Sunny Days in San Francisco!

The sun was out and beaming at the beginning of this week. We made sure to get our daily dose of Vitamin D by spending more time outdoors.
On Monday we decided to go on a nature walk. We each wrote our name on a brown paper bag and collected leaves and flowers.

After our walk we went back into the classroom and counted how many flowers each child had collected. Some children didn't pick up any flowers and others counted up to 14 flowers. The children glued most of their findings onto paper and the rest they decided to take home.

What's gonna work? Teamwork!

Our Utopia students are such great helpers!Each child took a chair from our classroom to the yard. The teachers provided sponges and soapy water. Each child took a turn scrubbing their chair. Now our chairs are sparkling clean!

After all the fun, but hard work the teachers set up a new sprinkler. The children loved running through it. Because it was so hot outside we dried up quickly afterwards.

Kindergarten is getting closer!

There has been a lot of talk about kindergarten as we inch closer to our last day of school. So we decided to reflect on what our favorite thing about preschool was and then paint a picture about it.

Some of the responses were:

"The sprinkler"

"Nothing"

"Painting"

"Everything"

"I don't know"

When we woke up from nap on Friday one of our students mentioned that they would miss preschool so we used this opportunity to have the children draw what they will miss about preschool. These drawings were very detailed and each child took their time on the work.

On this day the responses on what they would miss about preschool were:

"Umm...Talia and Timothy...and playing."

"Doing circle."

"Nothing."

"Nap time."

Our last day of school is coming up! Hopefully everyone will be joining us for our end of the year potluck on June 30th!

Finally, Summer!

The weather was perfect for the outdoors this week. The children maximized the use of the yard by riding the bikes, building sand castles, watering the plants, and playing in the play structure. Hopefully, this warm weather stays!





Lately, the children who stay after 3pm have been obsessed with paper airplanes. Today was no exception. With the children observing how their planes turn left and right, and spin around before making a perfect landing, I thought it would make the experience more scientific by making them record their observations.







Butterfly Cards: Before we released the butterflies last week, some of the children wrote thank you cards for the butterfly. Read on.

Goodbye Butterflies!

More Academy of Science Fieldtrip pictures!

Best Friends Forever!

Writing and Exploring!

All but two butterflies came out of their cocoons this past week! Everyone was so excited to see our beautiful butterflies! While we still had our fluttering friends we made observational paintings of them. Instead of using paintbrushes though, we used q-tips and some of us even used our hands! We made very detailed paintings and then told about our butterfly painting.




Family Drawings and Paintings


This week we also drew and/or painted our families. We did this so we can compare these to the drawings from the first month of school. Many of our paintings and drawings have become more detailed. We've come a long way!



The most exciting event of the week, by far, was the release of our butterflies! We safely walked across the street to find a nice home for them by the church. We found an area with a lot of flowers and then prepared for their release.


Before letting them go we decided to each say something to the butterflies. These are some of the heartfelt messages:
"I hope you have a nice flight"
"Take care of your friends"
"I hope I see you again"

As soon as we were going to release them, one of our friends came up with the idea of saying a prayer for the butterflies to keep them safe.






On Thursday the "pre-k-ers" who are attending kindergarten at St. Thomas More had the opportunity to visit the kindergarten classroom. Before heading over there each child came up with a question they wanted to ask the present kindergarteners or teacher. Some of the questions were:
"Do they let bring toys?"
"If I can bring my stuffed animals?"
"When will we start kindergarten?"
"Do they draw butterflies with caterpillars?"
"Do they play catch?"

When we were actually in the kindergarten classroom a few of our Utopians did ask their question and recieved a response from the teacher and children.

On Friday we had the opportunity to meet our new kindergarten teachers! They introduced themselves to us as Mrs. Heidi and Miss Megan. The children were so excited to meet them!

Mrs.Heidi and Miss Megan asked us what we would like to learn in kindergarten and we had so much to say! A few of the responses were:
"Math"
"How to read"
"How to spell"
"Draw paper butterflies"

Reminders: We will be closed on Tuesday June 28th for a Staff Development Day.Thursday June 30th is our last day of school and our bbq potluck. If you would like to bring in something for the party, the sign-up sheet is next to the sign-in binder!