Welcome Back!!!

I hope that everyone had a great Fall Break and is ready to rock and roll!  We had such a great start of school this year!  Here are a few highlights:

Learning our HWT wood pieces

Aprons are for A!

Flying Paper Airplanes

Landing Airplanes in their Hangers

Listening Ears

Miss Kylie as a Fire Fighter!

All about our Names!

D is for Dinosaur!

 We've had super fun so far!  We have also had great celebrations such as Grandparent's Day and Donuts for Dads!  Check out how much fun we had!

Yay for our Grandparents and our Dads!  Thanks for spending some of our preschool day with us! 
We are ready to jump into our next quarter, starting off with a field trip to Fry's Grocery Store!  We can't wait to spend our G week learning about all the healthy things we can buy at the grocery store.  We also have Halloween, the Fall Festival and our Christmas Program coming up fast!  Can't wait to begin the ride! 

Mrs. Nettie's Pre-K MWF Afternoon Class

       Welcome to a wonderful journey filled with adventure, laughter, exploring, happiness and a love for learning! Here we are approaching the holidays and we have so much to share with you that has been happening in our classroom. 

       I am so excited to introduce to you the most amazing, caring, dedicated children that I am honored to spend my days with. The children are so excited for exploring time when they arrive and I enjoy watching them build friendships and practice communication skills during this time.  We soon are ready to enter into circle time to learn the letter of the week and review our calendar.  Some fun assessment games are taking place during circle time to reinforce letter sounds, letter recognition, number identification and number value. We also have been introduced to "place value" by counting each day that we attend school. I am so amazed at how quickly the children are learning how to "add on" to a number. Our printing is improving with each day and I'm so happy with the progress I see in our writing journals. 

       I truly enjoy Mondays when the children share about their weekend and I get to share about my adventurous weekend as well. It usually includes a story about my 165 lb French Mastiff, Luigi :o) I look forward to creating many fun memories and crafts during the most festive time of the year as we prepare for Kindergarten.  

Hugs from Ms. Nettie and Ms. Lisa

Having some fun while learning a song to help us remember the months of the year and days of the week. 

The children enjoying "center time". 

Grandparent's Day is always a joy for everyone involved.  Mrs. Lisa and I really looked forward to meeting all the special Grandparents that arrived that day.  

                                    

Exploring at our Science Center with "eruptions" for the letter "E" and some "moon sand" that instantly dries when removed from water. The children really enjoyed the experiments!

Blooming minds in progress!

Ending our day with some fun and laughter :o)

Afternoon 2's Class in the FARM

Down on the Farm with Ms. Wandy

 

We've had a great first quarter of school at TotSpot Preschool! I am so proud of all of the kids in the classroom. They are so amazing! They have been enjoying learning their Zoo Phonics sounds, shapes and colors. They are doing a great job learning during the time we spend together at circle time.

 

 

 

The children have gotten to know our school pet, Radar. He is a really chubby guinea pig. They love when he gets to come visit our classroom. They have learned how to hold him and pet him using their soft and gentle hands.

 

 

The kids really enjoyed our special guest last month. We had a firefighter visit our farm classroom and he taught us about safety and emergencies.

 

 

 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a part of your child's learning experience. I am so proud of each and every one of my students!

Director Recommends Puterbugs Computer Class for Students

 

Director's Observation & Review of

Preschool Computer Class

October 7, 2013

Mr. Ken with Future Kiddie has been offering a computer class "Puterbugs" at TotSpot Preschool for some time. I know it is a popular class and I have heard very positive feedback from parents and students about the class, but since it's Fall Camp and things are moving at a little slower pace, I had the chance to actually sit down and observe the Puterbugs class and here are my honest thoughts about what I saw......

We usually see Mr. Ken (or Ms. Linda) at TotSpot for our Friday class each week. They are always enthusiastic about what they are teaching. They start with a very short circle time to explain the week's Puterbug "mission". This, of course, gets the kids really excited and engaged. Each week, the mission also involves teaching the kids about various technological terms. Today, they learned the words "web cam" and "microchip", among others.

 The kids also focused on their listening skills as they had to wait for Mr. Ken to tell them to begin their Puterbugs mission.

 Another thing that is so great about this class is that it is completely individualized and every student has their own laptop! This is why it is perfect for any toddler, age 3 - 5, at any level. They can move through the Puterbugs mission at their very own pace - getting comfortable with both the keyboard and the mouse.....all while following directions and listening carefully to their mission which is described for them on their laptop.

 What I noticed as I watched carefully is that not only is this computer class introducing and practicing essential computer & technology skills (which these kids are going to need in this fast paced, technologically driven society), the program is very structured and reinforces many of the preschool concepts that we work on here at TotSpot; colors, letters, size comparisons, patterns, and matching, just to name a few. The program began today with each student matching the letter on the screen with the letter on the keyboard. 

