Happy April, everyone! I hope you are enjoying spring so far, even with the wind that doesn’t seem to want to go away.

Once again, I find myself asking the same question I do every year at this time: how are we already so close to the end of the school year? Like my mom always told me, the older you get, the faster the years pass. She was very right!

We wrapped up March with dinosaurs and insects. We welcomed twenty caterpillars into the classroom so we can watch them grow into butterflies. If all goes as planned, we will release them at the Mother’s Day Tea on May 6. As always, I made dinosaur fizz eggs for the kids to “hatch”. They always love this science experiment activity that requires patience skills as it takes some time to reveal the surprise inside the “egg”. They also enjoyed our special dinosaur cave in the classroom.

We ended March with a field trip to the Garbage Garage and recycling center, where we always discover new things. Even the adults learn on this fascinating field trip!

April brought Ocean Week. We transformed our reading corner into an “under the sea” space, which is such a calming and soothing place to curl up with books and stuffed animals for some quiet time. The kiddos didn’t want to take it down! This was followed by followed by Easter fun. Easter week brought all the stories of Jesus as well as the fun of an egg hunt, coloring eggs and making our own Easter Baskets. Our parents are amazing and brought so many stuffed eggs for the hunt. We had an added bonus of fun for the Easter Party day since the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program came for a visit and brought a screech owl to the classroom!

As I write this, we are upon parent teacher conferences already, and then we will launch head first into planning for the Spring Program, Mother’s Day Tea and graduation! The last week of April will end with our Friendship/Kindness Parties complete with pizza and ice cream! The kids spend all year filling our Kindness Jars with beads, and once it’s full, we celebrate friendship and kindness with a party.

We also took a field trip to the Gardens on Spring Creek and Butterfly House. We had a great time and were blessed with a gorgeous day without wind! The kids really enjoyed exploring, learning, seeing so many butterflies, and planting a seed to take home. This is another favorite field trip. Our next field trip will be to Morning Fresh Dairy Farm! Needless to say, we will be super busy until school is out on May 19!

I hope you all have a wonderful May and happy Mother’s Day. I’ll be back with the final words of our last month of school before we know it!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.