Weekly Update February 6 - A Peek at Our Week of New Adventures at Fox Hill School: Traveling to FRANCE!

Reminders:

• February 12 & 13 - Valentine class exchange

• February 16-20 - February Vacation - NO SCHOOL

Exploring France Through Play, Art, and Literacy in Preschool

This week at the Fox Hill School, we left the frigid continent of Antarctica and hopped on a super-fast jet to travel to France! Our tiny humans came up with the idea of going to this lovely country. They would like to know how people dress, what the weather is like, and if French people really do eat snails and frog legs!

Learning About France Through Books

Our focus book, The Big Book of France, helped us navigate the country and pointed out lots of fun facts. We also read Lily and Baa in Paris, Good Night Paris, and Philippe in Monet's Garden! Through these books, we learned quite a lot about the French architecture, the food, the flag, and the people!

French Snack Time

We had a very special snack this week...a French baguette. But before we could eat the bread, we needed butter to put on top of it. It was the perfect time to make homemade butter! We took heavy cream and salt and added it into small glass baby food jars. We shook the cream until it formed a ball of butter. We used this butter to spread onto our baguette. It was delicious!

Creative Expression Through Art

We learned through our books that the national flower of France is an iris. We used tempera paint to make symmetrical irises! First, we folded our paper in half. Then we dabbed the beautiful colors of a iris -purples, yellows, and whites at the top of the paper. Next, we added a green stem and leaf. Lastly, we opened the paper and folded it the other way so the 2 sides smushed together. The result was a beautiful iris!

Gross Motor Block Building

We learned that France is a very old country with LOTS of historical buildings. People come from all over the world to see their beautiful architecture. The most popular building is the Eiffel Tower. We also discovered the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, and Notre Dame! We printed out pictures of these popular landmarks and used the large wooden building blocks to create them on the rug. Using large blocks encourages kids to lift, carry, reach, and stack, and can build up strength, balance, coordination, and spatial awareness. All these things are super important in development.

Winter Olympics Fun

The 2026 Winter Olympics are starting soon, and since we're traveling the world, we figured we'd tie in some Olympic fun! We watched a short video on what the Olympics are and even watched some events like ice skating and skiing. We talked about how whoever wins gets medals to take home, so we made our own medals out of clay. First, we rolled the clay into a ball. Then we used a rolling pin to roll the clay ball flat. We used circle cookie cutters to make a round medal shape. Then we used a marker cap to press in the shapes of the Olympic rings. We will paint the medals gold next week and make them into necklaces.

We also talked about how the Olympic rings symbolize the 5 inhabited continents of the world (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania). We used our strong finger muscles to cut paper strips of black, red, yellow, green, and blue. Next week, we will sequence the colors to make Olympic ring chains using tape!

Science with Dr. Beaker

This week, we learned about volcanoes! We started by watching videos of real volcanoes erupting around the world. We learned that magma is inside the volcano, and when it erupts, the magma shoots out and becomes hot lava! When a volcano erupts, the magma builds up too much pressure underground. When the pressure gets too high, BOOM, the volcano erupts! We created our own volcano experiment using playdough, a plastic bottle, vinegar, and baking soda. First, we had to make the volcano. We used our finger muscles and pressed the playdough around the plastic bottle, making a volcano shape. Then Dr. Beaker put baking soda inside the bottle. Lastly, Dr. Beaker poured lots of vinegar into the volcano. The mixture of the baking soda and vinegar created a chemical reaction, and our volcano erupted!

Join the Parade!

This week, we started our Join the Parade unit! We moved, sang, and played the bells and lummi sticks. We learned the music terms piano (quiet) and forte (loud). We identified and discriminated between piano and forte aurally and physically. We marched in a parade around our classroom. We also played an echo game and explored different ways to use their voices. Finally, we listened to and identified the sounds of woodwind instruments and a penny whistle.