Preschool Week 4: B is for Balloons!

Okay, so I didn't get a chance to post this the other night (or last night) before exhaustion kicked in.  But I'm still going to post this before Trevy's party post.

Carrie was the host instructor for preschool this week.  Cannot believe we've been going strong for four weeks already!  The kids still seem to be enjoying it and I think it's just going to get better and better.  Especially with holidays coming up!

Monday is already starting to fog over for me.  I do recall, however, that we woke up pretty late.  I think it was  already 8:40 so I just had us all throw on some clothes (thank goodness for doing hair on Sunday!), grabbed a bunch of bananas and granola bars and we headed over to the Strattons.  I was worried that my kids were going to be cranky.  Worries were well-founded.  Although it appeared that my kids weren't the only cranky ones.  My heart went out to Carrie, as she was the teacher for the day.  She was so well-prepared.

We started with a special little welcome, complete with singing "Happy birthday" to Trevy.  (Monday was her actual birthday.)















Callie loves the "Where is ________?" song and will sing it at home, complete with everyone's name!











Timmy started dancing to "Where is ______?"  So cute!

Carrie read a story to the kids called "The Best Pet Ever".

Very cute.

She had an activity in which she suspended a balloon and a small ball from a tension rod and placed Jenga block towers underneath.  This was the science experiment for the kids to get a little physics lesson on which would knock the tower over and which wouldn't.  A few tears there as well, as kids wanted to build their own random towers instead of paying attention.

Seriously, how cute is this?!

Snack was cupcake balloons with Twizzler "B"s on them.

















Carrie also had drawn balloons on construction paper and the kids got to draw faces on them and cut them out.  Callie's actually popped.  (She shredded it into confetti.  For the love of scissors...)





A few tears over a red crayon.  (There was another one sitting out in the open, but it wasn't THE red crayon!)

Even in playing afterward, the kids just all seemed a bit irritable.  It was one of those days you wanted to make everyone go home and take a nap!  (Soooo wish that still worked!

In general, it ends up being a war for me and not worth the effort it takes to get everyone down, if we ever even get to that point!)



But Wednesday more than made up for it!  Wednesday's balloon lesson was AWESOME!  Complete participation and rapt attention!

When the kids arrived, we did the usual welcome and then Carrie brought out a basket full of "B" items - bear, blankie, books, blocks, etc.  And she wrote them on the white board as the kids listed them off.  Then she asked what the items had in common.  She had to help them guess that it was the sound they started with.  Afterward, she went to get two more small baskets with balloons in them and "tripped" on the way back out.  The balloons went all over and needed to be resorted.  Some balloons had a capital "B" and others had a lowercase "b".  Perfect!  The kids had a blast!

I promise my kids don't always look homeless!  It's just all I can do to get out the door by 9 some days!













Timmy and Cerise got in on the action too.

I'm telling you, this boy LOVES balloons!!!

Then Carrie asked the kids what sound "B" makes.  And what sound "b" makes.  So they can make the same sound?  Yes!!!

The kids had some fruits and vegetables for a snack and then their activity was a surprise visit from one of Carrie's friends, Mr. Christian.

He is a balloon artist extraordinaire!  At a balloon competition in California not too long ago, among many (I'm thinking he said around 500) artists, both national and international, he came in 2nd!  How amazing is that that he came to our preschool class?!

Waiting patiently - such fun just to watch

Nick wanted a sword.

Cairn got a giraffe.

I love the concentration on Landon's face.

I'm sure he was just itching to get his hands on a balloon!

(And the air pump!) 

He loved his fish...(aren't the bubbles amazing?!)

So did Timmy!  ☺

He got a sea turtle.

Five happy kids with five works of art!

The kids each got to pick an animal and were completely awestruck watching Christian work on the balloons.  It was at this point in time that Trevy's party theme came to be.  When Christian first asked the kids what he would like them to make, he listed a few options, "A bear, monkey, snake, sword, penguin..."  That was all Trevy needed.  As the oldest by a considerable length of time, she got to make her selection last and she remained firm the whole time.  She wanted a penguin.  The penguin came home with us and never left her arms the entire day.




Three days before a party definitely makes it a little challenging to pull things together around a penguin theme, but do it we did!



*****

Can't leave out these cute random photos of Timmy and Nadya.

Maybe someday I'll really figure out how to do cool collages with pictures...  But not tonight.  I'll be content with starting to figure out how to manipulate my photo/text layout!