This week it was all about Groundhog's Day!
We kicked off our rocking Groundhog week with a scavenger hunt! All around the room we found clues and facts about groundhogs. To name a few:
We looked at a picture of a real groundhog and saw that they have short legs, short arms, and a short tail.
They are quick!
They like to eat vegetables.
Groundhogs also hibernate for the winter. (ask your preschool if they remember what hibernate means!)
We even tried eating some green sugar snap peas to act like groundhogs. Faline and her family brought in a book called "Go To Sleep Groundhog" which was all about a groundhog who continues to wake up on the wrong holiday.
After that, toward the middle of the week, we talked about light and shadow. Kids had a fun time making shadow puppets out of cardstock. We had many bunny rabits (as that was my example) along with a turtle, lion, bald eagle, and mouse. We turned off the lights and put on a little show with flashlights and our puppets. We also experimented with different objects to see if light would travel through it or if the object would block the light and create a shadow.
On Thursday we did some roller painting. I love the texture and patterns the rollers make and we picked some pretty bright colors as well.
We have learned a new groundhog song you can sing with your little ones:
Groundhog's Day, I looked around
Saw my shadow on the ground
Yes, I saw my shadow when I took a peek
That means winter for six more weeks!
We have also been singing our days of the week song:
(Song to the tune of "The Adam's Family")
Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week, Days of the week, Days of the week (snap, snap)
There's Sunday and there's Monday
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday
There's Thursday and there's Friday
And then there's Saturday
Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (snap, snap)
Next week we will be having a Magical Math Week!!! I can't wait! The kids have been counting, adding, and subtracting up a storm lately! We will be focusing on measurement but we will be ready a lot of books about counting and using our number knowledge to help us measure things around the room! Hold on to your hats parents, 'cause your kids are going to blow you away with their math skills! Obviously we always talk about math and counting, but this week it's our main focus.
PM students: CAMP OUT DAY is Monday, February 4th. Bring anything camping related you would like to.
Stay healthy Preschool families!
Excitedly,
Mrs. Reid
Friday, February 1, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
January 21 - 25
A mysterious snowman appeared in our afternoon class. It had the number 0 on it and no decorations. On day number two of our snowman mystery, another appeared except this one had the number 1 on it! He had one carrot nose! As you can imagine, the following day a snowman with two decorations appeared! We have a blast looking around the room for our snowman and then studying him to see how he is different from the last snowman we found. Finding them is most of the fun, as students broke into "search teams" spontaneously and independently on Thursday! Haha! We will continue our search for more snowmen this week.
On display for your viewing pleasure in our classroom are the students "Three Bears Themed Stories". I asked the kids to think of the story "The Three Bears" and recreate some elements of the story using any characters they could think of. Now some students REALLY got this assignment and stayed true to the trials of Goldilocks and even used some of the same language as our favorite story while other students were more organically creative, writing stories of their own imagination (ignoring our Three Bears Story altogether)! In any case, this got each child thinking and I mean really thinking! I asked the kiddos to write the words of their story and draw one picture to go along with their story. I then asked them to read me their words, which I proceeded to write down for each of them. I am teaching them that THEY can be and ARE writers! The dictation occurred because their stories were so imaginative I couldn't keep them to myself! They had to be shared with you all!
We baked Mamma Bears porridge cookies on Thursday. The kids thought it was a riot to take a trip down to the cafeteria to bake them! I put a copy of the recipe in everyone's mailbox to go home on Monday. These are great doughy cookies!
We worked on self portraits on Thursday as well. Miss Kate and myself were very surprised at how much the children's drawings actually resembled the artist! They did an awesome job. We discussed diversity and how everyone's skin is not exactly the same color. We worked very hard by holding a multicultural crayon up to our skin and choosing one that was a pretty accurate match to draw with. Using mirrors and pictures of ourselves we worked out what color hair we have and what color our eyes are. This was a great activity and the kids learned a lot about themselves and diversity.
Much time was spent inside this week and the kids were restless but great! I am sending home a notice on Monday about the P.M class's marble jar. It is almost full! I am aiming to have our "Camp Out Day" this coming Thursday so if you have any camping props, feel free to send them in with your child on Thursday.
Hopefully we will get some outside play time this week!
Excitedly,
Mrs. Reid
Friday, January 11, 2013
Week of Jan. 7 - 10
This week in Preschool our theme was winter! We have spent some time talking about the changes that winter brings to our environment and also spent some time playing fun winter themed games.
This week in groups, we worked on building our names (for A.M students) using puzzle peice letters, rhyming (for P.M students) finding rhyme matches and double checking our work by seeing if puzzle peice rhymes fit together. These of course were our literacy games. We also played a snowflake match game (much like a memory game) where students had to find two snowflakes that looked alike. We also read a fun book called "Snowmen At Night" by Caralyn Buehner then made up our own snowman stories as a shared writing activity. A shared writing activity is when children think up the ideas and Mrs. Reid writes them all down for the kiddos to see! They were a riot!
