A short week! January 21-23

Our week may have been short but our time in school was full this week!
Since we weren't able to go outside we got to do some extra Art Projects, including making maracas out of toilet paper rolls, wax paper and rice (AM); snowy scenes with blue paint and salt (PM), and our own colorful mittens after reading Jan Brett's book "The Mitten" (both classes).

We learned a "Days of the Week" song at circle-time this week that some of the PM kids may remember from last year. It goes like this (to the tune of "The Adams Family Theme Song"):

DAYS OF THE WEEK

Days of the week (snap, snap or clap, clap)-repeat 5 times-
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/clap, snap/clap) -repeat 5 times-

We'll be singing this some more this week to really get the hang of it!

Group time this week was spent exploring wooden curves and lines blocks as part of our "Handwriting without Tears" program. We talked about the difference between a curve and a line, as well as big and little, and kids were shown upper-case letters to make with their blocks (C, O, L, D, and P). Then they got to "freestyle" and play around to make whatever letters they wanted to!

For Math time we played a counting game with tiny cookies. Kids practiced looking at numbers, counting out cookies and were given basic number problems. "If I have 5 cookies and take away 1 then how many do I have left?"

We'll be learning more about animals in winter this coming week and will make our own Animals in Winter book as a class! See you all Monday!

-Miss Kate and Miss Amanda

Our week at Preschool: January 13-17

There was lots of activity in Preschool this week!

We have been talking alot about winter and the January calendar this week and just started having a Calendar Helper job at Circle Time/Meeting! The Calendar Helper gets to tell the class what the weather is outside and then points to the calendar numbers as we count all together. The kids are VERY excited about this new addition.

Our poem of the week was "The Chubby Little Snowman." Some of the students memorized it, but if you'd like to read it with them (and do the motions)here you go:

The Chubby Little Snowman

The chubby little snowman (put arms out like a big belly)
Had a carrot nose (put finger on nose)
Along came a bunny (make little bunny ears with two fingers)
And what do you suppose? (Shrug up shoulders)
That hungry little bunny (rub tummy)
Looking for its lunch (put hand over eyes)
Ate the snowman's carrot nose (make big chomping arms)
Nibble, nibble, crunch, crunch!! (move hands like a duckbill)

Kids got to draw pictures and write their own variations of "Golidilocks and the Three Bears" (loosely interpreted) for group time this week. You can find these hanging on the wall of our classroom! We also got to be "scientists" by using eye droppers to explore mixing different shades of food coloring and water. This was a great hands-on activity that really held everyone's focus!

On Wednesday and Thursday we played a mitten matching game for math group time and for literacy the kids wrote their names in sand. (Fun but tricky!)We also made our dress up area into a Doctor's Office this week. This is providing some really entertaining dialogue to eavesdrop in on: "Hey-could you get me a new finger? We lost one!" The kids are really getting into their roles as professionals :)

For our Thursday Art Project this week the AM class made toothpick and marshmallow sculptures-dogs, robots and stars to name a few- and the PM class made their own maraca shakers out of toilet paper roles and rice. Add some paint, glitter and feathers and you have one bedazzled musical instument!

Let's hope for another week of outside play time!

Have a great long weekend and see you all soon!!

Welcome Back! Our week of 1/6-1/9

Happy 2014 everyone!

And welcome to Miss Amanda! Amanda Linzi joined our class this week and will be with us until Mrs. Reid gets back. She is a great addition to the classroom and has fit right in already.

This week we read several versions of "Golidilocks and the Three Bears" and students got to choose their own bear (Mama, Papa or Baby) to make out of tissue paper for our Thursday Art Project. See if they know what "Golidlocks did first" or "how many bears" there are at home!

We talked alot about Winter and our January calendar, as well as reading a January poem from the book "Chicken Soup with Rice." We also got to practice our Yoga at Morning Meeting. The kids are getting to be experts!

For group time both AM and PM kids practiced writing their names on white boards and with silver crayons (super fancy) on black construction paper and for Math they got to make "caves" out of play dough and use little plastic counting bears to put in/take out of the cave to practice their early addition/subtraction skills.


