More Gingerbread

This week we finished up our gingerbread unit and began talking about all things Christmas.  We began the week by making a pine cone ornament using colorful puff balls. 

We practiced making uppercase letters by first rolling "snakes" from play-doh, and then forming the snakes into letters. 

We worked together with a partner to play a simple board game.  Board games are great for developing counting skills, turn-taking, and social skills.  In this game, we tried to get the gingerbread baby home to his gingerbread house!

We spent more time learning about patterns.  By the end of the year, we want all of the students to be able to copy, extend and create AB patterns.  We have also been working on ABB and ABC patterns for  additional challenge :)

Finally, we finished up the week by making gingerbread houses!  Students enjoyed decorating their houses with lots of candy and took them home to eat.  Thank you to Ayden and Jae for bringing supplies to help us make them!

Don't forget to join us for our Christmas program on Tuesday evening at 6:30.  Please have children to our room by 6:00 so we can get ready.  Light refreshments will be served in the Fellowship Hall following the program. 

Our last book order before Christmas is due Monday.  Any books ordered will be here before Christmas.  We can also "hide" the books for you if you would like to order books for Christmas gifts and give them to you discreetly.  You can order online at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs using class activiation code GXPPV. 

Run, run, as fast as you can.....

You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

We spent all week learning about gingerbread and will continue to read more gingerbread stories this week.  So far we've read The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Girl, and The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers. 

We started the week by playing with some delicious smelling gingerbread play-doh.  Students used cookie cutters to make their own "cookies" for their bakery.  

We practiced sequencing events by putting four pictures from The Gingerbread Man in order and then gluing them to a story board.  After students put the pictures in order, they re-told the story to me.

We used holiday marshmallows to practice graphing.  We rolled a die, and then placed the corresponding marshmallow on the graph in the correct column.  The best part about this activity was eating the marshmallows, of course!

We've also been hard at work in our Handwriting Without Tears books.  So far we've been coloring pictures, really trying hard to stay in the lines and do our best work.  It's hard not to scribble!

On Thursday, we decorated our very own gingerbread cookie!  We were afraid to open the container because we thought the cookies might jump out and run away!  Thankfully, they stuck around so we could eat them!

We've also been hard at work practicing for our Christmas Program which will be held next Tuesday evening at 6:30 PM in the sanctuary.  Children need to be in our classroom by 6:00 so we can get ready.  You definitely won't want to miss the program, so please make sure to attend :)

Finally, PLEASE make sure to send hats and mittens with your child every day.  We had some cold hands last week outside. We do have some extras around the center, but we don't always have enough to go around.  If you need help purchasing winter items, please let me know.   

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had so much fun getting ready for Thanksgiving in P4J over the last two weeks!  I will apologize in advance for the lack of pictures, but my school camera is missing so I wasn't able to take many pictures.  I picked up a new one over the weekend, so more pictures should be coming :)

In our preparation for Thanksgiving, we learned about the first Thanksgiving.  We learned about the Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the Mayflower.  We wrote down what we knew about Thanksgiving, and added to the list as we learned new things.  We talked about what we are thankful for and made a list on our whiteboard. 

In math last week, we worked on copying, extending and creating patterns.  We used Thanksgiving themed pictures to create AB, ABC, and ABB patterns. 

We've been working a great deal on uppercase letter identification and played our "Gobble, gobble" game in small groups.

Finally, we spent time making clay turkeys, our Native American hats for the feast, as well as our feast centerpieces. 

We hope that you enjoyed the feast and THANK YOU to everyone who brought items!  We couldn't have pulled it off without you!

Also, thank you to all of the families that brought items for the food drive!  We collected 505 items and will treat the students to some ice cream later this week :)

If you participated in our fall fundraiser, all items should be ready for pick-up this TUESDAY afternoon, from 3 to 6 PM in the parking lot. 

Community Helpers

We spent this week learning about our community and the people who help us in our community.  On Monday, we tried to think of as many different places in our community as we could.  We came up with quite a list!  We then talked about all of the people that work at those places, and learned that we call those people "community helpers". 

On Tuesday, we talked about bakers and chefs.  We practiced being chefs by making our very own English Muffin pizzas!  We also used construction paper to make pretend food.  On Wednesday, we learned about police officers and had a great discussion about what police officers do.  We played community helper bingo and had to match an oral description of the community helper to the picture of the person.  On Thursday and Friday, we talked about what the children wanted to be when they grow up and children drew a picture of what they wanted to be.  Ideas ranged from "Ninja Turtle" to "Hairdresser" to "Spiderman" and "Teacher".  We have some big dreams in this class :)

In math this week, we worked on using our math vocabulary by playing a block game where students rolled a die, and then used the matching number of blocks to build a tower.  After everyone built their towers, we discussed whose tower was tallest, shortest, had the most blocks, had the least blocks,etc.

We also continued working in our Handwriting without Tears books by working on coloring in the lines using red and green crayons.  It was hard work! 

I forgot to bring my camera to school this week, so I apologize for the lack of pictures!

Don't forget about our upcoming food drive this week!  We are trying to collect 1,000 items of food to donate to a local pantry.  If we succeed, we will treat the kids to an ice cream party!

Our Thanksgiving Feast will be held next Tuesday morning at 9:15.  Please return your RSVPs as soon as possible.  We want each child to have at least one special adult join them for this event.  Thank you!

Halloween Fun!

Busy, busy week in P4J!  We talked about Halloween, spiders, and things we are afraid of.  We had our classroom Halloween Party on Wednesday.  

