Week of December 3-6

Week of December 3-6

Themes: Hibernation/Winter

Letter: Q

Last week was full of excitement with the Gingerbread Man running away. I want to thank everyone for sending in letters and those who had relatives or family that sent in letters that allowed us to track the Gingerbread Man on the map as well as learn of his many adventures across the country and the world. For those of you haven't heard the Gingerbread Man visited: Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama, North Carolina, California, Korea and he finally ended his journey in the North Pole where he is helping Santa's elves make toys for Christmas. He has promised to return to preschool this school year to visit the children, so don't be surprised if you hear about him later in the school year. 

Next week is going to be a busy week filled with a variety of activities. Tuesday, Dec. 3rd marks the 50th day of preschool, so to celebrate we have created a variety of activities that we participate in with the other preschool classrooms. On that day we will be wearing 50's attire so if you have something at home such as rolled up jeans, white T-shirts, etc. please feel free to wear it that day but please do not go out and purchase something special to wear. We are going to have a sock hop, drink root beer floats, count 50 of a variety of items and make bundles of 50. 

This week we will also be discussing winter and hibernation. We will have "snow" in the sensory table so make sure to ask how it felt and looked. We will be making den's for our very special bears to sleep in over the long, cold winter. For this activity please have your child bring in a brown paper bag or shoe box that will fit a bear or stuffed animal they have at home, we will need that brought in on Monday. We will use these supplies to make the den and then on Thursday please have your child bring in their bear that they will put to sleep for the winter. Your child will then bring home their bear and den on Thursday. We will celebrate this long winter sleep by having a pajama day at school so your child can wear or bring their pajamas and slippers to school that day.

We will also begin discussing how different cultures and country celebrate the holidays. We will start at our Hibernation Celebration with St. Nicholas Day. While the children are wearing their pajamas at school we will place their shoes outside by their lockers where they will receive a gift that will be placed in their shoe from an unexpected visitor, St. Nicholas. We will continue this discussion with a variety of learning activities throughout the next two weeks. 

Again I would like to thank everyone for their help and participation in our Thanksgiving Day Feast. I am including some photos of the Feast.

  I am thankful for such caring, supportive parents and such wonderful children to teach. Thank you for all you do to support your children in their growth and development.

Week of November 26-29

Week of November 26-29

 The Gingerbread Man

Letter: O

Show and Share: November 29 Letter O

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving Break and enjoyed time with their families. I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to our Thanksgiving feast and for participating with your children in our feast. I think a good time was had by all.

This week we will be doing a variety of activities centered around the story of The Gingerbread Man.  We will read the original story of The Gingerbread Man as well as a newer version called The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. We will retell/re-enact The Gingerbread Baby using props and everyone will get a turn to be a character in the story. We are also going to measure using a gingerbread person as our form of measurement, we will measure how tall we are in gingerbread person measurement and compare it to traditional measurement. We will decorate a gingerbread house with fruit loops and then use the fruit loops to do a sorting and graphing activity. We are going to create and decorate our own gingerbread person.

During the week we will play two learning gingerbread games. One is a version of musical chairs in which the children match their gingerbread color to one that is placed on a chair, in this version everyone remains in as they change and match new colors. We will also play Gingerbread BINGO, matching letters that we have learned so far in the school year as a review. We are going to be making a class book entitled "If I Was Made of Gingerbread.." and then the children will choose what they would be and how they would look. When this book is completed look for it to come home with your child when it is their turn.

This week we will be reading the letters we received about the gingerbread man and where he has been spotted. We will be using map skills to find the different locations the letters have come from. Thank you to everyone to sent in letters, wrote letters or had family and friends send in letters. I think this activity will be intriguing for the children and very exciting when we finally find the Gingerbread Man on Thursday. 

On Tuesday the children will be attending a holiday concert that will be performed by the children in older grades.

Our letter this week is letter O so each class will be making their own variation of an owl.

We will be adding two new friends to our morning class, one will start this week and one will start next week. These new friends' names are Myrrah and Maddie, we are excited to welcome them to our class. One of our friends in the a.m. class will be leaving us shortly, Austin and his family are moving to a new house and will no longer be attending our school system. We are sad to see him go but wish him and his family good luck in their new home.    

Week of November 12-15 & November 19, 20

Weeks of November 12-15 & November 19, 20

Theme: My 5 Senses (hearing, seeing, touch)

November 15th Show and Share Letter C

No new letter the week of November 19 & 20.

