We are soooooo ready for Kindergarten!

Lunch at the Zoo!

       Well, I can't believe that we are only a quarter away from my students graduating preschool and moving on to Kindergarten!  It makes me so happy, yet so sad to see them leave me!  I have seen such great things from these students over the past few months when I've been able to be their teacher.  The skills that they've gained and the learning that has taken place has been crazy awesome!  I love teaching this age because you can see their growth each and every day.  It's amazing!  I have the best job in the world!
      A few things we have done over the past few weeks  have involved our "Stars of the Week" and a great field trip to the zoo!  That was a lot of fun seeing these kids absorbing all they see at the zoo.  The weather was perfect and the animals were out, loving the sunshine!  What a fabulous field trip!!!
       We have been busy working on our last few letters of the alphabet and one of my favorite weeks was Timothy Tiger's week.  We actually had him visit our classroom and teach us all sorts of words that begin with his letter.  We sang his favorite number songs (2 & 10) and he even danced a little.  We painted with tire tracks, brushed vampire teeth with toothbrushes and "toothpaste", decorated spring trees with popcorn as blossoms, and had a monster truck race game!  All of these hands-on activities are making concrete connections to these preschooler's brains, not just for the letter name and sounds, but also for critical thinking, fine & large motor, and social skills as well.  This is the best age for these kiddos to explore and absorb all the things they see, feel and hear each day!

Timothy Tiger Visits!

Tire Track Art

Dr. Welch teaching us how to take care of our Teeth!

We had Dr. Welch come for a visit during our Timothy Tiger Week and taught us about our teeth.  He is a pediatric dentist and was so great with the kids.  They just loved him to pieces!  He taught them the good and bad things to eat and do for our teeth.  What a fun day!  Thank you Dr. Welch!!!

Having fun in the forest room with Miss Nelay!

We have been very busy in the two year old classroom, we have learned color magic by mixing two colors together to make the colors pink, purple and orange.  All of the preschoolers enjoyed getting to mix the colors and watch it change into the magic color.

We also have been doing a "cooking show" where I set up a demonstration table and all the preschoolers sit in the audience to watch me make a fun recipe.  All of the preschoolers have loved watching and getting to try all of the yummy treats we have made.  We have made birds nest, pineapple frozen yogurt and quesodillas.

Ms. Gillian's PM 3s

 
What a busy few weeks we have had!
Having lots and lots of fun  - that's what we do best in our 3 year old room have fun, fun, fun :)



A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Valentines Day -  The kiddos had a blast making all sorts of love hearts - from gluing, painting, stamping, sorting, counting them!  Each child brought in a treat for their friends, and they just loved handing them out at circle time, was so cute to see all their little faces light up as their baskets filled up :)  The preschoolers finished off their Valentines week enjoying the yummy cookies they had decorated!

We moved onto our  'Opposites' unit the following week.  We started off the week with our black and white gluing.  We also used rough and smooth paint to make finger painting master pieces!  As well as using big and small circles to make fun prints!  The kiddos had the best time on our mini obstacle course but the favorite this week was our opposite music and movement time – where we were going fast/slow, high/low, loud/quiet, in/out….. They wanted to do it over and over again!




We also had Puterbugs computer class come into our classroom and all the children took part in a trial class of computers.  This went down a treat the kiddos loved playing around on the computers and were learning as they played!

We finished off this week having the best time at our annual school wide field trip to Phoenix Zoo.  All the kiddos had a fab time seeing all the animals with their friends, while enjoying our wonderful spring weather :). 

 

 

COUPLE OF PHOTOS BELOW OF SOME OF OUR PRESCHOOLERS HAVING FUN TIMES AT SCHOOL

 

 

We are Rockin' this Preschool Year!!!

    It's been an awesome few weeks here at the Pre-K AM class!  We have been working very hard on our Alphabet and their coordinating Zoophonics Animals!  We really try and base our hand-on centers on these letters, making concrete connections to them as well as developing fine motor skills.  Here are some of the things that we have been busy doing for these special stars!

Make your own Pizza Playdoh!

Playing The Three Little Pigs! Ms. Kylie played the wolf for one of our plays!

Here's more Little Pigs!

Our Wolf trying to blow down the brick house!

Under our Quilt fort!!!

Cozy up during Circle time with Cozy Quilts!

Painting with Vegetables for Vv week!  (Vv is out of order, but what can be better than Vv during Valentine's Day Week!!!)

              As you can see, we are busy doing many, many hands on activities that help our beautiful brains grow and learn!  We recently had Parent/Teacher conferences and I enjoyed visiting with all the parents!  We have seen so much growth during the past few months that's its absolutely amazing!  With summer around the corner, I've been thinking about how much I'm gonna miss all the students in my class as they head off to Kindergarten!  They will have a great time, but I will truly miss them!  All of my parents should be so proud of their accomplishments this year!!! 

Ms. Dessie's PreK Classes

In our PreK classes we continue to "build" great educational foundations but are having a lot of fun too!  We are half way through our sight words and have been doing great sounding out our CVC words.  We really do have readers already...really!  It is so exciting to hear them.  We also have been working on our handwriting from the Kindergarten book.  We will have very prepared Kindergarteners.  We have been working hard but we have also been having lots of fun in class.  Recently, for our "P" week we acted out the story of the "Three Little Pigs."  They loved it!  We had to do the play several times so all would get a chance to do a part.  The Big Bad Wolf "Huffed" and "Puffed" and the little pigs squealed with fright but would not let that wolf in, not even by the hair of their chinny-chin-chins.  No one seemed to have stage fright for they all want to do some more plays. So stay tuned for more from our Oscar worthy actors and actresses.

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 :)

 

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