March 31 - April 3

Wow, it is great to be back! I am enjoying reconnecting with each of the children and our wonderful families. Being away from Lucy hasn't been easy, but your kiddos fill my days with plenty of smiles and a fast pace that keeps me busy. I love it!

This week we spent time talking about transportation. I was reminded quickly of how fast our week flies by!

We sang a transportation song at circle (to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star):
Take a bus
or take a train
take a boat
or take a plane
take a taxi
take a car
maybe near or maybe far
take a rocket to the moon
but be sure to come back soon

During group time, we took a little field trip to the gymnasium to play "What time is it Mrs. Fox?" but we put a new spin on the old game. Usually children get to stomp out the time I give (3 o'clock = 3 steps), however this week we started stomping out words in sentences. This is an important skill to learn for early reading success.

We also worked on our pencil grip. The phrase "SUPER GRIP" was spontaneously coined during our work time! I told the children their super grip (which is a proper pencil grip) is like a superhero who helps them write and draw. Little did I know "super grip" would stick and since, we have heard kids yelling it from the writing center. AWESOME!!!!!

Lastly, we worked on filling in a transportation coloring sheet. Students wrote about where they would go and how they would get there, then drew a picture using simple shapes to represent their ideas.

On Thursday, we drove hot wheels through paint then made tracks on white paper. This is one of my favorite art projects. It's so simple but adds life to the walls of our classroom.

Next week we are catching up on a few concepts. We will be working on counting, patterns, and letter formation. We will be talking about the letter T and it's sound in case you'd like to practice during those car rides!

Mrs. Reid

Greetings from Preschool!

This week our theme was Leo Lionni and we got to read "Inch by Inch," "Nicholas Where Are You?" "A Color of His Own" and "Swimmy."

We paired up some fun hands-on activities with our author study, measuring items around the classroom with our own pipe cleaner inchworms, exploring colors with wax paper chameleons and using teamwork to make a giant fingerprint fish with Swimmy as the eye (AM Class.)

Preschoolers played a fish counting dice game this week for Math time and we got to take over the gym on Monday for some trampoline bouncing, balancing and "What Time is It Mr. Fox?"

Our poem at Circle Time this week was a Shape Poem that we had learned in the Fall and it goes like this:

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 4 sides are not the same. Two are short and two are long
Count with me, sing right along! 1-2-3-4
Sammy Square is my name. My 4 sides are all the same. Turn me around. I don't care I'm always the same, I'm Sammy Square!

It has been a great three month run working with Miss Amanda (who promised she will come back and visit!) and we are excited for Mrs. Reid to be back on Monday!

Have a great weekend!

-Miss Kate

Community Helpers Part 2: Our week of March 17-21

Happy Spring!

Knowing New England weather we will probably need snow pants again before the flowers come up, but we are still feeling excited here in Preschool!

This week we continued our Community Helper unit. Our block area became a Construction zone, complete with signs and hard hats, heavy lifting and activity.

Preschoolers got to dig around for magnets in the sensory table, and there was lots of activity in the Writing Center Post Office.

For group time we played Community Helper games that involved counting and sorting, played Fire Truck Bingo to practice identifying numbers 1-10 and worked on our creativity and cutting skills by making our own menus!

The AM class explored Art out of recyclable materials this week, making pirate ships, factories and towers, and the PM class worked as X-Ray technicians to make their own X-Rays out of black paper and Q-Tips.

We've been playing alot of rhyming and beginning sound games on the rug at meeting so feel free to ask your preschooler to come up with a rhyme or give you a word that starts like...

See you all Monday!

-Miss Kate and Miss Amanda

By the way...


While studying our Five Senses, the AM and PM Preschool each created a group poem (all in their own words) about Winter Senses and so here they are. Consider this a "See ya later" to Winter!

WINTER SENSES
by the AM Preschool

I SEE...snow, snow falls on the ground, snowflakes, birds, snow on the ground

I HEAR...drip drip drop, a bird going toot toot toot, children, birds, Santa Claus

I SMELL...oranges, hot chocolate, dirt, cookies from the oven

I TASTE...snowy snowflakes, icicles, applesauce and lollipops

I TOUCH...snow, soft and crunchy and hard, the bus, ice, digging snow



WINTER SENSES
by the PM Preschool

I SEE...snow, snowballs, snow falling down from the sky, ice, people making snowmen

I HEAR...cracks on the ice, I hear ice too and it goes crack crack crack! Snow falling down. I hear ice when I'm skating kkk-kkk

I SMELL...cooking peppermint patties, ice and when I smell it it makes my nose stuff, candles when they're blown out, gas, when fire cools off it smells good.

I TASTE...snow, ice, food

I TOUCH...cold, smooth, bumpy snow

_-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Community Helpers! Our Week of March 10-14

This week in Preschool we learned alot about different Community Helpers. We read books about garbage collectors, veterinarians, bakers and farmers, played Community Helper Bingo and Miss Jen got to do some guest teaching! Our Dress-Up area became a Vet's Office this week and our Writing Center was transformed into a busy Post Office for postcard and letter writing!

