Mrs Gillian's PM 3s

Here we are well into our 3rd week at school and raring to go.  The kiddos are getting comfortable with our routine and feeling ownership over the classroom.  They are all getting to know each other a little better and having lots of fun playing with their new friends. 

This week has been another great success and i feel so lucky to have a class full of little sweethearts so keen to learn and grow everyday.

A favourite friend in our class room is "Radar" our guinea pig - the kids love to go say hello to him and feed him a carrot or two!!!  And sometimes Mrs Laree will take him out for the children to have a little pet of him :)  They can't get enough of him!!





We have been so busy over the last 3 weeks working on our "All About Me" and "My Family" units. All units have a number of centers that the children explore which include Art, Playdoh, Math, Science, Sensory, Drama and Language Arts.   The kids have had so much fun learning all about their new friends and talking about their families.   

We have also started working on our Handwriting Without Tears using the wood pieces (big line, little line, big curve, little curve ) in a number of different ways mainly through songs and games to get the children familiar with the 4 different pieces.  We also meet our Zoo-Phonics friends everyday.  Most of the children are now experts with the letters/sounds A-E excitedly shouting out Allie Alligator, Bubba Bear, Catina Cat... as soon as i hold the pages up quickly afterwards saying the sounds while doing the action - they are little sponges i love it :)

We have also been busy working on name recognition over the past couple of weeks through various fun activities such as sand art and musical chairs (with names on chairs)...



The kiddos have also had soooooo much fun with all our messy art projects such as shaving foam painting, cloud dough, slime, hand printing, gluing...The art activities are definitely a favourite with most of the kids.  Loving to get their hands dirty while having fun and laughter with their friends.

Another favourite over the past couple of weeks is our music time with Mrs Melissa, she is busy teaching us songs for a very special day coming up "Grandparents Day" :)  All the kids love love love this time especially at the end when the big parachute comes out!!!  Thank you Mrs Melissa for visiting our classroom every Monday and Thursday!

 I can feel this year is going to be AMAZING and am looking forward to teaching these precious kiddos every afternoon, they are all so excited to be at school and I'm excited to have them in my class :)

Ms. Nettie's Pre-K afternoon class!

Here we are finishing our 2nd week of preschool and I am so privileged to have such an AMAZING class filled with little minds ready to bloom. 

Our  mornings start out reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. We review that we live in the United States of America and the colors that represent our country are red, white and blue.  I have a classroom of excited smiling faces volunteering to hold the flag with great pride each morning. 

We have all enjoyed getting acquainted over the past 2 weeks and I love hearing about your child's weekend every Monday and Tuesday morning. This gives your child time to adjust to speaking in front of a group and really builds a great rapport between all of us. I hear some great stories and I hope to send some home too :o) Found out that Ms. Lisa, our aide, has fed a beluga whale!

Knowing the classroom expectations is very important to achieve a successful year. We have been going over classroom rules and expectations and a wonderful book that has aided us in understanding this is, "Have you Filled a Bucket Today". This book talks about filling an imaginary bucket with acts of kindness throughout your day. We have created our own little bucket and I will be passing out little hearts called "goodness" when I witness children practicing acts of kindness with each other. I anticipate needing a good stash of  "hearts" for this class as there are so many wonderful, caring children. 

One of my favorite times of the day is "Circle Time". During this time we go over the month, day and year. We also recite the days of the week and months of the year through singing. The children enjoy being actively involved in song while learning "Calendar". We also started our "Guessing Jar" where the children have to guess how many items are in the jar. The children soon discover that there are more of a smaller object and less of a bigger object. We create a "mini story" together and review letter sounds and letter identification. The children enjoy generating sentences for the mini story and love going on a hunt for a letter that needs to be identified. 

