MARVELOUS MONDAY 9-10-12

 RULES~

See the classroom rules posted in the photo below.  All the children in Pre-K "A", the Pre-K "A" teachers, and the Specialist teachers signed the rules, indicating that we all agree to follow them to make our classroom/school a safe, welcome learning environment. 

 

 

 Below are the rules for the "meeting rug".   Activities which occur at the meeting rug include morning meeting, closing meeting, stories, calendar, class discussions, etc.  Be sure to ask your child what each symbol means.

 FREE CHOICE~

Today we opened our Listening Station.  During Free Choice time, children can visit this station to listen to a story on a recording.

 SOUND BOX~

The children were eager and excited to find out what we were revealing underneath this window blind..... 

 ...Presenting our "Sound of the Week"!  Every Monday, we will reveal the letter sound we are studying for the week.

During this time, we also reveal the "password" for the week...

 ...this week's password is "bat".

 A copy of the password hangs on the bulletin board outside of our classroom door.   When they arrive in the morning, children tell the teacher the password before entering the classroom.

HANDWRITING WITH TEARS~

Today the children explored with the wooden pieces we will use with our handwriting program.  There are 4 basic shapes/forms used to make each letter--big line, small line, big curve, little curve.  In Pre-K we will focus on learning the correct formation of the upper case letters and numbers.  Lower case letters will be presented in Kindergarten.

 "MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB"~

In the "Book Nook", children were shown how to put together the nursery rhyme, "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on the pocket chart.  Children can also practice reading the nursery rhyme.

FANTASTIC FRIDAY 9-7-12

ANNOUNCEMENTS~

~Information on school photos came home today in your child's frog folder.  Order forms will be sent home in folders on Monday.

~Next Wednesday, September 12th, is our first "Late Start" day.  School begins at 9:30am on this day.  There is supervised care for children beginning at 7:00am in the Pre-K "B"/C.A.S.E. room.

~Remember to send in your child's swim suit if he/she participates in our Extended Day Pre-K program.  Our first swimming class is next Wednesday.

Have a RELAXING weekend!

MORNING MESSAGE~

Ask your child to tell you all the words that begin with "F" in our morning message.

 Ask your child to show you how to read a sentence with an exclamation point!!

FREE CHOICE~

 David and Emma are working at the Creation Station.

 Cody, Ryan, and Graham are busy builders in the Construction Zone.

 Madelyn looking fancy in the Dramatic Play Station.

 Dominic in the Dramatic Play Station.

Collier completes a sorting activity at the Discovery Station.

 

 

NURSERY RHYMES~

Throughout the school year, we will use nursery rhymes to develop and reinforce many emergent reading skills (rhyming, word recognition, etc.).  Our first nursery rhyme is "Mary Had A Little Lamb".  Be sure to ask your child about the rhyming words we identified in this nursery rhyme.

 CUTTING ACTIVITY~

 To model how we use scissors in our classroom and how to hold and cut the paper at the same time, we did the activity below.  Children were asked to cut on the straight line.  He/she would place his/her thumb on the frog in one hand and hold the scissors in the other hand.  As the child cut on the line, he/she would "hop" to the next frog while cutting up to the top of the paper.  We were quite impressed with the cutting skills!

 

SURPRISE!~

 Under the blind in the photo below is a surprise that will be revealed on Monday.  Stay tuned!

THRILLING THURSDAY 9-6-12

 MORNING MEETING~

Cody circles a word on the Morning Message.

PRE-K BELL~

Today we received a special note from "Pre-K Bell", who is a fairy that lives in a small house in our classroom.  Pre-K Bell is very discreet and watches us as we are learning and playing at school.  When she sees our class or someone in our class following our classroom rules, Pre-K Bell leaves a special note!

 FRIENDLY FROG~

Today, our first Pre-K student had a turn as the Friendly Frog (the helper for the day).  Sasha was our first Friendly Frog!

 ZERO THE HERO DAY!~

Today was our 10th day of school and we celebrated our first Zero the Hero day! 

 We "bundled" or "grouped" our 10 straws and moved it to the middle pocket on our pocket chart.  Today, we had 1 bundle (group) of 10 straws and 0 "single" straws.  There were no straws in the "singles" pocket, so Zero the Hero goes in that pocket!

 Josh and his mom helped us celebrate our first Zero the Hero Day!  We made bracelets using beads and pipecleaners.  Thank you for a great activity to help us celebrate!

 FREE CHOICE~

Will, Cody, Lily, and David playing a memory game with photos of our classmates.

 Sophia uses the pattern blocks to create a picture.

 Madelyn creates an owl with the pattern blocks.

 Will shares a wordless book he created during Free Choice time.

 LIBRARY~

We had storytime today at the Library with Ms. Oeth.  

WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY 9-5-12

*REMINDER:  If your child has not done so already, please remind him/her to bring back tomorrow the library book he/she checked out last week.  A note came home in your child's folder today from the librarian IF the book has not yet been returned.

*SCHOLASTIC:   Scholastic Book Order Fliers came home in your child's folder today.  Please let us know if you have any questions or problems with placing your order and payment on-line.

*SMALL GROUPS:  Today, we randomly divided the class into 2 small groups.  These 2 small groups will remain the same throughout the school year.  We form these groups for the many times we do lessons/activities which work better with a smaller group of children.  Once in their small groups today, the children contributed possible animal names for their group.  We now have the Elephant Group and the Starfish Group.  Be sure to ask your child if he/she is in the Elephant or Starfish Group.

TERRIFIC TUESDAY 9-4-12

 AROUND ACADEMY~

We have been meeting and visiting with various people who help us while we are at school.  Last Thursday we met Mrs. Saling who works in the office with Mr. Vorenberg.

Today, we went to the nurse office and met our school nurses, Mrs. Fireman and Mrs. Hoagland.  They assured us that they do not give shots!

 FREE CHOICE~

We are introducing new activities at the various stations around our classroom.....

 
WORD WALL~

Today each child added a photo with his/her name on it to our Word Wall.  When working at the Writing Station, children can take words from the word wall to the table for help in spelling a word (or a classmate's name).

FRIENDLY FROG~

Today we introduced "Friendly Frog" (the special helper of the day).  Today's Friendly Frog was Mrs. B.    The Friendly Frog is the line leader; helps with calendar activities; plays the clean-up song after Free Choice; and gets to take home the morning message to keep!

 CALENDAR~

 Today we introduced all of our calendar activities.  During calendar, we......

learn about what month it is;

 ...put up the date (which always follows a pattern);

...talk about the year;

 ...talk about the season; and

 chart the weather on a graph.