Preschoolers got to practice their dice rolling and counting skills, as well as remembering shapes and colors, with a fun game that highlighted places in the Sunderland Community, like the Town Hall, Post Office, Library and Frontier Pizza to name a few. Kids got to travel along a path, Candyland style, and it was really fun!

The Science Table was a big hit as students got to explore magnets this week. Next week we'll be moving the magnets to our sand table so kids get to dig archaeologist-style!

The PM Class tried out the watercolors that they made with Gus's Mom to make rainbows and it was exciting to use something that we had made ourselves to create some bright springy art!

We'll be studying more about our Community and Community Helpers this coming week and hopefully the weather will warm up so we can have plenty of outside time, too!

Have a great weekend,

-Miss Kate and Miss Amanda

Our Week of March 3rd

This week in Preschool we joined the rest of Sunderland Elementary in celebrating Dr. Seuss's Birthday! We got to read "Green Eggs and Ham" and "The Cat in the Hat" and made our own striped Cat in the Hat hats!

We also invited the principal, Mr. B., into class to read "My Many Colored Days" and "Dr. Seuss's ABC." The kids did a great job listening and got to move around too!

Reading all that Dr. Seuss got us in the mood for some rhyming! We played rhyming games this week in the gym, did some rhyming puzzles and sang "Down by the Bay" where kids got to make up their own rhymes!

Our Math Time this week was also full of games. We got to sort by shape and color, practice some early addition, counting, and number identification with unifix cubes and play a game where preschoolers rolled a dice and scooped rainbow stones.

Have a great weekend!

-Miss Kate and Miss Amanda

Sunderland Preschool Loves Reading!!

February 24-27

Greetings everyone!

Welcome back from our extended February Vacation!

It was nice to have everyone back after a nice little break and the Preschoolers got right back into the groove of things. This week we learned about The Five Senses and learned a song to the tune of "Frere Jacques/ Are You Sleeping Brother John" that goes...

Five Senses, Five Senses
We have them, we have them
Seeing, hearing, smelling
Tasting and touching
We have five, we have five

Reading and talking about the senses got some great conversations going in class and the kids took what they learned, and talked about it independently during the day. Ie. "I'm tasting!" while eating snack and "I'm using my sense of sight!" while playing at the Math Center for Choice Time. It's always great as a teacher to see that kind of enthusiasm. The AM and PM class each wrote their own "Winter Senses" poems as a whole class and these are hanging in our book area if you'd like to take a peek!

For group time we went on shape/color treasure hunts in small bins of rice and students sorted, counted and recorded their findings with crayons. We also used our senses to draw still lifes of fruit bowl with oil pastels, which you can find hanging on the wall in class.

For our Thursday Art Project the AM class created winter scenes with water colors (the kids can tell you how we "woke up the paint" with water) and salt, and the PM class had a special visitor (Gus's Mom!) come in to MAKE our own watercolor paint. Science and art in one!

Have a fabulous weekend and see you next week to celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday...

-Miss Kate

Valentines, Snow Days and Vacations Oh My!

Greetings from Snow Day Number Two!

Another short, action-packed week here at the SES Preschool!

We continued to practice greeting each other at meeting with either a high-five or hand shake, using our words and making eye contact. For calendar jobs we looked at the weather and counted our February calendar as a class. Both the AM and PM are getting to be quite the singers! We sang our "Days of the Week" and "I'm a Little Penguin" songs and also learned a new song about friendship in honor of Valentine's Day. It goes like this:


Make new friends
But keep the old
One is silver and the other is gold
A circle is round, it has no end
That's how long I will be your friend

We'll definitely be adding this to our repertoire and singing it more after February vacation! It was a good opportunity to learn two more words in sign language, too. "Friends" is signed by linking your two pointer fingers and "make" is signed like you're squeezing out a dish towel vertically.

We took advantage of an empty gym to run around on Monday and play syllable "Duck Duck Goose," a Preschool favorite! The kids also got to meet "Mr. Munch," our in-class letter-eating monster. Each student gets a foam upper-case letter and when their letter is called they feed it to Mr. Munch.

"I have a hungry friend
His name is Mr. Munch
And what he likes to do all day
Is gobble up his lunch
He likes the letter ______
And things that start with ________
And when he gets a letter
He eats it munch munch munch
CRUNCH!"

Puppet Show was introduced as a new Choice time center and this was hugely popular. It was really fun to see the kids using their imaginations and playing with friends who they
don't normally spend time with.

Knowing that the Thursday snow storm would probably change our Valentine's/Friendship Celebration in Preschool, we celebrated a little early on Wednesday by making heart shaped melon treats with cookie cutters and going all out with glitter and glue for our Valentine's mailboxes. We'll celebrate some more the Monday after vacation!

Have a fabulous February Vacation and see you Monday the 24th!

-Miss Kate and Miss Amanda