spring cleaning at prospect park...

earth day projects...

we made a pretend pond...

added fish and shells...

and then i talked about how the fish used to live happily until people started throwing trash on the ground and in the water. the kids threw in a piece of trash and then removed a fish for each piece of trash. soon there weren't any fish left- only trash. i asked what we could do to help the fish and the kids decided to clean up the pond. when all the trash was gone they put the fish back in.

afterwards the kids had fun playing with the sand and water!

i challenged the kids to make a boat using recycled materials...

last friday was such a beautiful day we tried to do as much outside as we could. i brought out a bunch of various recycled materials and the kids worked on different projects...

as always, it was fun to watch what they came up with!

we used our class tongs to pick up trash outside...

eww! the kids picked up a TON of cigarette butts (or "cigars" as theo called them) which i didn't argue with because it was great practice for their small motor skills! 

they were great about not touching the ends of their tongs...

we ended up filling three bags- and had a blast!

i filled the kids' earth pinatas with candy and the kids had fun trying to break it open! it was a slightly inappropriate game for earth day but everyone was pretty careful about not littering with their candy wrappers and the kids had so much fun!

i love fiona in her princess crown and ballerina outfit.

earth day muffins...

before we began our earth day muffins we divided the class up into the wetters (the wet ingredient mixers) and the dryers (the dry ingredient mixers).

sonny and fiona, the wetters...

theo and mia, the dryers...

i gave each of the kids a bowl of mini hershey kisses and asked them to find all of the blue kisses and put them in the big bowl...

then i asked them to place three kisses on each muffin...

success!