 

We also began our Handwriting Without Tears workbooks this week.  We've been getting ready for writing by strengthening our hand muscles, and now most of us are ready to go!  We began this week by doing "aim and scribble" activities - just aim for the star, and scribble it in!  This sounds simple, but for young children with limited fine motor capabilities, it can be a huge confidence booster - "hey, I colored in the star!"

 

Whenever we work in our "green books", we encourage students to go slow and take their time to do their best work.  We encourage proper work  habits, such as sitting with our bottom in the chair, feet on the floor.  We use our "helping hand" to hold the page.  We've also been working on proper crayon/pencil grip.  We encourage students to use a "tripod" grip - thumb bent, pointer finger pointing toward the tip of the crayon, with the middle finger supporting the crayon on the bottom.  Also acceptable is the "modified tripod", where both the pointer and middle finger are on top of the crayon, while the ring finger supports the crayon on the bottom. Please encourage proper crayon/pencil grip at home when your child is coloring or writing!

 

We continued to work on our sorting skills this week by sorting different halloween trinkets.  We placed ghosts in one spot, goblins in another, and pumpkins in a third spot. 

We incorporated several 3-D art projects this week as well.  Students made a pumpkin out of clay (what great sculptors they are!) and then painted it after it was dry.  These are currently on display in our classroom.

 

 We also made some glitter pumpkins by painting glue on to a mini pumpkin and then covering it with glitter. Glitter is so much fun!

 

More math - students placed Halloween trinkets on a game board labeled with the numbers 1-6.  They then rolled a die and moved the trinket on the corresponding number up one space.  This is a very simple math game that improves a variety of math skills, such as counting with one-to-one correspondence, dot pattern recognition, number recognition, and it even develops beginning probability understanding!  The kids don't even realize they're learning - they just want to see which toy will win the race!

 Later in the week, we spent a bit of time learning about spiders and discussing things we are afraid of.  The students came up with quite a list!  Each child also drew a picture of something they are afraid of and were helped to write a sentence about what they drew.  These are hanging on the bulletin board in the classroom - take a look if you get a chance!  

We did marble painting to make a spider web.

 

Students also made some fun spider hats on Friday that they were pretty proud of.  

Of course, the highlight of the week was our classroom Halloween party!  We played some fun games, did some Halloween dancing, and a couple of simple craft activities.  

We used toilet paper to wrap each other up like mummies!  Some students were very excited to give it a try, others were happy to watch :)

 And what do you do with six rolls of unrolled toilet paper?  Throw it in the air and dance with it of course!

We also enjoyed all of the yummy treats provided for our party!  A huge THANK YOU to all of the families that signed up and brought items for our party - they were all wonderful!  If  you didn't get a chance to bring something this time, our Christmas Party will be here before we know it :)

A few important things coming up - please don't forget that our fundraiser packets are due on Monday with payment.  Thank you to all of the families that participated!

We are planning a Thanksgiving Feast for Tuesday, November 20 at 9:15 AM. Students may invite two adults to attend with them.  Please return the sheet that was sent home Friday with the names of the adult(s) that will attend with your child.  This is a really fun event for the children and we strive to have a special adult present for every child. 

Finally - save the date - our Christmas Program will be held Tuesday, December 11 at 6:30 PM.  We will begin practicing very soon and we hope everyone will be able to attend.  It is quite the production :)

I hope you have a good weekend and can't wait to see everyone on Monday!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and more Pumpkins!

So much learning went on this week in P4J!  We spent a great deal of time learning about Pumpkins and doing pumpkin-themed activities.  The first task on our list was figuring out what is inside of a pumpkin!  Students made a hypothesis, or a guess, about what was inside and drew a picture of their guess.  Then, we cut the pumpkin open and discovered that there were seeds inside!  And goo!  We then used tweezers to try to separate the seeds from the goo and strengthened our fine motor skills in the process.  Students then glued a few seeds to the bottom half of their drawing to record what was actually inside of the pumpkin.  

Some friends really did not like the way the pumpkin smelled inside!

We also made a fun pumpkin craft using contact paper and tissue paper.  Students pressed squares of orange tissue paper to a piece of sticky contact paper to make a cute pumpkin display for the hallway.

 

We also did our first cooking project of the year this week!  Students made rice crispy treat pumpkins by first counting out 25 mini marshmallows, then adding 1 square of butter and melting it in the microwave.  They then mixed in 1/2 cup of rice crispies and attempted to make a ball with the mixture.  After they made a ball, students were able to use green frosting and gum drop to make the stem and vine.  

The best part of cooking activities - eating what we make!  Cooking projects require students to use their math skills, follow directions, and helps them develop positive self-esteem (I did it!). 

We also worked on our counting skills this week by constructing sets of pumpkins to match a desired number.  Students placed the correct number of little plastic pumpkins on each printed pumpkin on the mat.  This is still a very tricky skill for many students - keep practicing :)

 

We also read several stories about scarecrows this week, including The Little Scarecrow Boy and The Falling Leaves and the Scarecrow.  To tie in with these stories, we made our own scarecrows!  We practiced following directions, as well as our cutting and gluing skills.  They turned out beautifully!

More cutting and gluing practice was had when we made jack-o-lanterns.  Students were provided a black piece of construction paper and an orange piece of paper and instructed to make any kind of jack-o-lantern they wanted.  The results were priceless :)

Finally, we ended the week with a warm day.  It was quite the treat to go out to play without putting our coats on first!  Sadly enough, I think this was the last time that will happen until Spring. 

We also spent a lot of time this week getting ready for conferences.  I really appreciate all of our families taking the time to meet with me and discuss your child's progress.   It really is a pleasure to have each and every one of them in class!