For our art project this week, we used black, brown, and orange oil pastels to create a snowman drawing then we dipped cotton balls into white paint to make our snowman scene look snowy! So cute and fun! They have been hung up near cubbies for your viewing pleasure!
Next week we will continue talking about winter but our focus will be on bears and other hibernating animals. We will read "The Three Little Bears" and have some fun with our book! Looking forward to a week that is not too crazy, not too dull, but JUST RIGHT! :)
This week in groups, we worked on building our names (for A.M students) using puzzle peice letters, rhyming (for P.M students) finding rhyme matches and double checking our work by seeing if puzzle peice rhymes fit together. These of course were our literacy games. We also played a snowflake match game (much like a memory game) where students had to find two snowflakes that looked alike. We also read a fun book called "Snowmen At Night" by Caralyn Buehner then made up our own snowman stories as a shared writing activity. A shared writing activity is when children think up the ideas and Mrs. Reid writes them all down for the kiddos to see! They were a riot!
For our art project this week, we used black, brown, and orange oil pastels to create a snowman drawing then we dipped cotton balls into white paint to make our snowman scene look snowy! So cute and fun! They have been hung up near cubbies for your viewing pleasure!
Next week we will continue talking about winter but our focus will be on bears and other hibernating animals. We will read "The Three Little Bears" and have some fun with our book! Looking forward to a week that is not too crazy, not too dull, but JUST RIGHT! :)
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Our Short Week After Winter Brea
Miss Kate and I could not get over how much our students have grown and matured! We certainly were happy to see them back at school on Wednesday.
Wednesday and Thursday we started our Winter Unit. During music on Wednesday our morning class pretended to ice skate on paper plates for "freeze skating" (a new version of freeze dancing).
Both classes read our "January" poem. It's all about rhyming! Our afternoon class is getting so good at rhyming and we've been talking lately about beginning sounds of words. Something really quick and easy you can do in the car with your "not-so-little-one" (anymore!) is this:
Say a word like "mop" tell your child you will switch the "m" sound for the "t" sound and ask them what the word is. For example, "mop" becomes "top". We will be working on this concept for the next few weeks in school. This is more so for the afternoon group but I'm sure some of our morning crew would catch on quickly too!
Other things we accomplished this week were, a letter search (snowman style), and a mitten match game. Students played a memory type game where they tried to find a matching mitten by color or pattern.
On Thursday, we substituted a science project in place of art, as we sometimes do. Children had a blast experimenting with ice cubes. We felt how they were hard, cold, melting, and creating water in our cups. We sprinkled food colored salt onto our ice cubes and noted how it made our cube melt. We held our ice cubes up and noticed that once it began to melt, the blue salt made it's way into the middle of our ice cubes! So much fun! (sorry for any blue hands at home!) We also squeezed red, warm, salt water onto our ice cubes and noted how that made the ice cube melt faster.
We're looking forward to a full week of fun this coming week! January already!
I keep reminding our afternoon group that they will soon be in Kindergarten! They are so ready!
Thank you so much to those of you who were so thoughtful over the holiday season. Many of you donated to our classroom and it is much appreciated.
Mrs. Reid
Friday, December 7, 2012
Wednesday - And The Rest...
Hey Everyone,
My apologies for not updating as frequently! A new puppy at my house means lots of attention on her outside of the school day! Here's a picture in case you love sweet, furry, pals ...
This week at school, we worked on our Transportation unit. We played games like VW bug color match, What's Different? (students had to place a marble on the one picture that was different than the other three), and read books about different types of transportation. We will do a little more with that next week too!
We are finishing up our unit on Community Helpers. This week in group time, we pretended like we were construction workers and worked with real nuts and bolts! We put our fine motor skills to workscrewing on and off the nuts.
The morning children are learning a lot about their names. In group time, we worked on writing the first letter of our names. Hopefully, with more practice we will be writing our whole name by the end of the school year. We'll keep working hard!
The afternoon class is working on Syllables, rhyming, and beginning letter sounds. Mr. Munch still wakes up to help us with that! Next on our agenda will be talking more about what a word looks like, and hopping out words in a sentence. I think our wiggly friends will get a kick out of that.
I want to say thank you to our morning volunteer parent, Jessica Powers. She spent Tuesday and Thursday with us this week helping out.
Hope you all have a great weekend. See you back Monday for another fabulous week!
Mrs. Reid
My apologies for not updating as frequently! A new puppy at my house means lots of attention on her outside of the school day! Here's a picture in case you love sweet, furry, pals ...
Here are some other pictures from our week!
This week at school, we worked on our Transportation unit. We played games like VW bug color match, What's Different? (students had to place a marble on the one picture that was different than the other three), and read books about different types of transportation. We will do a little more with that next week too!
We are finishing up our unit on Community Helpers. This week in group time, we pretended like we were construction workers and worked with real nuts and bolts! We put our fine motor skills to workscrewing on and off the nuts.
