Activities for Wednesday, September 29, 2010

All classes went outside for this beautiful fall day.

Willow Room- MWF class

We read "We're different, we're the same" by Sesame street. Our question today was "What color is your hair?"

We painted at the easels with rolling thread spools, and we painted at the tables with textured gloves.

We had a variety of sorting activities out today, plus our playdough and our free art table. The children enjoy the block area and the house corner too.

We sang "2 little blackbirds", "The hokey Pokey" and "Little Fish"

Maple Room:

We read "ten apples up on top" by Theo LeSieg

We made "apple sun catchers" The children spread glitter glue on pieces of waxed paper, then added small pieces of tissue paper to the glue. we will frame them with an apple shape and tape them onto our windows. Make sure you check them out.

We had apple stencils with paint and rollers at the easels.

We sang "A-P-P-L- E" "Bean Bag Boogie", "Pass the Apple" (like hot potato) and "Today is Monday"

We did some Letter "A" activities too.


Oak Room:

We read "Arthur's eyes" by Marc Brown as part of our senses unit.

We worked in our journals today, we were writing the letter "C" and drawing pictures of things that start with the letter "C"

We sang "Brown Bear," and "Bear Hunt"

We are talking about the letter C" and the 5 senses.

The children are very interested in building with the blocks, and we also put a light table in the room with colorful items. They were exploring how putting two different colors together made a new color and also some of the unusual visual patterns.

Activities for Tuesday, September 28, 2010

We played outside on the playground today.

Willow Room: T/Th class

We read "I'll always come back" by Steve Metzger

We painted with some fun texture stampers at the table and had stampers at the easels too.

We had some airplane counters out today and some counting keys.. We enjoyed playing with our playdough and we also really like to play with the house corner. Our teacher read us some more books during choice time.

Oak room-

We read two books today, "Nosy Rosie" by Holly Keller and "The Nose book" by Al Perkins. We were talking about our sense of smell today, so we painted with smelly things today, coffee, koolaid, lemon lime scented things.

We are still talking about the letter "C".

We did "the bean bag boogie", "Tommy thumb is up" and "how are you feeling?" for music today.

we played some small group games today too. The children really enjoy building with the blocks and adding extra props to their structures. They get quite creative with their building and work well together as a group to make buildings.

Activities for Monday, September 27, 2010

All classes went outside to the playground today.

Willow Room: MWF class

Our Question today was "Who brought you to school today?" Our story was Can I help?" by Marilyn Janovitz

We painted with texture painters and had stampers at the easel.

We sang "Head, shoulders, knees and toes song", "Everybody has a face", and the "Sneezing song".

We talked about how we all help to clean up our room at clean up time.

Maple room:

We read "The little red house with no doors or windows" by Caroline Sherwin Bailey

We made apple prints with red and yellow paint, and at the easels we had Sponge stampers

We sang "The September song", and "alphabet sounds"

We are starting to do a letter each week. We started talking about the letter "A" this week. We do different activities each day to help us learn the letter, the sound the letter makes, and words that start with the letter.


Oak room:

We read "Arthur's nose" by Marc Brown

We popped popcorn in an open popper and let the children watch, we then played with the popcorn with scoops and measures. We also added some powder paint to popped corn and used it for our art project. We glued the colorful popcorn onto paper. We sang "5 little popcorn kernels in a pan" and "Today is Monday"

We started talking about the letter "C".

Activities for Friday, September 24, 2010

All classes went outside to the playground today. We are enjoying the fall weather and getting outside as much as we can.

Willow Room: MWF class

The story we read today was "I'll always come back!" by Steve Metzger. Our question today was "Do you like to paint or play with play dough?" We used the answers to make comparisons about how many preferred each activity. We did the weather and the days of the week at our second circle time.

We did a whole class group art project today. We had a large piece of paper taped to the table and we made "circle prints" using different sizes of open circles dipped in paint.

We had alphabet magnetic letters at the easels.

For music today we did "The freeze dance" using ribbons as we danced to the music and "froze in place" when the music stopped.

We had out a new game today, it was a turtle shape matching game. We had out some rubber bugs that can be sorted in various ways, but today we sorted them by color. We also had out some colorful keys to be sorted.


Maple Room: MWF class

We read "If you take a mouse to school" by Laura Numeroff . We did our calendar and weather activities, which we do each day. We use some of the information to do some graphing activities each day as well.

For art we had a tearing and gluing activity. Tearing is the first step in the cutting process and is great fine motor work to develop the finger muscles.

We sang "The September song", "months of the year", "can't sit still" and "brown bear".

