We are all about Hands on Experiences!

 We are so happy to start sharing what we are doing in the Jungle room Pre-K!  Before we show off some pictures of what we have been experiencing, let me give you a brief summary of how our day goes.  We begin with a mixture of free-play and centers.  We have 4 educational centers, along with several play centers that are available during this time.  Each center (we do 2 at a time) has a teacher present to talk, visit, give instruction, and to expand knowledge during the activity.  When students are between centers, they are playing in our block area, our dramatic play center, our sensory bin, or on our play structure (aka, the castle).  Below you will see some of the things we do during our center time.  We then have circle time, where we do our class jobs, attendance and the weather report.  Then we talk about our 2 letters of the week.  They get to decide which centers, went with either letter.  I love watching them sound it out in their heads, then giving it a try!  We then venture into snack, where we get to enjoy it "family style" and show off our manners at the table.  From there, we have small groups, Literacy, Math and ipad groups (We use the Agnitus educational program during this time!  Check out Agnitus! We love it!)  After our small groups, we work on our Handwriting Without Tears and right now we are working on our lowercase letters for the first time.  I have to say they are doing amazing and have show a lot of fine motor control!  It's Awesome!  Then we move to our pride pages, where they report on what they did during the day, how they felt and how their behavior was.  This goes to parents to give them an idea of what their child's day was like.  We then, if time permits, have some more free play, then back to circle time to review our day and sing songs and say goodbye to our school friends.  Whew!  It's a busy day!  Ok, on to some our our activities!  Enjoy!

Here they are shaking butter!  I put a small amount of cream and salt in a jar along with 2 marbles for extra mixing power. They shook, and shook, and shook! They were rewarded with a lovely clump of butter.  They got to taste it during snacks on some yummy bread.  They liked it!

Below, we are at the math center, working on the concept of addition.  We used nests and eggs (plastic, of course) and dice to fill our nests, then add them all together into the large nest. 

Above is our science center, and they are experimenting with which substance makes the bigger eruption.  They filled their circles with a scoop of baking soda, baking powder and corn starch.  Then they dropped vinegar on each powder and observed.  We got a lot of "WOWS!" that day. 

Ships were made and then played with in the block and dramatic play area!

There were some UFO sightings too

Shaving DAD!!!

Here is our Language Arts center, the students are practicing writing their Us under the table for our study of U! 

Here is a video of Ms. Kim hard at work!  She is our Music teacher and is in the process of teaching them beats and rhythm.  Watch as they go through a class made song. They love Ms. Kim and always ask if she is coming.