 

WOW! Overall, I have to say, I am impressed! I can very comfortably recommend this computer program to all of our students. I forgot to mention, that as you can tell, EVERY child ENJOYED the class and were completely engaged. It is always a win-win situation when you find something educationally beneficial AND fun for the kids....that is what TotSpot Preschool is all about and that is why the Puterbugs Computer Class fits right in here! So Thank you Mr. Ken & Ms. Linda for bringing it here and keeping it here.

If you would like additional information about this class you can contact Mr. Ken at Futurekiddie@futurekiddie.com or the website:

http://www.futurekiddie.com/

The classes are held at TotSpot Preschool EVERY Friday at 11:30am. Space is limited


Shannon Powell, Director
TotSpot Preschool

For the week of Sept. 27th...

 

We had a great week in the Forest room!  This week we talked all about Fall and Autumn time.  We discussed why the leaves fall off the trees and change color.  We went on a leaf hunt for all colors of leaves:  red, yellow, orange, brown and green.  We read a book called Leaf Man and then we made our very own leaf men.  They turned out very cute!  We talked about different kinds of leaves and we used them to make leaf rubbings with our crayons.  The kids loved it!  This would be something fun to do over break as well.  Have your kids go outside to collect different types of leaves.  Then put the the leaf under a blank piece of paper and rub your crayon over it using different colors.

 

In our Handwriting Without Tears program we worked on the letter "L".  We practiced making it with a big line and a little line.  We traced it with our finger and then we had a worksheet to help us write it correctly.  The kiddos love using the lines and curves!

 

We also continued  working on our shapes.  I pulled out a rectangle block, a square block, and a triangle block. We looked at their differences and similarities and then we built a small house with them.  This helps the kids to see shapes in everything around us.

 

We concluded our week with "Donuts for Dads"!  It was so fun to see all the dad's come in and share the classroom with their kids!  I have such a great class with fantastic parents.  I couldn't ask for a better group!  Thank you all so much for allowing me to have so much fun with your kids everyday!

 

Ms. Laree

MWF am 3's

FALL CAMP FUN - Making Applesauce!

Sept. 30, 2013

 

Today was the first day of Fall Camp, which is one of Ms. Shannon's favorite times! She enjoyed going into the classroom today to make homemade applesauce with the children. She showed them a great little kitchen tool called the apple peeler, corer, slicer (from Pampered Chef) and the kids loved it!

 

After we peeled all of the apples, the kids enjoyed eating some of the strings of skin leftover......we even shared the peelings with our favorite chubby Guinea Pig, Radar. He loved his treat! We added a bit of water & cinnamon & cooked up the apples. After they cooled, everyone took turns mashing them up!

                                                                             

Here's the link to the Perfect Easy Microwave Applesauce Recipe 

from Food.com

 

 

  

 

I almost forgot....

the kids also played with apple scented play doh. It was a super fun & yummy apple day!

Welcome to Ms. Gretchen's 3 year old classes!

For the week of Sept. 13th....
 
We had such a fun week in the Ocean Room.  The unit we have been studying is Safety. We started off the first of the week with a visit from a fireman Dad. He taught us how important it is to stay away from pool unless you are with an adult.  Also, what to do if there is a fire, calling 911 and being safe on bicycles and around streets and cars. We also had a visit from a Police Officer. He taught the children about stranger danger and also about looking both ways when crossing a street. We practiced our street safety with the giant street signs and stop and go signs Ms.  Monica made for the classes.



 

 

All of our kids are progressing  excellently  with the Zoo-Phonics.  We are now able to put a few small words together and sound them out. Everyone is enjoying our new white boards. They have fun practicing  writing their names on them. We also have been using our Zoo-Phonics cards to practice letters. The kids have loved the lines and curves.  Some of them are even creating their names out of them. Mat Man has also been a favorite.  Ask them to create Mat Man at home! They have become very creative with him. One of the kids had him putting out a fire last week.

 It was fun to have our wonderful grandparents visit our room for “Grandparents Day”.  We had a big turnout this year. I hope each of them enjoyed our grandparent books  which each child made. We are looking forward to our annual “Donuts For Dads”  this week. It’s really fun for the kids to have a donut or two with their dads and show them all  of the exciting things we have and do in our class.

 We are quickly approaching the holiday season. We love Tuesdays with Mrs. Sherrie. She will be working with us on our holidays music. We are getting ready for our Christmas Program so don’t be surprised when your little ones come home singing Christmas music in October.

We have many  fun and exciting units to look forward to after  fall break.  Holiday time around Totspot Preschool is so much fun are much enjoyed by the kids, we look forward to this time every year. Have a wonderful break!