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".

 We had colored rice in the sensory table this week.

 Trying out our new name pages.

 Working on the snowman beginning sound pages during small group.

 At this small group, student counted out stars to match the numbers printed on the mittens.

 Science Friday! Checking out the snow before and after it melted.

 A table full of artists! Working hard at center time.

Welcome Back!

We're back! Our preschool fun is back in full force after a long winter break. The kids were so excited to be back in school and so were the teachers. Last week was kind of a crazy one with only a few days of school because of the bitter cold. We still had time to fit lots of great stuff in! Now that we are in the second half of our school year, we are focusing even more on getting the students ready for another year of preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten next year (even though I tell them all that I love them too much to let them go ;). So we are stepping up our work with numbers, letters, etc. We added a new activity to our carpet time: a morning/afternoon message. Each day there will be a message written on the board for the class to look at and read together. In these messages, we will talk about how each letter has a sound and we we put those sounds together they make words. Those words then make sentences. We have also introduced punctuation (.!?) and capital letters only at the beginning of a sentence. It sounds like a big jump but it has been amazing how fast they have been catching on. They have searched for the three main punctuation marks in books and even in our hallways. It's fun to see how excited they get when they spot them. The period is still commonly known as "the little dot" to them, but we'll keep working on the real word for it! We're also working hard are practicing all the letters and the sounds that they make. We have a new Dr. Jean song that we're singing to help us with that. It's called "Alphardy" (it's to the tune of Jeopardy). These preschoolers are learning more and more each day!

For our small groups last week we had three new fun groups. The first group was an alphabet fishing game. The students used a magnetic fishing pole to "catch" some letter magnets. It was a great way to work on identifying letters and the sounds they make by playing a fun game. I love when they don't even know that they are learning! Our second group was a craft project to help decorate our room for this winter season. They created a snowman head by only tearing pieces of paper. It was a great fine motor activity for their small little hands and each snowman looks unique which I LOVE! Our last group was the students favorite one. They got to play with shaving cream on the table. They each got a big blob of shaving cream to spread around all over the table and play with. After a few minutes of playing, we moved on to practicing their name in it, as well as some letter and numbers. I apologize to my first guinea pig group who did not wear a paint shirt. While I'm sure they smelled great, they went home quite covered in shaving cream! Whoops!

The student just loved being back with their friends. They jumped right back in where they left off a couple weeks ago. We added some new toys and games around the room and added colored rice to our sensory table. They love when we get new things around the room! We worked on our letter Jj and the number 9. We also read some great books about snow and winter. When the weather isn't frigidly cold, we will always plan to head outside so it's very helpful when the kids have their snow pants, boots, and gloves! They are getting faster at getting everything on and all bundled up. Our gym and library schedules will remain the same. Morning class: gym-Thursdays & library-Tuesdays. Afternoon class: gym-Tuesdays & library-Friday. We are looking forward to continuing our fun in preschool!!

December 9-13

It was another great week in preschool! There's was lots to do and never enough time. We worked on our letter of the week Ss and measuring. We have touched on measuring several times, but this time we measured with something new...ourselves! I had the students lay on their back and we measured how many preschools wide our classroom was. We talked about how when we measure, we start on one end and each of them needed to be lined up and touching so we could get the right number. They really enjoyed that activity! Our elf has also been up to some fun. We have spotted him on top of the Christmas tree, painting on the counter, and sleeping in a kleenex box. He even left us some homework one day! Who knows where he'll be this week!

For our small groups we focused on three different areas: letters in their name, counting/making number sets, and cutting. For the name practice activity, the students had to search for the letters in their name to form a tree. It was a great activity for them to find the letters and then place them in the correct order. Our counting activity was placing ornaments (m&m's) on a Christmas tree. Each tree had a number on it and the students had to match the number of ornaments to that number. The last group put their cutting skills to the test. They each had to cut out two candy cane shapes and paint them. The curves in the candy cane were quite challenging but we were amazed at how great they each did! Their hard work and practice is definitely paying off!

We had lots of little projects to work on this past week. Some we can't tell you about yet ;) We've also been busy practicing for our program on Tuesday. We hope that you all can join us! It will be a busy week preparing for the program, finishing projects, and just enjoying this holiday season! We plan to unwind from the craziness with a fun pajama and movie day on Friday! It will be a nice way to celebrate all their hard work and relax before our break begins.

 Measuring the classroom

 Measuring the carpet

 The afternoon class was able to walk through the lunch room to see the 2nd graders working on their gingerbread houses. It was fun to see them hard at work.

December is Here!