This week we started exploring the five senses beginning with the sense of taste and smell. We played a smelling game in which the children took turns smelling a variety of items and then looking at pictures to determine the smell. We also read a cute story called "Little Pea," in the story Little Pea has to eat five helpings of his dinner (candy) before he can have dessert which is spinach, a little twist on the traditional theme. The children then had the opportunity to try at least one bite of 8 different foods and then chart whether they liked each food item or they did not like it. I was very proud of the children for at least trying somethings that they thought they may not like. After the tasting activity they were allowed to choose more of those foods for snack or we had alternate snack choices for them.

The a.m. class had the opportunity to attend a school wide assembly that featured an author/illustrator. He demonstrated to the children and allowed them to participate in making animals from numbers and letters. The p.m. class had the opportunity to get together with their Third Grade Buddies in the computer lab and try some preschool games on the computer. In physical education this week the children practiced catching using scarves. They tried a variety of techniques and enjoyed all of them.

This coming week we will be talking about Thanksgiving and the sense of hearing, seeing and touch. We are going to be playing a Listening Lotto game in which the children listen to the sounds and search their card to determine if they have the picture of the items that makes the sound. We are also going to be working on shape patterning which is more practice with patterning. We are going to be making a sensory craft that includes mixing shaving cream and glue to make a cloud and then identifying what they think their cloud looks like, this is to go along with our story "It Looked Like Spilt Milk." Some other stories we are going to be reading are often already some of the children's favorite due to their repeated phrases, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" and "Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?" 

To go along with our Letter of the Week letter see we are going to be making a cookie and a caterpillar craft.

I want to thank my two parent readers this week: Lindsey Hatherill and Diane Havranek. The kids loved having you come in and read to them on the carpet. Next week our parent readers will be Shannon Long in the a.m. and Monica Polcen in the p.m.

On November 19th we are going to be having a preschool feast. The room parents are in charge or contacting you regarding supplies that will be needed for that day. The children will be making dessert to share. All parents are invited to attend the feast, the children will be making formal invitation this week to bring home but so that you can place it on your calendar I wanted to let you know that it will be Monday, November 19th at 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

We do not have school November 21 and 22nd for Thanksgiving Break.

Week of November 5-8, 2012

Week of November 5-8, 2012

Theme: 5 Senses (smell & taste)

Letter: U

 

The Halloween party was fun for the children and successful. We were able to go trick or treating throughout the school building and paraded through several classrooms so that the other grade levels could see the children's costumes. We played a pumpkin beanbag toss game, played a decorate the pumpkin game on the IPad and played Halloween darts. We made a Frankenstein as well as a spider in a spiderweb. We also had the opportunity to carve pumpking. We used a string to measure how round our pumpkins were and then used a yard stick to find out how long our string was. We also estimated the number of seeds that would be inside the pumpkin. The a.m. class had 374 seeds in their pumpkin and the p.m. class had 278 seeds, most of the student guesses were in the 20's, they were amazed when we counted them how many there really were. The a.m. class seemed more adventurous as far as putting their hands inside of the pumpkin the children in the p.m. class were not very excited about how the inside of the pumpkin felt so I had fewer volunteers in that class.

Next week we will begin exploring the 5 senses. We will start with the senses of smell and taste. We are going to read a story called, "Little Pea." In the story Little Pea has to eat his five helping of candy before he can eat his dessert, fruits and vegetables. We will follow the story by exploring the tastes of different fruits and vegetables and charting which ones we liked and which ones we didn't like. We will also be playing a game for the sense of smell. We will have six different smells for the children to smell and they will have to identify the smell from the pictures that are given. 

Next week's letter is the letter U so we are going to explore the concept of under. We are going to go for a U hunt and look for the letter u's that are hidden under things in the classroom. You can play this game at home hiding different objects under things and then having your child find them and identify what they are. We are also going to be talking about animals that hibernate underground and we will make a craft with pictures of animals that live underground.

On Monday we are having an Author Assembly at school in the a.m. so we are going to attend this event with our Third Grade Buddies. In the p.m. we are going to the computer lab with our Third Grade Buddies to play some preschool games. This Wednesday is our first Parent Reader day. If you did not get a November calendar with a scheduled day on it and you volunteered to come in and read don't worry I will be adding you to the next month's calendar.

Just a reminder that school starts at 8:30 and 12:00. It is important that your child arrive on time because we start classroom activities promptly, and this can be very unsettling for your child to arrive in the middle of an activity. If there is a day or time you will be picking your child up from school and they typically ride the bus please be sure to send in a note with your child or send an email. If we do not have the note or email we will assume that they are going home on the bus. I hope everyone who lost power during the storm will have it restored soon so that you may resume your daily routines.