Friday, December 21, 2012

Ms. Gillian's PM 3's


So here we are at the start of our Christmas break and what a fun few weeks we have had on the lead upto it! 

Firstly we had our fun little Christmas program the kiddos work so hard to learn all their songs , and they all done such a wonderful job on the night :)  It was such a fun night, we even had a visit from Santa to add to the excitement :)



Over the past couple of weeks the excitement in the classroom has been building with Christmas getting closer.  We have been busy working on lots of fun projects including, gingerbread men, Christmas trees, Santas, snowflakes, ruldolfs, christmas wreaths ...  With art and crafts being a favourite with the preschoolers in the forest room they all had so much fun making their masterpieces. 





We also had fun making gingerbread houses and men out of our 'gingerbread scented' play dough.  As well as making fun little gifts for moms and dads which were all made with a whole lot of love :)



 

 On our last two days at school we had our Christmas 'pajama' parties.  It was the sweetest thing seeing all the preschooler come to school in their cute little pjs. I even got to wear mine - if only we could do that everyday!!! :)   We had a fun time making christmas crackers and frosting some yummy Christmas trees. Along with a whole lot of dancing and singing to all our christmas songs.


We are looking forward to more fun and learning with our precious little preschoolers in the New Year, but until then we wish you all a very Merry Christmas :)

 Ms. Gillian, Ms. Laree and Ms. Debbie




Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Mrs. Nettie's Pre-K Afternoon Class

 Well it's here... The holidays are approaching quickly and we are so excited to prepare for that special day. We have had a visitor join us this month called "Snowflake". He is our little invisible elf that takes note of our behavior and has been very pleased to see that we are all doing AWESOME :o) We also discovered that Christmas is not the only holiday in December. The children have learned that Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are also holidays celebrated in the month of December. 




Along with holiday preparation we have been working hard on letter identification and letter sounds.  The children enjoyed creating their own ladybug which represented the letter "L". Our Lovely Ladybugs helped us introduce describing words such as: spotted, big, dotted, red, pretty, aphid eating etc... We learned that a lady bug has six legs which is different then a spider with eight legs. 



We use many fun activities to continue review of all the letters we learned. 





Along with printing practice the children created a pattern in the form of the letter "M" using dot paint and stickers. 


Meet "Missy Mouse" one of the characters from Zoo-Phonics. The children had a wonderful time inventing Missy Mouse out of the letter "M". The funniest part of this activity was when I showed the class the example and asked, "guess what we are making today?" One little student got so excited and shouted out, "a chinchilla." So Mrs. Lisa pulled up a picture of a chinchilla and it looked very similar to Missy Mouse. We learned a new word that day :o)






Congratulations to all of Totspot Preschool doing an AMAZING job on  the Christmas program. The children sang with such excitement and expression. It was a beautiful performance!



Monday, December 10, 2012

Jungle Room Pre-K AM is working hard!

What a fun couple of week's it's been!  We are working hard and playing hard too!  We have done so many fun things!  We have had our Thanksgiving Feast and studied J, K, L and are currently working on M's special week!  Below are some pictures of just a few things we really enjoyed! 
Thanksgiving Feast!

Making Orange and Grape Juice!
Thanksgiving Feast!
Thanksgiving Feast!!!

Kitchen Science:  Mixing flour and water to make Dough Balls!
More Dough Balls!

Lollipop makers!
Throughout all the weeks, our Show-n-Tell days have been the greatest!  Each Thursday and Friday each child gets to bring in an item that starts with our Special Letter of the week and each week they impress me more and more by the things they find that coordinate with our letter!   They have the ability to brainstorm many, many words that belong with the letter of the week!  I hope they are doing that at home, because they are so rocking the alphabet!!! 
 Tonight we are having our annual Christmas Program!  We have been really working hard this year, singing our songs at least once a day!  I can't wait to hear their sweet voices tonight! Good luck my Awesome Preschoolers!!!


Thursday, December 6, 2012

Ms. Dessie's Classes Love Learning!

            Ms. Dessie's PM Pre-K Classes:

We have been busy working our way through the letters of the alphabet this year and this week we have made it half-way, we got to the lovely letter L!  Ladybugs, lions and lemons were are featured guests this L week.

Ask your child about the four stages of the ladybug life cycle (egg, larva, pupa and adult ladybug) and what symmetrical means (the same on both sides- like in ladybug wings).  I think you  
will be impressed.

They also learned a lesson from the story,"The Lion and the Mouse."  Have them retell that story. We talked about telling a story with just using words and picturing it in our minds and then we also spoke about telling a story with just using pictures and making up our own words.  A very good exercise to being good future readers.

Then we  learned when life gives you lemons....make lemonade!  They had fun trying to

find the right balance between the water, lemon juice and sugar and actually loved drinking their creation.

Besides the L focus, we have been moving right along on learning how to write our capital letters and our numbers.  A, 8 and 9 were this week. With the number 8,  we discussed about going around the race track, starting and finishing in the same place and not picking up our pencil.  It takes lots of practice to get that number.

                          We love learning and look forward to more!