Activities during our week include Art, Playdoh, Math, Science, Sensory, Drama and Language Arts. We have enjoyed exploring these areas during centers and I have enjoyed working with your child one on one. I love providing manipulatives that can be explored and then used as a tool for learning. This week we used our colorful gems for sorting and then made an AB pattern with 2 chosen colors. The excitement in their face when they were able to share their pattern was priceless. They also used the gems to make the letter "O" and then search the classroom for objects that began with the letter "O". 
Since we are in the "Ocean" room we needed to learn about my favorite place to relax, the ocean. The children have learned about tide pools, kelp forests, and plants and animals that live in the ocean.  

We end our day with the infamous "Mystery Box". This box will rotate throughout the year. There are 2 boxes going around with our Monday/Wednesday/Friday class and our Tuesday/Thursday class. If you haven't received the "Mystery Box" it will soon make an appearance at your home. All you need to do is pick a "nonliving" item from home to put in the box and write 3 clues to describe what's in the box. It's a fun way for your child to become confident in front of a group. I have to say, the mystery box is the most anticipated part of the day :o) Yes, I did get a live creature in my years of teaching ;o) Thankfully you-tube wasn't around that long ago to see my expression of what was in the box. 

I feel blessed to be apart of this FABULOUS group of students and look forward to building memories filled with Happiness of their preschool experience!

Ms. Dessie's PreK PM  classes are awesome!  We have had a great first few days getting to know each other and learning the school routine.  We took a tour of our Jungle room by going on the Safari jeep and looked at all the animals and the different areas in our room; like the Art, Math, Science, Language Art , Play dough, and Dramatic play area.

We have read some very good books.  One book we read was "Have You Filled a Bucket Today."  We have based our Class Behavior Management on the book.  Ask your child how they can fill their bucket and others' buckets with good things.  If your chid says that their bucket is green that is wonderful behavior.  If their bucket is yellow that means that they need to think and make better choices about filling buckets with good things.  Red means...well...stop a behavior.  I do not think we will have many red colors this year  because we have such great kids that want to do good things.

We love meeting our new "Zoophonic" friends.  We have reviewed A-H this week.  Ask your child what sound and action does Allie Alligator make?  or Bubba Bear?  or a favorite Honey Horse?  We have also introduced our wood pieces for the "Handwriting without Tears" program.  Big line, little line, big curve and little curve will help us learn to write our letters.  Our "Tap, tap, tap" song with our wood pieces is becoming a favorite of everyone.  It will be a classic I feel.  I can not stop singing it in my head!

We loved music with Ms. Melissa and singing about a Moose drinking juice (hilarious song) and doing a freeze dance with our ribbons.  Thank you  Ms. Melissa for the fun!

Look for a blog entry about our PreK Pm classes in Ms.  Dessie room every month.

The First Day of Pre-K AM - Wow!

Wow!  The Pre-K AM classes are rockin'!  Our first day of school has just blown by and we couldn't be happier with them!  We have some great memories from the first day of school, like our classroom safari and giraffe limbo games.  We were able to have music class with Ms. Melissa on Monday and just adored her.  She will be visiting us again on Thursday!  We can't wait!  This week we are getting used to the classroom and how it all works.  We worked at the centers: Art, Playdoh, Math, Science, Sensory, Play and Language Arts and just loved every minute of it.  Tomorrow we will be starting our Handwriting without Tears program by getting used to our wood pieces, calling them by their names:  Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve and Little Curve.  They will be a huge part of our daily schedule!  Make sure to ask your preschooler about them.  This program helps them get comfortable with writing/drawing because it always stays at the  developmentally correct level for these 4 yr. olds.  I just love it!  You will be seeing our work coming home in the next couple of weeks from it. 
This week we are looking at all about school and will be reading, "Have you Filled a Bucket Today?" Our classroom behavior program will be focused around it this year.  We will learn about how to "fill" someone's bucket while filling their own at the same time.  And also how not to "dip" into someone's bucket.  They will all be making their own bucket to take home, so be sure to ask about how it works.
So far, we are looking at such an Awesome year! The students are getting along so well and are all excited to be at school!  I'm up to the challenge to keep it like that all year long!  Yay!