"P" is for pigs and pinecones!

TOP kids investigating the stream bed.

We were so glad to see everyone back at preschool today!  We began with a circle time and everyone was happy to sing or do some of the hand signals for the TOP Song!  Yeah!  Then we talked about "P" words. Pigs, pickles, peanut butter sandwiches and pinecones were some of the words that the kids came up with.  So-next the kids each got a bucket and collected pinecones.  Some of the kids were very excited about this and quickly filled their buckets.  Others took a while to get on board-but soon we had lots of pine cones for a project we are going to do on Thursday.

Then it was time to separate into our color groups and go hiking.  The yellow group found some good mud near the cow enclosure and some kids almost lost their boots trying to get out of the muck!  Next we started looking for a good spot for snack time.  We ended up finding Trillium flowers instead!  Trillium are special spring flowers that have 3 leaves and 3 petals.  This makes them easy to remember.  There are many of them at this time of year in Farrel-McWhirter Park.  We will continue to point them out to the kids.  You may ask them if they know what they are-it may take a few classes for this knowledge to stick.

We had a fun snack on a log by the stream, then threw stones into the water-carefully standing next to each other so no one gets hit. 

The blue group had a fantastic time exploring, climbing and working together to build a bridge today.  We also had fun collecting, sorting and counting pine cones.  Marcos had 55 pinecones in his red bucket!  The 2 color groups both ended up in one of our special TOP places and had fun near the stream.

Lunch was outside in the sun with books about pigs.  What a great day!