The Children's Garden Preschool

🪴 "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." - Cicero 🥕
We began our gardening unit a few weeks ago, and this week was the moment we were waiting for!
- We spent time talking about the different types of gardens, and why we would garden. Healthy habits, healthy minds, healthy bodies: that's what we say!
- Students learned the life cycle of plants and how to take care of them.
- Each class chose a seed they wanted to observe and watch grow inside of a mason jar.
- We read many stories, and one of our favorites was 'Eating the Rainbow.'
- We ate yummy fruits and vegetables and got to examine the seeds.
- Each class helped prepare one of the community garden beds by scooping up compost, putting it in a bed, and then spreading it around. We have a compost bin for our classroom that we use throughout the year, so this was great for them to see what the items in that bin eventually turn into and how it helps feed the plants!
- AND FINALLY, we measured the space in our own class beds, and each student planted sugar snap peas 🫛 and carrots 🥕!

Now, we will spend the rest of the school year taking care of our garden beds until harvest by watering them and making sure to pull the weeds if they appear.

Feeling blessed that we are able to teach our students authentic and real world learning that builds healthy habits to feed our brains!

A few weeks ago we had one week in between our bigger themes, and it was SO MUCH FUN! Our theme was STEM, and we focused on building, creating, figuring out how things worked, and talked about growth mindset. It was great being able to tie together our creations and having a growth mindset. We talked a lot and discovered how things may not always go our way when we are making something. Pieces fall apart, structures don’t hold, or what we are making may look different than how we have it pictured in our heads. We read a book called, The Most Magnificent Thing, that led to some good conversations around this. There were many times throughout this week when we heard students saying, “We don’t give up, we keep trying.” “We practice.” “We can try again.” etc.
They are learning some big lessons embedded into these moments, and I could not be more proud of these kiddos!

✈️ Planes 🚂 Trains and 🚗 Automobiles

Our transportation unit came and went quickly!

Our students are constantly learning many new concepts, themes, and ideas through our hands on learning environment. They are building independence and self-regulation, making friends, learning how to work with others, gaining a large sense of belonging, and so much more! Most importantly, they are having fun and are EAGER to learn. They do not even realize how many other foundational skills they are picking up on!

Some of those foundational skills this theme touched on:
* One to one correspondence
* Number recognition
* Measuring and comparing
* Sorting objects
* Shapes and colors
* Phonemic awareness
* Letter recognition
* Fine motor
* Science and STEM
* Being able to follow a direction

AND SO MUCH MORE!

Our class Valentine's Day parties were a hit!

🩷 We turned ourselves into love bugs.
🩷 We played Valentine Bingo.
🩷 We made love bugs out of Play-Doh.
🩷 We made beaded necklaces.
🩷 We did a little science experiment with fizzy hearts.
🩷 We challenged ourselves to see how high we could stack candy hearts.
🩷 We played pom pom heart toss.
🩷 We played pom pom straw blowing.

AND, we got to listen to a couple of great stories read to us by one of our amazing grandpas.

🩷"In a world where you can be anything, be kind." 🩷
This is one of my favorite activities to do with our students. They get to share something they like about their classmates, and we put those thoughts onto a special heart for each student. We then take turns reading the hearts out loud. It is special to see the smiles as their buckets are being filled!

❄️⛄️ Well, we got a little bit of snow during our snowman and penguin theme this year. ❄️⛄️
* In our exploration bins we created snowflakes with popsicle sticks, used daubers to make winter art, matched different shape puzzles to build snowmen, and got to do ‘big kid’ work. Most of the children chose the ‘big kid’ work, and it was fun to see them so engaged in writing their names, numbers, shapes, and drawing their own pictures. We also cut different types of lines on our penguin bodies and used tweezers to pick up loose parts to create penguin shapes. The students also got to practice taking turns by playing winter matching games.
During center time they built ice houses or igloos for the snowmen, made winter wonderlands, played in our kitchen, used different media to make art, played with ice cubes, threw snowballs that matched numbers on snowball cards, explored our sensory table, and so much more.
We even got to use watercolors and paint with ice cubes!

🎄Our last week of school before Christmas break was truly magical.
* We had pajama and movie days in our 'movie theater.' The youth group let us use their room with the couches and big screen!
* Miss Kalena and I created a Christmas slime factory for the students to make their own peppermint slime. This was a lot of fun, and our room smelled great!
* We finished the week with our Christmas parties. Having parents come in to volunteer and seeing the kids with so much joy and excitement was the best way to end 2025.

🎄It's the most wonderful time of the year!🎄

🍂 We love Fall most of all! 🍂
* We explored the different types of leaves, collected and sorted them, and used them for art. The best was getting to build piles to jump in!
* We carved into a pumpkin and gathered the seeds to cook.
* We spent time talking about bucket filling, friendship, and kindness.
* We ended this time with a special friendship feast in each classroom to celebrate our growth together as a classroom family.

Our community helpers unit was incredible! We had so many volunteers come to talk with our students about the ways in which they help our community.

Finally: A construction worker and lineman 👷, a teacher 👩‍🏫, a pediatric ICU nurse 👨‍⚕️, and a life flight pilot 🚁!

*With our construction worker, the students got to see many things in Spokane that his company built. They even got their own safety glasses and vests and then were able to use tools to help him put together some pieces of wood!
* Our lineman talked to the students about his job and how they help when we lose power. They got to see him go up in the bucket. They thought this was cool!
* We got to listen to a funny story from one of our special grandmas, who happens to be a retired teacher.
* Our pediatric nurse talked about his job and gave the kids special baggies with some things he uses.
* Our life flight pilot brought small figurines to model and show the students what he does for his job. They also received cool shades to look like pilots and their own landing pads and helicopters.

Our community helpers unit was incredible! We had so many volunteers come to talk with our students about the ways in which they help our community.

Next up: 👨‍🚒 The fire department and a police officer 👮‍♂️!
* We had a few wonderful firefighters come talk to our students about fire safety. They practiced stop, drop, and roll, watched a firefighter get into gear to help them not be afraid if they ever see one in a fire, and even got to go inside the big fire truck!
* Officer Reid came to talk to the kids about his job as a police officer, and how he helps keep our community safe. He showed them everything he keeps on him for his job. He even brought the kids their own police cars and flashlights. They got to see his car and watch him turn the sirens on as he was leaving.
Our students were talking about this for days!