Penguins and Valentine's: Preschool at our House

This past week was preschool at my house! Tuesday was Penguin Day. Which basically meant we did a penguin craft, read penguin books and played a game I call "Antarctic Explorers."

I Husband made some hammers out of a pool noodle and a wrapping paper tube. I decorated a box with letters. Our focus this week were the letters C, G, J and S so I made sure to put 3 of those on the box in different places and then filler letters. For the activity I played music and the kids walked around. When I stopped the music I would also call out a letter and the kids had to find the letter and hammer it to chip away at the iceberg.

We also had penguin cakes for snack. They were cute-ish and the kids liked them but I wish I had made them cuter! I served them with apples and water so it wasn't SO much sugar. And Swiss Rolls are a lot smaller than I remember however the kids didn't care.

Our Valentine's Day party was great! We started by playing in the water table with scoops. I filled it up with fake flower petals in Valentine's colors and 1 bag of heart gems from the floral section. They did seem to really enjoy it. They mostly dug through it to find the gems but also just explored.

During circle time we read two Valentine's books. LOVE from the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Llama Llama I Love You. Then for our craft we made love bugs. So simple. So festive. So fun. Glue pom poms and googly eyes on to a clothespin and add a magnet strip to the back. Viola! A fridge clip!

Our letter activity was using the flower petals to write the letters of the week by following the washi tape letters on the floor. This was fun for the first letter and then it involved a lot of parent encouragement to keep going. But they looked festive and it was good to sneak something educational into our day of fun.

Snack was rice krispie bar hearts with sprinkles, strawberries and juice. With festive plates from Target because they were cute! 

We played 2 games: one was a tissue paper race. I put down two washi tape lines and the had to get their tissue paper from one to the other propelling it only with a plate. This was fun once they figured it out. C was so funny, he'd figure it out and get it going then jump up and down excitedly and it would stop moving forward. This cycle repeated itself until he crossed the finish line. 

The other game was standing on a chair and getting a string into a cup. It's supposed to help their hand eye coordination. They liked it okay but they were really ready for play time. So they did! And that pretty much sums up my week. Planning, prepping and doing school ate through the bulk of my week so far.