The morning children are learning a lot about their names. In group time, we worked on writing the first letter of our names. Hopefully, with more practice we will be writing our whole name by the end of the school year. We'll keep working hard!
The afternoon class is working on Syllables, rhyming, and beginning letter sounds. Mr. Munch still wakes up to help us with that! Next on our agenda will be talking more about what a word looks like, and hopping out words in a sentence. I think our wiggly friends will get a kick out of that.
I want to say thank you to our morning volunteer parent, Jessica Powers. She spent Tuesday and Thursday with us this week helping out.
Hope you all have a great weekend. See you back Monday for another fabulous week!
Mrs. Reid
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Wonderful Wednesday - And An Update On the Rest of Our Week!
Wow! Wednesday already. I've totally missed updating the blog the past couple of days, sorry folks!
This was a very productive week in PK. We have been working so hard lately! The unit we are working on right now is Community Helpers. So far, we've identified what types of Community Helpers we have and are now beginning to talk about exactly what they do for our community. In group time this week, children talked about what job they want to have when they get older. We made a graph which we will talk about Thursday.
We also worked on handwriting. The morning group is learning how to color very carefully inside the lines and identify colors of objects. The afternoon children each were given their very own name books! These books help preschoolers learn how to form the letters of their name. Nice work preschool writers!
In addtion to that, one of our groups during group time worked independently (well mostly) on counting playdough balls onto counting mats. This is the type of independent group work kindergarteners do!
Today we started a new incentive plan for the afternoon group. We are trying to fill a container with marbles by working hard together as a team. We can earn a marble whenever we get a compliment while walking down the hall quietly, cleaning up carefully, or just by being good friends to one another. We voted on what we would like to do when we fill our container. Ideas were, cookies for snack, a class party, read a special book, or a classroom campout day. Friends voted and for our first celebration of filling our good deeds container, we will have a classroom campout day!
Looking forward to the rest of the week!
Mrs. Reid
This was a very productive week in PK. We have been working so hard lately! The unit we are working on right now is Community Helpers. So far, we've identified what types of Community Helpers we have and are now beginning to talk about exactly what they do for our community. In group time this week, children talked about what job they want to have when they get older. We made a graph which we will talk about Thursday.
We also worked on handwriting. The morning group is learning how to color very carefully inside the lines and identify colors of objects. The afternoon children each were given their very own name books! These books help preschoolers learn how to form the letters of their name. Nice work preschool writers!
In addtion to that, one of our groups during group time worked independently (well mostly) on counting playdough balls onto counting mats. This is the type of independent group work kindergarteners do!
Today we started a new incentive plan for the afternoon group. We are trying to fill a container with marbles by working hard together as a team. We can earn a marble whenever we get a compliment while walking down the hall quietly, cleaning up carefully, or just by being good friends to one another. We voted on what we would like to do when we fill our container. Ideas were, cookies for snack, a class party, read a special book, or a classroom campout day. Friends voted and for our first celebration of filling our good deeds container, we will have a classroom campout day!
Looking forward to the rest of the week!
Mrs. Reid
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Tuesday - Friendship is in the Air!
Our Tuesday started off with the same loving energy that our Monday did. I have seen many acts of kindness this week and in between our Thanksgiving talks, we have been talking about what it means to be a good friend.
The kids had many ideas about not hitting, biting, fighting and also ideas about apologizing, helping, and offering to share. We read a book today called, "Martha Doesn't Say Sorry" by Samantha Berger. That really solidified our ideas about friendship!
This week, we have worked on our pencil grips. It's really important for preschoolers to learn the correct way to hold a pencil. Many kids caught right on! The morning class worked on picking out certain color pencils and coloring items of that color with care. They tried hard to stay in the lines and do careful coloring.
The afternoon worked on following arrows to write. We learned how to follow arrows to make vertical and horizontal lines. Next week, we are really going to start working on forming the letters of our names! It's exciting to see kids ready for this!
We counted some thanksgiving food this week too! Kids had the big job of sorting different pretend food from our Dramatic Play area and counting out how many of each food we had.
Tomorrow we will see the A.M students. Remember, no school Wednesday November 21st for the P.M students.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
The kids had many ideas about not hitting, biting, fighting and also ideas about apologizing, helping, and offering to share. We read a book today called, "Martha Doesn't Say Sorry" by Samantha Berger. That really solidified our ideas about friendship!
This week, we have worked on our pencil grips. It's really important for preschoolers to learn the correct way to hold a pencil. Many kids caught right on! The morning class worked on picking out certain color pencils and coloring items of that color with care. They tried hard to stay in the lines and do careful coloring.
The afternoon worked on following arrows to write. We learned how to follow arrows to make vertical and horizontal lines. Next week, we are really going to start working on forming the letters of our names! It's exciting to see kids ready for this!
We counted some thanksgiving food this week too! Kids had the big job of sorting different pretend food from our Dramatic Play area and counting out how many of each food we had.
Tomorrow we will see the A.M students. Remember, no school Wednesday November 21st for the P.M students.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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