Monday, January 28, 2013

Ms. Gillian's PM 3's


Over the past couple of weeks we have been having lots of fun learning all about our 5 senses.  The first week we focused on our sense of touch and hearing.  During this week the kiddos had a blast exploring all sorts of textures, the fabulous gloop was a definite favorite. We created some texture turtles, done a little finger painting while talking about the texture of the paint. 
 
As well as talking about the difference between smooth, hard and rough textures.

We also created quite a musical sensation with our musical instruments we created a drum, jingle bell bracelets, paper tube horns and shakers,  As well as having some fun with the syllables in each child's name as we played our rhythm sticks. 

  

We covered our other 3 senses throughout the 2nd week.  We started the week off concentrating on our sense of sight, making fun little binoculars which we later used to go on a number hunt in the classroom - the kiddos loved this!  We also made cute little self portraits, each child had a look in a mirror to check on eye color etc before making their little masterpieces. Then we moved onto our sense of taste in which we had lots of fun painting with marshmallows, gluing our favourite food plates as well as our tasty tidbit center which went down a treat, the kiddos loved sampling sweet, salty and sour foods - I'm sure we can all guess almost every ones favorite!  We then finished off the week with our sense of smell.  We made some 'scentsational' flowers using koolaid as paint in all different flavors.  As well as having a scent guessing center, and playing with sweet scented play doh.  We rounded our week off completing our 5 senses book.


Throughout the weeks we have been working hard on our letters, as always we have a focus letter every week.  


So far we have worked on L, F, E, H, T, I, J, U, C, O, G and S.  Both letter recognition, pencil control and writing each letter.
 


I am so proud of each and everyone of the kiddos for always doing their best work while working on their letters, numbers and writing.  They are all superstars :)










We were also lucky to have amazing athletes in with us this week which was a huge hit with the preschoolers they loved having a little taste of a number of different sports - There was lots of smiling and laughing going on :)
 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Mrs. Nettie's Pre-K Afternoon Class

Welcome back from Christmas Break!! It was so wonderful to see all the excited, smiling faces arriving at class Tuesday morning. Circle Time was where the magic started as each child stood before the class and shared their holiday experience. I love the expression in your child's eyes as they talked about Christmas morning.


The children arrived with great ambition to get back to preparing for Kindergarten.  I was so pleased to see such progress as we reviewed some concepts that we left off on. I can't express how proud I am of each child and all the dedication they put into their performance. We started last week with learning about the letter "N". The children had a fun time creating Noodle Art designs, and using describing words to tell about their neckties made out of the letter "N".


Creating Art Masterpiece Noodle Designs!



Nifty Neck Ties using the letter "N"!


The children have been doing so well with printing, identifying letters and letter sounds during our "mini story creations". We have had so much fun connecting numbers with their  number value and number name. We find many ways to continue practicing our patterns and have used cereal this week to create AB patterns and ABB patterns. Just as long as I provide some to snack on, everyone finishes their pattern :o) Rhyming words have been such a favorite in class! During our story time the children are able to identify the rhyming words before I even ask for them.  We have a new game during exploring time that reinforces our rhyming skills.



Working with cereal to make AB and ABB patterns!


Outstanding "O" Creations!



 Graphing with Olives!






Printing Practice!



These "Pre-Kindergartners" sure make me smile through my day.  I am so happy to be back in class with them and looking forward to the next quarter. 

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Break!!

Love,
Mrs. Nettie and Mrs. Lisa


Monday, January 14, 2013

Here we go again!! Wahoo!!

We are back, running full force, ready to face our 3rd quarter!  These preschoolers have shown amazing growth this year!  I was so amazed that after about 2 1/2 weeks away from school, they totally fell right back into school mode, without missing a beat!  They didn't need almost any review before starting into our weekly letters! 
Before break, we studied the letter Mm and also had a great week about Christmas!  We even had a great Christmas program where Santa even visited!  Your children sang so wonderfully that it has made it into my top 10 days this year!!!  Check out our pictures from our Christmas Celebration the day before we got out on break!  We had so much fun decorating gingerbread houses and playing with "snow!"  Christmas stories and movies were happening all around them! 

Our Puffy Snowmen!

Mud Playdoh!! (smelled like chocolate!!)
Magnet Patterns!
Gingerbread Houses!!

More Gingerbread!!!




She's a Nurse for N week!
This week we are kicking off Nigel Nightowl's (Nn) special week!  We were all about the noodles today!  Reading, building, counting and weighing noodles!  It was a blast!  I can't wait to see what all they will bring in for Show-n-tell this week for Nn!!

Congratulations Miss Emmalee!
We are so happy for her and her new husband Nathan Lowis.  They were married Thursday January 3rd and are beginning their HAPPILY EVER AFTER!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Ms. Dessie's PM PreK classes



We had some fun right before Christmas Break making gingerbread houses, drinking hot chocolate and eating gingerbread cookies.   We even made snowmen, although there was no real snow.  We hope you get to see our version of a Phoenix snowman (made with shaving cream and glue).  They are great because our snowmen will not melt.  The best part I thought was getting to wear our pajamas to school.  I think I could get used to that kind of attire everyday!

2013 is here and we are off to a great start!   I am so pleased to know that our students remembered all the important things we learned before break.  We really have picked up where we left off.  YEAH!    Besides reviewing a bit, we look forward to doing more advanced handwriting (smaller letters and adding the lower case) to get ready for Kindergarten.  We will also finish up the alphabet N-Z and give each letter their deserved week.   Expect to hear your student start to read soon, since they really do know the letter sounds well.   We will start  "sounding out"  CVC words and learning a few sight words. We will also continue to work in math, adding and then subtracting single digit numbers, graphing, writing numbers and number word recognition.   So much to learn to get ready for Kindergarten but we are well on our way.  How fast time flies when you are having fun, which I think we all are!