Dr. Seuss Week

Hey everyone -
The kids and I had so much fun this week celebrating Dr. Seuss and all of his amazing books! We read some classics like "The Cat in the Hat", "Green Eggs and Ham", "The Foot Book", "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" and more. Attached you'll see some fun pictures from today. One is an edible snack you can make that resembles the hat that the "Cat in the Hat" wears. All you need is a ritz cracker, white frosting and red gummy lifesavers. The other picture was made by painting the kid's hands different colors to make a "Thing One" and "Thing Two" from "The Cat in the Hat".

We did a lot of other fun stuff this week as well. Next week, Eggs!

Take care and enjoy the pictures!

Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids Preschool

St. Patrick's Day Party! (part 2)

Hey everyone -
Here's some pictures from the second part of our week-long celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Enjoy!

Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids

St. Patrick's Day Party! (part 1)

Hey all -
Here are some pictures from our party today. We had a blast making spicy shamrocks, leprechaun footprints and traps, playing games and much more! Our letter this week is "L" for leprechaun, luck and lore. The kids really enjoyed the activities today and I'm super excited to keep it going for the remainder of the week!

Enjoy the pictures -
Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids

Monsters & Wild Things

Hey there -
This week's theme was "Monsters" - and boy was it fun! The second half of the week we focused mostly on the book "Where The Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak - a classic! I decorated the dramatic play area to look like Max's room from "Where the Wild Things Are" - it had his boat and everything! We did many arts and crafts projects in which the kids made their own "monsters", "wild things" or crafted their own gnarly teeth for a monster. It was a blast!

We also had some creative snacks and lunch - one day we had "Monster Mash" which was applesauce, banana, honey, peanut butter and cinnamon all mashed together. Another day we had chocolate pudding (mud), pistachio pudding (green slime), crushed oreos (dirt), chocolate chips (bugs) and gummy worms (worms) all mixed together - another version of "Monster Mash". For lunch one day we made "Monster Pizza" which the kids really got into. Its basically English muffins with pizza sauce, cheese and toppings baked in the oven. I bought the little mini pepperonis for their teeth and then cut the normal sized pepperoni in half for their eyes and made them look like scary monsters. The fresh red pepper was the mouth. The kids loved it - one kid repeated verbatim the recipe to his dad when he was picked up so that his parents would make it for dinner one night :)

We did a ton of other stuff as well. A fun week was had by all!

Next week we'll be celebrating St. Patrick's Day and the week after that we'll be focusing all on Dr. Seuss (its his birthday in the month of March). So we have a lot of exciting adventures up ahead at Monarch Kids!

Have a great weekend and enjoy the weather!
Kendall Stark

Castlewood Canyon State Park

Hey there -
This past Thursday, we went on a great field trip to Castlewood Canyon State Park to finish up our look at the 5 senses. We joined forces with some other adults and their kids. We had a blast! The weather was fantastic and the kids loved the hike. Boy, were they troopers - it wasn't that short of a hike but they hung in there until the end!

We talked about all the senses -
Sight - trees, boulders, birds, canyon, water, ice, snow...
Sound - water, birds, crunchy leaves...
Smell - ponderosa pine trees - they smell like vanilla waffle cones :)
Touch - tree bark, rocks, lichen, moss...
Taste - snack and lunch, of course!

It was a great review of the 5 senses. Now we're ready to move onto our next theme, "Monsters"!

Take care everyone -
Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids

5 Senses - Smelling

Hey everyone -
Today we wrapped up our look at the 5 senses with an exploration of the sense of smell. This was a fun day for us all as there is a ton you can do with this sense (really all of them!). For our art project today we made cereal rainbows - the kids simply glued different colored fruit loops on a white piece of paper in the shape of a rainbow. And don't worry, I gave them a small bowl on the side to sample the cereal as they worked :) That way they got to use their sense of taste too! Then we also made scented flowers - this was so easy and super cute. The kids decorated a flower cutout and then glued a cupcake liner on top of it. Then inside the cupcake liner they placed a pompom that had been sprayed with perfume. To top it all off, they attached the flower to a green pipe cleaner that represented the stem. So fun!

We of course, played lots of games where they had to smell different objects, guess what they were and also categorize them as "pleasant" or "unpleasant" smells. I used objects like cinnamon, garlic, onion, various baking extracts, tea bag, toothpaste... The kids really had fun with this, but I was surprised when they couldn't figure out what any of the objects were!

We read one of my favorite children's books today - "Stellaluna" by Janell Cannon. I don't think any of the kids had ever heard the story before and they really enjoyed it. It has some connection to the sense of smell (because they're bats and bats have a great sense of smell) but the greatest thing about the book is that they learn they can be friends even though they are so different. Really sweet.

Thursday is going to be a great day - we'll be going hiking and doing a nature scavenger hunt at Castlewood Canyon State Park. This will be a great way for the kids to use all 5 of their senses (although the sense of taste will mostly be used at snack and lunch time :))

Thanks for reading - I hope you guys get a kick out of what we do each day. We certainly have a blast!

Take care -
Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids Preschool Teacher