Winter Blues

With all of the crazy cold winter weather and missed school, it feels like we haven't gotten back into our groove.  Hopefully the weather will settle down a bit, not only so we don't miss any more days, but so we can get outside to play in the snow!

Here are a few of the things we've been keeping busy with this month:

We've really been focusing on learning our uppercase letters.  Everyone is doing really well!   

We've been practicing listening for the beginning sounds of words, and also trying to match up phonetic sounds with the appropriate letter. 

Writing uppercase letters is another skill we've been focusing on, and we will continue to do so for the rest of the year.  During this activity, students rolled a die, and wrote the letter that was rolled on a recording sheet.

Since we haven't been able to play outside, we've had extra time to play in our classroom!  This has given us the opportunity to build some pretty cool things!  We've built a rocket ship, dog house, and hot air balloon, and currently we are working on a play house! 

Last week we finished up our winter unit by making polar bears using Oreo cookies.  All of the kids agreed that eating them was the best part!

One day in dramatic play last week, a few of our girls had a pretty serious Doc McStuffins scenario going on.  So fun!

We've been building marble mazes too!  Lots of team work and problem solving skills taking place! 

We also have a ball maze activity where students have to work together to build a maze using tubes and connectors, and then try to predict which hole the ball will exit from.  

 Some of our friends have been very involved in making jewelry in the art center.  Thank you to the families that donated supplies at Christmas time...all of the children have really enjoyed the new materials!

Next we will be learning about Valentine's Day, love, and dental health.  Please keep an eye out for a Valentine's Day party sign-up sheet that will be posted soon!  

We also have a new student teacher who will be working with us beginning next week!  Her name is Miss Tara and she will be in our classroom on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.  

Stay warm!

Gobble, Gobble....It's Thanksgiving!

Whew....Thanksgiving has come and gone and boy were we busy!  

Students have been working hard in the Handwriting Without Tears books.  We've finally finished all of the coloring pages and will be getting started on letter formation soon!  All of that coloring was hard work, but I can really tell the difference in students' fine motor skills!

We played Turkey Roll & Stamp to strengthen our number recognition skills.  Students rolled a die, counted the number of dots, and then stamped the corresponding number on their recording sheet.

We used our iPad to listen to the story, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie and then completed several activities to go along with the book.  Below, students rolled a die with pictures from the story, and graphed how many of each picture was rolled.  Your child should have also brought home an emergent reader that we illustrated and practiced reading in class.  We have been working reading left to right, and pointing to each word as we read.  Even though we aren't actually able to read yet, it is good practice!

Some of the students painted turkeys for our Feast centerpieces.

All week we talked about popcorn, and on Friday, we made some of our very own.  But how does a popcorn kernel turn into white, fluffy popcorn?  Miss Katie brought in her air popper so we could find out.....

Popcorn everywhere!  After we cleaned up the mess, we made a batch to eat :)

We practiced our cutting skills by cutting out feathers to make our Native American headbands.

The feast on Tuesday was the highlight of our unit!  It was so amazing to see all of the families come and spend quality time with their child.

Thank you again to all of the families that donated items for the feast!  We had such a great time!

Pets Week

Our students very much enjoyed learning about pets!  We played many fun games, talked about different kinds of pets, and of course shared about pets that we have at home.

We played pet Go Fish!  Students were dealt five pet-themed cards and had to take turns and ask friends to make a match.  

Feed the Dog was a popular game!  The dog "barked" out a letter, and students had to find the correct letter to feed to the dog.

We sorted animal pictures based on whether or not they would make a good pet.  We decided that zebras do NOT make good pets!

We sorted "pet fish" by their color, and counted how many of each color we had.  We used terms such as more, less, most, and least.  

We sequenced dog bones with the numbers 1-10.  It's tricky putting written numbers in order!

We shared what type of pet we would like best.  Choices were dog, cat, fish, and bird.  Dogs and cats were the two most popular choices.

We were able to bring our favorite stuffed pet from home to share with the class.  And....we were introduced to our very own classroom pets!  Two frogs!

Many of our friends were also busy exploring other areas of the classroom.  We were able to use our classroom iPad to help us learn our letters and letter sounds.  We've been using the Starfall app and Learn with Homer.  Both are great education tools, so if you have an Apple device, check them out!

Some of our friends also discovered the glitter in the art center this week!  It is fun to make glue designs, cover the glue with glitter, and shake it off to see what happens!

Busy, busy bees!

 We have been busy, busy worker bees the last few weeks!  We have had lots of time to explore the classroom while we also worked on fall assessments and our literacy screenings.  

The students love to explore in the art center!  Several different kinds of paints are available for children to use freely every day.  On a typical day, there are many different color mixing experiments taking place that usually end up in the color I like to call "preschool brown".  

Painting on the easel is always a popular choice.  It also help us build strong arm and finger muscles.  

 In the dramatic play center, students are free to act out scenarios and play pretend.  Playing in dramatic play helps students build language skills, learn to interact with other children, and play cooperatively with their friends.

In our science center, students enjoy exploring many different types of materials.  Here, students are exploring the properties of magnets. 

Students love to use the magnifying glass to look closely at different objects in our classroom. 

 We have been exploring corn in the sensory table.  Students are encouraged to talk about the texture of the corn, use the corn to compare the volume of varying containers, and just enjoy the sensory experience.

We recently took our wood blocks out of storage so students have been very excited to get a turn to build with them.  Many of the students enjoy making zoos for the animals.  

Play-doh is always a popular choice.  This month we've been experiencing pumpkin play-doh that smells almost good enough to eat!  Working with play-doh helps strengthen our hands and fingers so that eventually we are strong enough to write!

 

We've also been busy practicing our ball skills.  We practice throwing, kicking, and catching with partners.  Hopefully the weather cooperates so we are able to keep playing outside!

 Finally, we had our classroom Halloween party last week!  A fun time was had by all.  We wrapped one another up in toilet paper like mummies, and then enjoyed throwing it around :)

Thank you to all of the families that brought items for our party.  Everything was delicious and it was a day to remember!