It was so nice to have a full week back at school! Looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday for a week of some outdoor play!

Week of December 9 - 12

Wow, it's been a while!

Sorry for the delay everyone. With meetings happening on Fridays, I've been struggling to update the blog on a weekly basis.

This past week we started out Gingerbread Man unit. We have been reading lots of different versions of the "Gingerbread Man" and talking about how each book is the same or different from the others we've read. The kids really like picking up on the differences!

We even made our own "gingerbread man" stories which went home this week. The childred chose a person, animal, monster, etc. that their gingerbread man would run away from and then drew an accompanying picture. Their ideas were hysterical and their pictures were phenomenal!

Here's some examples of who the gingerbread man was running away from...
a monster
an alien
a fox
a pig
a cow
a robot

someone even said ... "me!" which I thought was quite clever!

We also played a gingerbread man themed dice game which the students have been playing for a couple of weeks. It's great to see them starting to yell out the number on the dice without even having to count the dots (that's what we want to see!). Students had to roll the dice, count the dots, then place the correct number of chips onto the corresponding number of gingerbread men. It's a game the kids really enjoy!

We made a little surprise for our families this week during our art project time. The kids are very excited to give you a present this coming week!

We also constructed paper gingerbread houses this week. Kids had a blast gluing on sequins, buttons, pom poms, and painting white snow. It got us thinking about making our real gingerbread houses next week!

Next week we will read a wonderful book by Jan Brett called "The Gingerbread Baby". I have lots of characters printed from the book, so we will have fun acting out the book as we read!

Miss Molly's last day will be Tuesday, December 17th.
December 20th will be my last day with the kiddos and as you come back from vacation, Miss Kate and Miss Mary will be ready to lead our class!

Thanks for reading!
Aleshia Reid

Week of Nov. 3 - Nov. 6

Hi Preschool Family and Friends,

It's been a while! I apologize for the delay in getting something posted here!

Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking about Halloween, Pumpkins, and completing assessments for the fall.

Recent activities include, Pumpkin Seed Counting Books (morning students counted up to five with pumpkin seeds and afternoon students counted up to ten!), self portraits (which I will keep a copy of and send the original home soon), knuckle painting pumpkin patches (afternoon students used their knuckles and orange, brown, and green paint to create their very own pumpkin patch on paper - on display in the classroom!)

Our most recent week at school was spent talking about blocks and shapes. We've been talking about the shapes, circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. We've been counting their sides, using their names in many activities, and even chanting a shape poem at circle.

I'm Suzy Circle! I'm happy as can be.
I go round and round. Can you draw me?

I'm Tommy Triangle. Look at me!
Count my sides ... 1,2,3!

Rickety Rectangle is my name.
My four sides are not the same.
2 are short and 2 are long.
Count my sides, come right along... 1, 2, 3, 4!

Sammy Square is my name.
My four sides are all the same.
Turn me around, I don't care.
I'm always the same, I'm sammy square!

During group time we looked at pictures of block structures and tried to recreate them ourselves. We also sorted blocks according to their shapes. We worked on learning our first names by peicing together name puzzles, then practicing writing our names with paper and pencil.

Get ready to hear some rhymes at home! This week we will focus on one rhyming book and we will do many activities surrounding the book and rhyming! Did you know that rhyming is a very important skill for preschoolers to learn because it will help them to become better readers in Kindergarten and First Grade! I'm excited to lay the foundation in a fun and engaging way. Stay tuned!

Enjoy a random group of pictures from the last couple of weeks below!

Mrs. Reid

Some

Week of October 14-18

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Hello Everyone!

This week was a very busy week in our classroom! We are still learning about Fall and this week we talked about pumpkins!

During circle time the children enjoyed learning our new poem about pumpkins:

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said,"Oh my it's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are witches in the air."
The third one said, "But we don't care."
The fourth one said, "Let's run, let's run!"
The fifth one said, "Isn't Halloween fun?"
Then Wooooooooooooo went the wind.
And OUT went the lights.
And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

When we learned this poem we used our fingers to show the ordinal numbers 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Our book this week was Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert
Here is a link to the book with some activies you may want to do with your child at home.

http://www.harcourtbooks.com/leafman/

After reading this beautifully illustrated book about a whimsical leaf man who travels wherever the wind blows, we went outside and collected leaves, acorns and other fall items so that the children could create their very own leaf men and women!

