Back at it!

Spring break is over and we're hard at work in the classrooms again! It's hard to believe that there are only 8 weeks left for school this year! Wow! Time surely does fly by!

All of the classrooms are busy! The Four's class is learning all about Spring! The three's class will be starting a construction unit soon and the two's class is learning about night and day! Our new music teacher started today! She did a great job with the 2's and 4's today, despite a few nerves! Tomorrow she'll be enriching the 3's!

There are so many fun activities for spring time!

Science:
Sink and float with plastic eggs. We put water and plastic eggs in the sensory table and gathered small items that would fit in the eggs and guessed which items would make the eggs sink or float. One boy discovered that if all the weight was on one end of the egg, the egg stood up in the water! This fascinated all the children so off they went trying to get their eggs to stand up too!

Art:
Today we made lily pads. We started by fingerpainting with blue and yellow paint. After it dried we cut out a lily pad shape. We then used eye droppers and liquid watercolors with small coffee filters to make our lily. Tomorrow we'll make a jumping frog to put on our lily pad out of construction paper and accordion folded legs.

Spring Weather!

It's been a beautiful week of weather in our part of Illinois! I believe the adults have had as much fun playing outside as the children, maybe more! My class visited the Spurlock Museum on the University of Illinois' campus last week. We've been studying Native Americans and the storyteller at the museum was fantastic! They also made a talking stick craft too! This community has so much to offer!

Next week is Spring break! We'll take the time to regroup and get ready for the final two months of school! This year is flying by!

Another great field trip!

The 4's class had a great trip to the Parkland College Planetarium earlier this week! They learned all about the stars. The 4's will be learning about Outer Space for the next couple of weeks and then will do a unit on Native Americans with another field trip to a local museum. We are truly blessed in this community to have one major state university and one junior college that offers us many opportunities for learning!

One activity for outer space that all of my classes enjoy is using an older lite brite to make star consellations. I use black construction paper and the children push the colored pins through the paper. When they are done with their design, they connect the holes with white crayon and then name their constellation.

One easy way to remember the order of the planets from the sun is to teach the children a little rhyme.

My Very Eccentric Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

OPEN HOUSE

Our enrollment open house is Thursday March 11 from 5-7 p.m. and Friday March 12 from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Everyone is invited to come and see our classrooms, meet the teachers and Director, talk with parents of children currently enrolled. We are accepting enrollment applications for the 2010-2011 school year. We have classes for two year olds, three year olds, and four-five year olds. Toilet trained is not required. For more information on our Co-Op, visit our website: www.coopnursery.org

Miss Sara is leaving

We were so sorry to hear that Miss Sara, our music teacher, will be leaving in March to move to Boulder, Colorado. Though we wish Miss Sara the best, we are going to miss her so much! Sara came to us from New Orleans via the library graduate program at the University of Illinois a year and half ago. Sara has done a fantastic job with music enrichment for our children! Good luck Miss Sara and keep in touch!

What is a parent cooperative preschool?

It's a wonderful learning environment for preschool children! There are different types of parent cooperative preschools. Some are full cooperatives like ours and others are partial cooperatives. Full participating cooperatives are truly parent owned and operated. Parents serve on the governing board, they assist the teachers in the classroom, they plan special events, organize and participate in fundraising activities, and maintain the school environment. Partial participating cooperatives usually have parents on the governing board, parents implement and organize fundraising activities, special events, and maintain the school environment. But the one thing that is lacking in a partial parent cooperative is the parents assisting in the classroom. I believe that the parents in the classroom everyday is what truly makes for a wonderful preschool environment! Parents bring their talents into the classroom which enriches the curriculum! They bring a natural caring and nurturing aspect into the classroom. They get to know their children's playmates and develop long lasting friendships with the other parents in the school. Research has proven the importance of parent involvement in their child's education. At our school parent involvement is an everyday thing! Parents that enroll their children in a cooperative preschool do work hard, but the hard work is all for their children!

February

February is only one week old, but we've had a lot of fun! A local percussionist and former Coop parent visited the school last week for a percussion demonstration for the children. They loved it! I heard kids drumming on things in the classrooms all week!

Our annual Valentine Disco Dance is this week! It's a fun party with music and dancing and of course, food!

We're all hoping for an early spring, though the groundhog is said to have seen his shadow! But there is nothing that says we can't hope!

In the future the classrooms will be busy learning about outer space, dinosaurs, spring weather, and many more things!