March Review
“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” -Fred Rogers
Spring has definitely sprung at the OCP Playschool, and it’s not just the flowers that are blooming! The OCP kiddos have truly blossomed over the past year. Their personalities are more pronounced. Their sharing skills are soaring. Their conversations are more and more detailed by the day! And they continue to amaze and inspire me each week with their creativity, compassion, and curiosity.
Our focus in Pre-K this month was about animals of the air and ocean. And what better way to learn about nature than to go on an adventure about it! We began our exploration by looking at the life cycle of birds and learned that just like humans have to change their clothes as they grow up, birds do too! Well, they change their feathers, that is, by molting!
Next, we adventured to the deep blue sea on our fishing boat (aka the play structure) fishing for clues to find the missing letters to a secret message that led us to a seahorse surprise! After that, we grabbed our trusty explorer binoculars and our native bird guide to help us bird watch and learn the names of the birds in our local area. We now know to keep our eyes out for some Yellow Rumped Warblers and Black Phoebes singing in the park trees. We even practiced our counting with some dramatic play pretending we were birds catching worms! But don’t worry, they weren’t real worms. Those ones we keep safe in our worm farm in the classroom.
But that’s not the only fun we had this month! The OCP family got to show off their best smiles on picture day before spring break, which I must say was a wonderful day of seeing full faces, though briefly, after a year of masks. The day was also filled with bubbles upon bubbles after I revealed the gigantic bubble maker I had enlisted my very handy father to make for the school. Earlier in the year, I'd been inspired by a few of the OCP kids to write a story about them working together to create the biggest bubble possible. While working on the story, I remembered having seen a giant bubble maker at a science center a few years ago on a field trip, and I knew just the person to help me make it. And so, OCP and the Biggest Bubble was born and the bubble maker alongside the story. Despite the wind that day we got some pretty amazing bubbles, and now have our own OCP giant bubble maker for bubble adventures any time!
As March marks the shift from winter to spring, the closing of one season and the beginning of another, we too had an ending and a new beginning. We said goodbye to one of our amazing OCP families this month and wished them the best of luck on their new adventure to another state. They are truly missed from our OCP family but are always in our hearts, and we cannot wait to hear about their new adventures in their new home.
And with that March became April and brought us one step closer to the closing of this school year which feels like it will be here before we know it. But before it comes, there are still two months of learning adventures to be had!
-Teacher Cait