Friday, November 30, 2012

Ms. Gillian's PM 3s





We continue to learn through lots of fun and laughter in the Forest room. 
This week we have working on our "Winter unit". 
 
Looking for treasures in ice - using warm water and droppers to melt the ice to find the treasures :)
The kiddos started off the week playing in our "snow" .  They had fun using the cars as snow ploughs and the preschoolers loved seeing the tyre marks in the "snow".  They also enjoyed covering animals and talking about which animals like the snow and which ones liked the sun :)
  

We were also busy painting with ice, making fun little snowmen, gluing little Christmas tree ornament snowflakes.  Arts and crafts is still a favorite with most of our preschoolers.  They love getting creative with all sorts of materials. The messier the better :)     
The favourite part of the week had to be when we made it 'snow' in our classroom!  We were all wrapped up in scarves and gloves, then after our 'snowstorm' we had a little cup of warm cocoa to warm up (just as we would on a cold winters day).  The preschoolers also tried some yummy shaved ice this week.  We also went ice skating around the classroom in our socks. 
In math the kiddos counted out the number of marshmallows needed for each cup of cocoa to match up with the number written next to each cup.
 
 
All in all we had a super fun week
 
Finally we have also been practising hard for our Christmas concert which we are all very excited about.  I'm sure each and every one of our little preschoolers will perform like little superstars :)

 
 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Mrs. Nettie's Pre-K Afternoon Class



Traveling through a fun field trip at Fry's Foodstore and learning about healthy food choices. The children enjoyed some yummy samples and had the opportunity to check out some items as a cashier. 








Happy Halloween!!! The children had a wonderful celebration in class enjoying festive activities and yummy treats. I really enjoyed seeing all the kiddos dressed in their costume and they were excited to see Mrs. Lisa and I dressed up as well. We ended the day with personalized trick-or-treat bags and the children were so anxious to pass out their favorite candy and fill some bags to take home :o)




As we approach Thanksgiving we have enjoyed learning some poems to add to our collection. Tom, Tom Turkey and Mr. Turkey are a few of our favorites to recite. The children participated in some fun projects to get us prepared for the holidays. We have sampled homemade bread and made our own butter using whipping cream. We also created a turkey cookie and will do a taste test of some popular Thanksgiving pies at our Thanksgiving Feast. We can't have a holiday without capturing our hand prints for a keepsake. So turkey hand print plates will be arriving home at your dinner table just in time for the feast. 

Have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving from Mrs. Nettie, Mrs. Lisa and the Pre-K afternoon class :o)

Wednesday, November 14, 2012



Ms. Gretchen’s
Under the Sea Class

Our Fall Festival was so much fun, it was good to see our class enjoying the evening.  Last week the kids enjoyed learning about teeth and how important they are to our health. They learned how brushing morning and night, flossing and eating healthy food would help them grow healthy and strong with a beautiful smile! I hope they have been following all the important brushing rules we learned.






This week we are learning about insects. We will have live crickets to look at in the class and a few to look
at with our magnifying glasses . We will be learning the different body parts and how important insects are in our world. One of their favorite parts of this unit is the interesting size of ants throughout the world, it is very fascinating to them.
The kids are working hard on their Christmas songs, they will be performing for you at our Christmas

program in December, more info on this wonderful production soon.  We have our countdown to our Thanksgiving Feast the kids are super excited for this event.We have been learning about Thanksgiving every day for the past week and hope to make our feast something they can really enjoy and appreciate the meaning of Thanksgiving.
Our hearts go out to Miss Dessie today.  Her husband passed away last night.  She and her family are in our thoughts and prayers and we look forward to her return when she is ready.  In the mean time a big thanks to Miss Melissa for stepping in and teaching while Miss Dessie is away.  We have such a wonderful staff here at TotSpot!  

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Here we Go!

Exploring the Pumpkin's insides!
The Jungle Room is Jumpin!  We are always doing something fun in the Pre-K class!  Our Halloween Celebrations were so much fun! We all dressed in costume and played spooky games during our party!  It was so great that our letter of the week -H- fell exactly where it needed to for Halloween!

Spooky Twister!
After our Halloween fun was over, we had a special guest visit our classroom!  Rosie. the Little Red Hen came and joined in our learning  after Halloween!  All the students just fell in love with her!  They loved the sounds she made and enjoyed watching her eat grapes.  She even laid an egg in the afternoon Pre-K class!  What an amazing H week!

Rosie, the Little Red Hen
KISS THE PIG
Our Fall Festival was a HUGE SUCCESS!  After all was added up, I was the lucky teacher to got to KISS THE PIG!  Check out the picture to see how much fun it was!  We raised a ton of money for Juvenile Diabetes!  It's all because we have the BEST PARENTS EVER!  Thank you so much for all that you guys do to help us!  We couldn't do it without you!   

This week we are working hard on our letter of the week -J!  Jerry Jellyfish is our Star of the Week and we are planning on doing all of his favorite things such as making juice and studying jellyfish, among other things.  We can't wait to keep it up through the rest of the year!
Making Juice!