Could it be? Is December already here?! Time is going fast but this month has already been off to a fun start! Our classroom was full of holiday cheer last week. Our classroom now has some lights, a tree, and as of Friday...an elf on the shelf!!! I hear there are many elves at home, too. Our elf left us a note saying that he is the cousin to those elves ;) It's fun to see how excited they get about it and I'm sure you'll hear all about him the next couple weeks.

Last week we worked on the letter Cc and measuring. The theme for many of our activities was gingerbread! We read lots of books about the gingerbread bear, cowboy, and even gingerbread pirates. Our dramatic play center turned into a gingerbread house. Inside, the students got to play with gingerbread playdough and use cookie cutters and cookie sheets to make cookies. They loved it! And I think we will be finding pieces of playdough for weeks to come.  Our sensory table will filled with gingerbread cookie mix as many of you probably found evidence of. Sorry for the extra powder-filled clothing that many of them came home with! For our small groups, the students measured objects with gingerbread men cutouts, did a gingerbread man sequencing activity, and worked on a listening activity with coloring. They had to listen to the directions on what color of crayon to use on their coloring page. They all did a wonderful job with it and used their "listening ears" very well! To keep the holiday spirit going, our science Friday was an experiment with candy canes. The placed a small candy cane into different liquids: water, lemon juice, Mt. Dew, rubbing alcohol, baby oil, and vinegar. We talked about our new science word, dissolve, and watched to see what would happen. By the end of each class, the candy canes in the water, lemon juice, Mt. Dew, and vinegar had completely dissolved. The candy canes in the baby oil and rubbing alcohol were unchanged. I left them there over the weekend so we will see what we find with those this week!

We have lots of exciting things to cram into the next two weeks. We will be making some more holiday crafts and activities and begin to prepare for our preschool holiday program. The program will be on Dec. 17th for both sections and we will get some more information out to you soon! We will continue on with our letter and numbers of the week with letter Ss and #7/8. Hopefully we get some slightly warmer temperatures this week so we can go outside and enjoy the snow! If you could send along snow pants and boots with your student, that would be great! That ensures that if we do get to go outside, they can go out and have fun in the snow! And a reminder that if we run into any 2 hr delay days, the morning class will not come in for preschool that day. The afternoon class will go on as usual. Hopefully we don't have to worry about that too many times this winter! Stay warm!

 Measuring with gingerbread men

 Gingerbread sequencing activity

Making some "cookies" in the dramatic play center 

 Gingerbread cookie mix in the sensory table

 Our listening activity coloring page at small groups

 Science Friday with our candy cane experiment

The morning class named our elf "Cheekies

 The afternoon class named the elf "Mr. Twinkle Toes"

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We were busy in preschool preparing for it the past week and a half. We made some fun turkey crafts and talked about what we were thankful for. We also studied the letter Tt which worked out perfectly for turkey and Thanksgiving. We have talked about how when a t and h are together, they sound different than the regular t sound. We get lots of practice with that at calendar time (Tuesday & Thursday). For small groups last week, we made some fun coffee filter turkeys, a "Where is Turkey" book, and practiced writing out names again. It is SO exciting to see so much improvement in their names. They are definitely working hard! For "Science Friday" we made duck calls. Some of you may have been lucky enough to hear them try it out at home and others may not have. It was hard!! Even Miss Stacey had a difficult time making the duck sound with the straw. We talked about how it is vibrations that make the duck noise.

The highlights of the short little week we had this week were acting out a squirrel poem that I read and having a little fall party yesterday. I introduced the poem about the "Five Little Squirrels" using felt squirrels on a felt board. After we tried that out, we let the students pretend to be the squirrels. They thought it was pretty funny and loved it! Yesterday (Tuesday), we have a fun little fall party and did three fun small groups. The first group was making a pattern headband. We talk about patterns frequently in preschool so it was their turn to try to make their own on the headbands. Our second group made pumpkin pie in a cup. Each student got to smash a graham cracker in a baggie and pour it in a cup. They then spooned in some pumpkin pie pudding and some cool whip. Our own little pumpkin pies! Most of them gobbled them all up. It was a definite hit! Our last fun group was making the potato turkeys. They sure got a laugh out of me telling them that we were going to turn the potato into a turkey and that they could bring them home. We thought they turned out so cute!

I cannot believe it will be December next week. We have lots fun things planned for the three weeks before winter break. One big thing to mention is that preschool will be having a holiday program on Tuesday, December 17th. It will be a short little program in the gym towards the end of each preschool class session (10:30 am & 2:40 pm). We hope that everyone can join us for that! Another special day that we will have is another pajama and movie day on the last day before winter break (Dec. 20). Lots of fun things ahead!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Miss Stacey

 Orbeez (water beads) in the sensory table

 "Where is Turkey" book

 Practicing our duck calls

 Acting out "Five Little Squirrels"

 Making pumpkin pie in a cup