Miss Stacey's Preschool Classroom: January 13-17

We had another great week in preschool! I feel like they have come back from break so ready to soak up all the information that we've been teaching them! All of the new things we've introduced like capital/lowercase letters, punctuation, beginning sounds, etc has not seemed as difficult to them as I had expected. Not everyone is ready for those more difficult skills yet which is JUST FINE for preschool but they can at least get an introduction to them. We will soon be starting small groups based on where each student's skill level is at. This way we can focus more on areas that will help them in their development.

This past week we stayed busy with lots of winter activities and also focused on our sorting skills. Early in the week we played a sorting game where I had sorted the students into groups at the front of the classroom. It was their job to figure out how I sorted them into groups (boys/girls, jeans/sweatpants, etc). They did a GREAT job figuring it out. Later in the week, I let them have a chance to do the sorting of our class and we were amazed at how they did. There was even a couple times it took me awhile to figure out how they sorted their friends into groups, but they made total sense once they explained. They loved that "game" so it might be one we do again soon!

For one of our small groups this week, we introduced a new name practice page. We will now be practicing writing out name the "kindergarten way" using lowercase letters. Many of the students have already been practicing their name this way so it wont be such a big adjustment. They did a wonderful job! Another one of our small groups was practicing numbers and counting out number amounts from 1-15. The last small group was practicing beginning letter sounds. They practiced looking for words (pictures) that started with a certain letter. To finish off the week we had another "Science Friday". This week we decided to see what happens when snow melts. The students were able to go scoop up some snow and put it in a container. Once they each got to add some snow, we brought the container inside to see what would happen. They each drew a picture of what the snow looked like at the beginning and then what it looked like after it melted. We also took a peek inside to see if the melted snow was clean or dirty. They were surprised to see some pieces of dirt in the water. Not exactly what they want to eat!

Upcoming News: I'm sure most of you saw the books orders sent home yesterday. Those will be due on Jan. 24th. Conferences will be coming up again in February. Let me or Gail in the office know if your time from last fall will not work in the spring.

After break we added all new songs to do each day. Here we are doing one called "Listen and Move". It's a perfect song to get us up and moving. In this picture we are "ice skating".