Welcome to the Ranch!

 Welcome to the Ranch Room!  This is a very fun post, because I am posting for the first time as these kiddos' teacher! I have absolutely fallen in love with each and every student that I have!  I have stood back, and just been amazed at there kindness, brightness, patience, and adventure willing personalities!  I have engaged in conversations that leave me giggling for days.  I have loved to watch them become totally engaged in what they are doing and happily sharing it with their friends.  It has been a great month, and I'm looking forward to the next couple months with them till Graduation.  

Here is  a recap of the things we got to do this past month:

Making Peacocks from our hands (if you look close, we have pictures of a peacock on our smart board to help inspire our art)

Some choose to do all pink peacocks!  I would love one of those at my house!

Playtime is a must! We learn many critical thinking skills when we play together.

We also learn very valuable social skills during play time when we are shown the way by Ms. Theresa!

We build and work together to have a group goal!  (Sometimes it is to build something, just to knock it down)

Talking about the letter N, we did a Nose Test to see if we could figure out which smell matched which card. 

In our Sensory bin, we have ocean materials that the students could touch, feel, and manipulate.  We had starfish, big sea shells, and fake seaweed.  They had a blast!

This is one of my personal favorites!  We did opposite art! Instead of doing art on top of the table, we did art underneath!

We also painted with Nature.  Instead of using regular old paint brushes, we got some items from outside to paint with.  Here a shell is being used to paint.

and leaves,

And rocks,

and sticks,

and a branch with leaves on it.

We built architecture with our Magic Nuudles (parents, if you haven't tried them at home yet, you should! They are amazing, easy and mess free)  I also had pictures of famous architecture on the smart board to help generate creativity.

This was a funny moment, I had put on some ocean relaxation videos that showed fish and coral, and during quiet reading time, they all pulled up a chair and read in front of the "Ocean."

Oil and water experiments are fun too!  They were so excited about the bubbles the oil made in the water!  They tried as hard as they could to mix it, but just ended up with lots of little bubbles. 

It's a great moment when they accomplish something together.

 We were so lucky to be able to take a tour of Fry's Grocery store last week.  This is a field trip that PreK has done for years and years.  It is one of my favorites! Check it out!

Ready to start!

Each student got a buddy that they would stay with and even get to pick special items together.

Fruits and Vegetables anyone?  We learned about how the food groups can keep us healthy.

Our Tour Teacher took us behind the scenes to see where they kept the cold stuff. 

And took us to the Freezer!  It was really cold!  (freezing actually)

Stopped at the Toothbrush aisle to finish up about taking care of our teeth.

Each student got to check out an item and put it in the bagging area.  Most of them knew exactly what to do. 

At the end of our tour, we got a goodie bag and a cookie!  When asking the kids what their favorite part of the field trip was....you can guess...it was the cookie.  

I love this field trip because it creates connections to the things that we have been learning in class right now, which is Jj and Gg. to things in the real world. We have been making grocery lists and playing farmers market to get ready.  I am so grateful that we have wonderful opportunities to make these concepts concrete for these kids.  A Huge THANK YOU to Fry's!  Yay!

 I am looking forward to another great month with these kids.  Thank you so much to their parents who let me have them twice a week!  We do have a very fun time, while keeping learning exciting.