Monday, September 9, 2013

First Week Fun!

What a great first week in P4J!  We spent most of the week learning about one another, the classroom, and the rules at school.  All of the kids are doing a GREAT job following the rules, adapting to school life, and making new friends.

A large part of our day is spent at station activities.  Students rotate through three activities each day.  Right now it takes us two days to complete a full rotation, but as the school year progresses and attention spans increase, we will work up to completing a rotation every day. 

Last week, our stations were crayon-resist watercolors, putting stickers on the first letter of our name, puzzles, and rainbow tracing our names. 

At the watercolor station, students learned how to correctly use watercolors.  We talked about how to clean our paint brush each time we change colors.  Prior to the activity, I wrote each child's name in white crayon on their paper, so it was fun so see each name "magically" appear when painted over with watercolors!







Students worked on making their first letter with stickers.  Not only is this a great letter recognition activity, but peeling stickers helps strengthen the muscles in our fingers and hands (fine motor skills).


 Students also worked hard practicing how to write their names.  Each student traced over their name with each color of the rainbow.   In P4J, we learn how to write our names in uppercase letters first, and then as students become ready, move on to printing in upper and lowercase.


We opened up our puzzle center this week!  Puzzles are great for learning problem-solving skills, matching, and persistence.  Students learned how to take a puzzle from the shelf, ask for help putting it together if necessary, and how to put it back in the correct place.  Puzzles are always a choice during free play time and they are frequently a "must-do" during stations.


 Miss Charlette (pictured above) is completing her practicum experience with us this fall!  She spent last spring in my classroom as well and is going to be a FANTASTIC teacher someday!  She is in our classroom every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning.



Students also learned how to use the block center and art center this week.  During free play, students have the option to choose one of many different centers in our classroom to work and play independently.


 The art center is always a popular place to play and create!  Watch for many masterpieces to come home this year :)

We even like to do art outside!  One of the students made a robot using sidewalk chalk outside.

This week, we will be learning "All About Me!".  We will talk about ways that we are all alike and different. We are focusing on name recognition and spelling, writing our names, and learning each other's names.  Each week we will focus on a color and/or shape.  This week, we are learning about RED.  Don't forget to send a red item to school with your child on Wednesday for sharing time!

Upcoming Events:

Friday, September 13 - Scholastic Book Orders Due
Tuesday, September 17 - Picture Day
Thursday & Friday, October 17 & 18 - No School - Conferences


1 comment:

  1. Love the blogs, Miss Katie! Thank you for sharing some of our kiddos' days with us! :)

    ReplyDelete