May 5 - 8

In the wonderful world of preschool we have been busy learning about living and non-living things! Miss Jen has taught our lessons this week and the children have loved every minute of this unit!

During circle we learned a song about living things.

It is living
It is living
I know why
I know why
It eats, breathes, and grows
It eats, breathes and grows
It's alive
It's alive

Our LIVELY preschoolers worked on a group sorting activity to introduce ideas about living and non-living. We learned that all living things need food, water, and air. Living things also move, grow, and make more of themselves! We decided whether pictures of various things were living or non-living and placed the on a T chart accordingly.

Children also worked individually to sort things that are living and non-living on their own T charts. Pictures were of animals, plants, water bottles, hot air balloons, jars and more.

On Wednesday, students used the scientific method to determine if a fish was living and if a rock was living! Our little scientists, asked questions, recorded results, and made predictions! We decided that the fish was living and that the rock was not! Our fish has stayed, however we are still working on a determining his or her name! More to come on Monday...

On Thursday, we had a busy day of hunting for living and non living things! Children decorated binoculars with pictures of living things and then we headed out to our playground for a scavenger hunt! We split our afternoon class into four groups and recorded three things we saw. We then answered the following questions to determine if what we found was living or non-living: Does it need water? Does it need food? Does it move? Does it grow? Does it make more? Does it need air?

We had so much fun this week with Miss Jen! Next week we will take some time to focus on preschool writing for an upcoming school wide writing project! On May 27th, preschoolers will take part in a school wide writing celebration! This is a student-teacher event where preschoolers will get an opportunity to share and hear writing from grades PK through 2.

I want to take a moment to share with parents how important it is for your preschooler to view themselves as writers. This is why your preschooler will often come home with scribble writing, letter like symbols (things that sort of look like they could be letters!), random strings of actual letters, or strings of letters that make up short words! Our preschool writing is varied as everyone is at a different stage of writing. Next time your preschooler asks you to write something for them, encourage them to write it themselves (you can always write what they tell you it says on another piece of paper). Let them know that they are writers! If they get hung up on spelling, remind them that  they can work on spelling when they are in kindergarten, or encourage them to sound out the beginning of the word. Many of our afternoon preschoolers already know various letters and their sounds, so they may be able to write something like "BAL" for "BALL" or "KAT" for "CAT". Cheer those little writers on!!

Thanks for taking the time to read through the blog!
Mrs. Reid