Hello everyone! Sorry about not getting a post up this week. We've entered a VERY busy time in preschool with report cards and my assessments due in the next week or two so I'm afraid the blog took a back seat last week. But I'm here now and ready to tell you all about our fun we've had! We have all decided that the groundhog needs to go back into his burrow and try again! We are all ready for spring! It was so fun to see how excited the students got about Groundhog's Day. We watched a video from the big day last year to get ready for it this year. We also made the cute little toliet paper groundhogs that can pop up and down. Such a simple craft that they LOVED!
Along with the Groundhog's Day activities, we have continued talking about hibernation. We have some great books to look at in the room and now have a bear cave in the dramatic play center! You can imagine that they just love that. They have been having a blast playing in there at center time. It's been a popular center so they've worked hard on taking turns and making a sign up sheet to be in line for it. Last week we introduced some problem-solving cards to them to help them solve their issues independently instead of just running to find a teacher. It is amazing how much they can think and do things for themselves. We have been very impressed!
For small groups we have worked on lots of skills that they will need for the future. For one, the students had to cut out a bear and a cave for it to sleep in. It was a great way for them to practice turning the paper to follow the lines. For another group we have an "icicle race" where they tried to connect as many cube blocks together as fast as they could in 30 seconds. Once the time was up they had to count each cube to see how many they had. This was a great way to practice counting with one-to-one correspondence. Our last small group was working on the beginning sound of words. We laid down a few letters at a time and the student each got a picture card and had to figure out which of letters their picture started with. This is a pretty difficult skill for preschool but SO many of them understand it well. They are such a bright bunch that work so hard!
Valentine's Day is almost here! We are looking forward to our party on Friday. Remember, anyone is welcome to join us. The following week will be conference week. That means there will be early outs on Tuesday and Thursday and then no school Friday. It's a sad week for the afternoon class because we will only get to meet once that week. We are also looking forward to getting outside a little more this week. Looks like the weather later in the week will hopefully allow us to do so. Think spring!
Our new science center. The students see if they can put the flashlights back together and make them work.
Students looking at our new problem solving cards during small group time.
Ii is for ice! We did a little experiment and made ice in all different shapes and sizes. Take a look at the pictures below to see our process. The students LOVED it!
Students looking at a video from last Groundhog day.
