The Olympics are OPEN at preschool!

With the Olympics in full swing, and the letter "O" taking its rightful place this week, we decided to focus on the OLYMPICS.  This has been a VERY "hands-on" study and one they love. 

Monday we began our week making this picture to the right and discussing the Olympic flag and what it means.  After looking at a picture of the Olympic flag we decided we would like to make one ourselves. 

First we observed the colors of the flag...blue, yellow, black, green, and red.  We each took turns naming the colors and talked about how we could make a flag like that.  One of our little 3's declared, "With CIRCLES!"  So, off we set out to find a perfect circle shape to make our own Olympic rings. 

We looked at several items in our crafting drawers...no, too small, too big, too square, too oval (this was really a cleverly disguised teachable moment to name all of our shapes, sizes and make comparisons of big, little, tall, small, short, skinny, etc...  But isn't that the BEST part of learning?? When your just having a great time and suddenly realize that you have experienced something in a new way, while having a giggly time with friends and maybe even learned something a bit new?

These are moments I LOVE!!  We finally landed on our toilet paper and paper towel inserts.  They were the perfect shape to fit into our paint trays AND onto our paper.  We could easily hold them in our hands and dip them and stamp them! 

So empowered and excited we set off to make a flag!  The above picture shows off on of our little 2's interpretation of the Olympic flag...pretty SWEET!  The below pic shows two of our sweet students completely engaged in this activity. 

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But before the event can take place.....

We also practiced lacing our cardboard shoes, in and out, over and under and, of course, unlacing the shoe.  The unlacing is FAR more difficult!  Most of our children wear sandals or velcro shoes right now, but Ms. Donna (me :)) has tennis shoes.  So we also took a bit of time and practiced lacing and unlacing the real deal as well.  We discovered that lacing the real shoe was much more challenging than the cardboard shoe.  The holes are smaller and the laces longer.   These were observations made by the 3's.  This is fantastic compare and contrast skills!!  I was very excited to see how they worked together to pull and push the laces through the holes.  They were patiently waiting and taking turns, excited to get the opportunity to try BIG SHOES.  So, if your finding your shoes at home unlaced or with some extra "attention," you can totally blame it on SCHOOL!

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Our letter "O" and Olympics study has given us lots of opportunity to talk about colors and circles...but that's not all! 

On Tuesday, we began our day eating "Star" waffles.  I found this cute little sandwich cutter at Dollar Tree and bought a few.  What a FUN way to spruce up waffles for the children!  After cutting out all the waffles (sheppie the dog LOVED the "waffle bones) I accentuated each point of the star with whip cream (light of course!).  Without saying a WORD, as I sat each plate of strawberries and waffles in front of each child they immediately noticed the "FIVE" points of the star...heeheehee...another preschool victory!

The main objective of Tuesday's Olympic lessons was to enforce the idea that we are ALL stars and we ALL have great talents.

We began our day eating star waffles and quickly moved to arts and crafts.  As the children took their time creating their "Olympic star medals,"  I explained that the Olympics are games and that at the end of the games they receive medals. 

I continued to explain during our "Olympics" we are ALL stars and when we finish the race we get a medal!

Here they are...the finished product.  These were made with glitter glue...lots and lots and lots of glitter glue, again purchased from Dollar Tree (they have the best prices I have found), several star cutouts that I printed on cardstock, a hole punch and yarn. 

Each child took home as many as they wanted to make.  As they created each one we talked about the colors they used and counted how many they created.

Olympic Gymnast!!