope to repeat this activity as often as possible.

We love the letter A!

2010-09-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

This week we counted apple seeds.

We talked about how an apple tree grows.

The VPK students drew pictures .

We made apple pie!

This is a drawing of the apple sauce, the apple pie and all the little hands that made our creations come to life.

Apples, apples, apples

2010-09-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

A is the first letter of the alphabet.

Apple starts with the letter A.

The children made apple prints.

The VPK students practiced writing the letter a.

Each letter of the alphabet has an upper and lower case.

They are also learning how to use scissors.

We made applesauce....First we had to cut up the apples.

We added sugar and cinnamon to the cut up apples.

The apples started out hard but when we added heat they changed. They became soft and after some time cooking they turned into applesauce!

All about me...

2010-09-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

We have been talking about our bodies and the amazing things they can do.We spent the week learning about our five senses. Ask your child if they can name all five.

We used shaving cream to explore touch.

We made "smell necklaces" to help us understand our sense of smell.

We had a nature scavenger hunt to explore our sense of sight and hearing.

Snack time was a great time to talk about our sense of taste.