Another fun activity during grouptime this week was painting and decorating paperbag pumpkins.The children can't stop looking at their pumpkins and they add a spooky cheeriness to the classroom!

For our art project this week the children made SPOOKY SPIDERS with googly eyes. We talked about how real spiders have eight legs. Each child was asked to count out eight legs for their spiders. The spiders came out really cute and they now adorn our classroom wall!

Our writing center had many visitors this week! Joey's parents donated Halloween paper and Halloween pens and the children really LOVED them.

Fall and Apples - Sept. 30 - Oct. 3

Hey Everyone!

We had a marvelous time this week learning about Fall and apples.

For circle this week, we sang a new song about an apple farmer. It goes like this:

Was a farmer, had a tree
with apples big and red
A-P-P-L-E, A-P-P-L-E, A-P-P-L-E
apples big and red

We stuck the letters for this song in our pocket chart so we could point to them as we sing.

In Group

Time we worked on an apple tree counting game, which helped us quanitify up to five. Each apple tree had a number 1-5 on it and we counted out the corresponding number of apples and placed them on a tree.

We also worked on the first letter of our name by using playdough with letter mats. Preschoolers learned how to roll the dough into little snakes and place them on a letter mat. We used the first letter of our name first, then chose other letters that we were interested in.

We played another counting game which was actually a math story. It went like this:

The squirrel gathered 7 acorns.
He dropped 3.
How many acorns did he have left?

We changed the number 3 to represent many different amounts that the squirrel could drop. We had little acorn pictures which we could move about inside a pocket chart to make for easy counting! I kept telling preschoolers that this is the type of game kindergarteners play! They were quite proud to be playing such an advanced game. For some students this helped with counting, and for others, it helped them to be able to look at a group of objects and rattle off how many in the group there was without even counting. It fit all levels and each child got just what they needed from the lesson.

Brown pain, brown paint and more brown paint was used during Group Time to paint our hallway tree trunks. These tree trunks will stay for the year and change with the seasons. Right now there is one family tree for the AM class and one family tree for the PM class. They are currently displaying fall colored leaves. I wonder what we do with our trees in the winter? Stay tuned!

We tried a new approach to choice time. I am usually a "all areas are open" kind of gal, however I noticed that so many preschoolers are choosing the same choice spot over and over again. I want to develop our skills in all areas and open some new doors. So, this is what we tried. We only opened four centers in the room for the week. They were, Block Area, Art Center, Writing Center, and Math Manipulatives. I was so pleasantly surprised by the amount of constructive play that took place! Usually the Block Area is overrun with the boys in the classroom, but this week, many girls were busily building in block area and soaking up some of the wonderful skills learned in that area of the room. I think we will continue with this new system and see what else develops as a result. Next week, we will choose different centers to have open for the week.

Preschool screening will take place on October 15th, 16th, and 17th at Sunderland Elementary School.
Preschool screening is a time when students are taken out of the classroom to be assessed in the following areas: Large Motor, Fine Motor, Counting, Color Recognition, Other Academic Areas, and Speech. The goal of preschool screening is to find any preschooler needing additional support and to better guide our instruction of each student. I will be out of the classroom on those days as I run a portion of the screening.

Miss Kate is currently working in another area of the building. She will be returning to our classroom, however we are unsure when that will be. In the meantime, parent to teacher communication is always welcomed should your preschooler have any questions or concerns about Kate being out. I know sometimes having a substitute can be difficult on little ones, so please let me know if that seems to be the case in your home. Also, the week of preschool screenings may be particularly difficult as both myself and Kate will be out of the room and their will be two substitutes present. Thanks in advance for your help and understanding as we roll with the punches!

I'm looking forward to continuing our Fall unit next week.

Thanks,
Mrs. Reid