Our indoor & outdoor environments provide fun opportunities for wonderful creative works!
January, 2014-current
"Light & Dark": Odyssey Preschoolers find it fun to create art representing light and dark sources and spaces such as their sunshine's, space-scapes, glow-in-the-dark posters, luminaries, clay contrasts, l/d collages. Our students also discover shades of light & dark and experiment with a variety of light sources in dark especially with this month's sensory bins. Lastly, preschools loved celebrating the New Year!
February, 2014-current
"Pretend & Love" Month: Although Odyssey Preschoolers "pretend" everyday at school, February is an extra fun & special month where the children make "love rocks", crowns, masks, figurines, friend collages, friendship books & Valentines. They also had fun learning all about maps and pretending visiting new places using their amazing imaginations. Lastly, children learned why it is important to love both their friends and themselves experiencing several self-esteem booster & love projects.
March, 2014-current
"What Happens When": Odyssey Preschoolers experience a month of experimenting...oh and green of course! LakeShore Learning provides a neat St. Patrick's day craft. Students engage in a variety of science experiments that include the sun, color, paint, water, corn starch, recycled materials, tea, glue, food coloring, string, bubbles, a variety of paint brushes, droppers & papers. Experimenting is so much fun at Odyssey Preschool!
April, 2014-current
"Skin Covers Many Things": Odyssey Preschoolers spend time exploring the various types of plant, food, animal & human skin. Students find it interesting to discover the different types of skin textures while replicating them using texture tiles, reading books, touching live bunnies & foods like oranges and the coats of once-live forest animals (via environmental education), taking care of caterpillars & having fun with their faux fur sensory bins. Students discover different human skin colors while creating art using different color crayons, paint chips & magazine cut-outs matching human skin around the world and also learn how to take care of their skin. Lastly, students have a blast creating Easter art.
May, 2014-current
“Wings & Things That Fly”: Odyssey Preschoolers paint binoculars, pom pom hungry caterpillars, dropper paint butterflies, found things around the room that have wings and traced a variety of findings, painted birdhouses, found things outside that birds & butterflies might rest in and made their own art collage, painted with feathers, choose from a variety of materials to make their own ‘superhero power powder magical mixture or magical fairy dust’. Our sensory bin includes flower petals, birds & butterflies, grass & nests. Lastly, students enjoy making sweet Mother's Day gifts!
June, 2014-current
“Growing”: Odyssey Preschoolers paint rose art using celery hearts; created garden collages with sees & herbs from the garden; recycled seed boxes and made instruments with seeds, rice and beans; choose between magazine cut-outs of food & posted into their food groups; experiment with bean greenhouses & body cut-outs & made bright night paint flower gardens. This months sensory bins are filled with beans, seeds, flowers, pretend vegetables, and gardening tools to feel & pretend. Lastly, students have a great time creating Father's & Grandfather's Day gifts!
July, 2014-current
“Water”: Odyssey Preschoolers learn about ice and had the chance to paint with frozen paint ice cubes and also explored using spoons and droppers with warm water on ice cubes that revealed a surprise inside the ice cube. Students make canvas art with various shades of blue, sand and shells. They have the opportunity to choose a paper sea creature & decorate it with several choices of decor & make sensory art with toothpaste and foam sea animals. In addition, seashell wind chimes and a variety of 4th of July art is created. Preschoolers explore and make hypothesis to a chosen soft shape to see what happens after putting in water and learning it expands into a washcloth. Students explore learning bodies of water and making water experiments. Lastly, students had their hands in seashell & kinetic sand sensory bins.
August, 2014-current
“Exo-exploring" (Animal Habitats & Recycle/Reuse): Odyssey Preschoolers created their own recycled art projects from a variety of recycled materials. Students also explored their environment with recycled egg cartons collecting environmental treasures, explored & collected animal habitat materials with habitat boxes. The children collected and created rock friends & painted during free play. Preschoolers have fun with their eco sensory habitats.
September, 2014-current
“Transportation and Building”: Odyssey Preschoolers work very hard creating their own transportation vehicles from recycled boxes, paint their own boxes and paper plate wheels and use recycled materials for their dashboard buttons. Students learn about traffic signals, a variety of transportation vehicles and spent time with a variety of building materials constructing their own buildings and creations.
October, 2014-current
“Harvest Time”: Odyssey Preschoolers enjoy exploring pumpkin guts & seeds as well as the Preschool’s harvest/Halloween sensory bins. Students love discovering the colors of fall & Halloween colors! Students are given the opportunity to decorate pumpkins, color with spooky crayons, create fall leaf hanging wreaths, paint over green leaf paper, decorate their own Halloween scenes, create spider webs, scary spiders and marshmallow mummies.
November, 2014-current
“Sensational Senses”: Odyssey Preschoolers enjoy learning about their five senses creating musical instruments, scented play-doh, senses books and texture paintings. Students also love creating Fall & Thanksgiving arts & crafts such as fall trees, leaf masks, clay leaf imprints, Thanksgiving plates, turkey hats & texture turkeys. Lastly, students enjoy show & tell and also coloring & writing “Thanks Yous” and mailing to moms and dads.
December, 2014-current
“ Textures & Fabrics”: Odyssey Preschoolers love December making lots of Christmas arts & crafts and experimenting with several different textures and fabrics. The students especially loved their surprise visit from Mr. & Mrs. Clause who read them stories, answered their curious questions, listened to what each child wanted for Christmas and gave Christmas goody bags. Lastly, the children enjoy their special Christmas party making & decorating yummy goodies and exchanging their wrapped “book” gifts.
