February 24-28

We have officially completed one full with of school with both classes! No one is used to this feeling so I think we were all a little worn out by the end of the week. It was a great week despite our continuing lack of spring weather. We started our new theme of transportation and let me tell you, it has been a HIT! The students have just been loving it and have come up with so many ideas. We made a list of all the kinds of vehicles or ways to get from one place to another and they thought of so many! We also created our own vehicles out of shapes. Look for those outside in the hallway by our room soon. They are so creative! We have also turned our dramatic play center into a highway with cars and car wash to use as well. They have loved using the boxes to drive around and have even added some ideas of their own to this center. They decided to start handing out tickets to speeders! We added a bunch more small cars to our block center to play with and some of the students thought of adding a road in there for the small cars too. Lots of good ideas! Another big attraction has been the addition of a dollhouse in our room. Miss Amy's class was so nice to let us borrow their dollhouse for awhile while they are not using it. That center has now been full ever since! They definitely love when we add new and exciting things to our room.

For small groups this week we worked on lots of writing and drawing (good fine motor practice!). The first group was having the students practice writing their name the "kindergarten way" by using one capital letter and the rest being lowercase. Our second group was called "Write the room" and for this group the students walked around to room and wrote down any words they saw. It was a great activity for the students and the varying levels that they are at. For the last group the students drew a picture. This picture will be a part of a surprise at the end of the year so I can't give away many details ;) Next week we will be working on some small groups based on what the students need to work on to help them at their individual level.

As I mentioned before, we are all getting so tired of the cold weather so we decided to come up with a way to jazz up our indoor recess time. The afternoon class seems to think that inside recess is coolest thing ever! We tried out some Just Dance Kids videos on Youtube and they loved it! They are pretty good too. The teachers could use some extra practice. Anything to get them up and moving on these freezing cold days. Someday spring will come, right?!

We have two more weeks until spring break! Looking ahead, we will continue with transportation this next week and then move on to weather soon. We will be reviewing our numbers this week and focusing on letter Ee. Hopefully that warm up is on the way and we can all get outside and enjoy some fresh air later in the week.

Pictures!

It's been too long again since I've added an update on here so I'll give you a treat. Lots and lots of pictures! Our big highlights the past couple weeks have been acting out the story "The Mitten" with a HUGE mitten made from sheets, our Valentine's Day party, and the bear cave in our dramatic play center. Enjoy some pictures of these exciting things in our preschool room!

We have now moved on to our new theme, transportation! We have some exciting things that will be added to our room while we talk about that. We are currently working on letter Ww and number 14. These teens numbers are tricky and it's been nice for the students to get an introduction to them. They will work on mastering the teens in kindergarten. Our small groups have been focusing a little more on what each student needs at the point in the year so our three groups aren't rotated like they have been in the past. We are all hoping for warmer weather ahead so we can get outside at play more often!

So proud of their sorting work!

Bear cave fun!

 Acting out "The Mitten"

Apparently I wore out the morning class at gym time!

Valentine's Day Party:

February Update

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.

Brrrrr!

What crazy weather we have been having this month! All these cold temperatures and wind are making us all so excited for spring! I think the students are ready for a consistent recess schedule too! Even with the cold, we had a great time in preschool this week. Our big focus this week was rhyming. They loved it! Rhyming can be a confusing skill for some, but the students all did a great job. They continued to keep thinking of rhyming words all week long, even when we weren't necessarily working on it.

Our letter this week was Nn and our number was 10. We have a unique way of talking about our numbers and introducing some skills they will need in kindergarten. To show our numbers we have been using small unifix cubes. So far we have counted out these unifix cubes individually to show the numbers 1-9. We call each cube a "tater tot" and the students think it's so funny. Things got a little more interesting in math this week when we worked on number 10. Now that we have reached #10, the "tater tots" now have connected all together and formed a "french fry" (again, many laughs from the students!). A "french fry" can only have 10 cubes. No more. No less. This is a fun way to introduce students to the ten stick that they will use for years to come. They are very anxious to see what happens with number 11 this coming week. Below is an example of what we have been using. The left would be a "french fry" and the right would be our "tater tots".

For small groups this week, we worked on new skills as well as skills we have already visited. Since we did lots of sorting last week, one of our small groups was one where they could apply all they've learned. We had a big container of buttons of a sizes and shapes. The students were able to sort them into groups however they wanted. Our next small group worked on our new skill of rhyming. We played a game where the students were each given a card with a picture on it. Then Miss Kaye showed the students a game mat with lots of pictures on it. Miss Kaye said the name of one of the pictures and the students had to figure out if their picture card matched the picture that Miss Kaye showed and read. Our last small group was another fun game. This game was called "Roll and Record". The students got an opportunity to work with partners for this dice game. We had a piece of paper with the numbers 1-6 at the bottom and several boxes above those numbers. The students took turns rolling the dice and then writing (or recording) their number in the box above the correct number. They kept playing until one of their numbers "won" and filled up all the boxes. It was a great way for them to practice writing their numbers!

We had another fun "Science Friday" this week! I took advantage of the cold outdoor temperatures and froze some water. To make things even more fun for the kids, I froze the water in some rubber gloves so that our ice would be in the shape of a hand. They loved it! Then we talked what the big snow plow trucks do with it's snowy and icy outside. Many students knew that they drop sand and salt so we decided to see what would happen if we put sand and salt on our frozen hands. They enjoyed seeing the hands start to melt, especially where we placed the ice.

Upcoming events:

Next week we will move on to letter Ii and #11 and begin our topic of hibernation. You should have been given a note about our Valentine's Day party in your students folder. Let me know if you'd like to come join in on the fun or if you'd like to help us with some supplies or treats. Conferences are also right around the corner on February 18, 19, and 20. Stay warm out there!!

 The pictures above show our new preschool ice skating rink! The kids loved it this week! They can skate on the plastic or pretend to sell hot cocoa at the hot cocoa stand.

 This week we put water and dishes in our sensory table. The students had fun washing the dishes with soap.

 Roll and Record small group game

 Button sorting small group

 Rhyming game small group

Science Friday! You can tell from the pictures that they were very entertained watching the salt melt the ice.