We made an alphabet caterpillar today, everyone got a letter to add to the caterpillar.

Oak Room:

We read Buzzy's Boo Boo, by Harriet Ziefert, a story about getting hurt and needing a band aid. We do calendar and weather activities each day.

We had the children draw a picture of a time they got hurt and we added a bandaid to the picture too.

We had a body puzzle out, and a wooden ABC puzzle too.

We sang some Bean Bag songs, - "bean bag train", We balanced bean bags on our head, foot, back, etc as we moved around the room.

Activities for Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010

All classes went out to the playground today.

Willow Room:

We read "I like me" by Nancy Carlson We did our daily "Hello song"

We did gluing small colorful squares of various sizes and shapes onto paper. We had glitter paint at the easels.

We sang "Cool Bear Hunt", and "Put your finger on".

We had some wet sand in the play ground sand box and we tried to catch bubbles from the bubble machine.

Oak Room:

We read "You can't see your bones" by Harriet Ziefert. We looked at x-rays and we had a picture matching game out, where we matched bugs bodies to their x-ray 's.

We sang "The body parts game" and "Spaghetti legs"

We glued Q-tips onto body shapes to look like our bones and we learned we have 206 bones in our body.

Classroom activities for Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The rain was done, so we were able to get all classes outside on the playground. Remember to send jackets or sweaters on these unpredictable fall days.

Willow Room:

We read "I like me!" by Nancy Carlson. We talked about the weather and the calendar and we asked the questions "How are you feeling today?" for our graphing activity.

At art, we glued different color squares in various sizes and textures. We had red, yellow and blue glitter paint at the easels.

We sang "Cool bear hunt", "Put your finger on" and "wheels on the bus"

We enjoyed playing with the doll sin the play house area.

When we went out to the playground we saw the geese that were outside our fence today. We also looked up high at the airplanes.


Maple Room:

We read "Quick as a Cricket" by Audrey Wood. This is a great story about how sometimes you feel strong, sometimes, weak, and sometimes you just feel both ways at once.
We drew pictures of ourselves (self portraits) and we looked into mirrors to check out what we looked like. We talked about parts of ourselves, and our eye color and our smiles too.
We had paint and paper with a negative space ( a hole cut out of the paper).

We Sang "The September song", "12 days of school"," Everybody has a face", "The freeze dance" (we danced with scarves) and "Today is Monday".

We did a graphing activity today, we graphed eye color and hair color (physical awareness)

Oak Room:

Our book was "Hurty Feelings" by Helen Lester; a story about how easy it is to have hurt feelings and how we sometimes need to get over it. Sometimes we take things that are said as mean, when they are not. We also read "Walter was worried" by J. Seeger

We worked in our journals today on pictures that start with the letter "B". We had fall colors of paints at he easels. We had out some table games today, and some color and pattern matching blocks. We also had out a magnetic color maze

We sang "If you are happy and you know it, and we talked about feelings, they had a card with a happy face and a sad face and we asked questions, "How you would feel if...." They held up the face that best represented their feelings.

We talked about emotions today.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Both classes went outside today. We had a warm windy day.

Willow Room:

Our youngest group is still adjusting, but we have fewer tears and more happy times.
We read a book called "My crayons talk" by Patricia Hubbard

The children love playing in the rice table, and they were also busy at the free art table drawing with markers. For art today, we painted with fun kitchen utensils. We like finding unique things for the children to experiment with when they do art. We had chalk at the easels today.

For music we did "over the deep blue sea", "Tommy Thumb" and "If you are happy and you know it."

Oak Room:

We read Me and my friend" by Mercer Mayer

We made a picture today of them and their favorite things, like family, toys, color they like. We are doing a unit on "All about me"

We sang "Herman the worm", "If you're angry and you know it" and "Elephants on a tight rope".

We are talking about the letter "B" and today our B activity is trying to guess the objects that are hidden in the bag that start with the letter "B".

Monday, September 20, 2010

All classes went outside today. Please remember jackets or sweaters on cool days. We go out if the temperatures are above 40 degrees and it is dry out.

Willow Room: MWF class:
We had a great day today, no tears from anyone. Everyone has finally realized this is a fun place to be and mom and dad will always come get them to go home.

The children used unusual objects to paint with today, we used an old hand bell, potato mashers, and other fun kitchen utensils. We love to experiment with different objects to create paintings. We had some creative gluing materials at the free art table. We had chalk at the easels.

We read "Bear Shadow" by Frank Asch and we asked the question, "Do you have long hair or short hair?" We use the answers for some math activities, such as which has more? long or shirt hair, how many more? We will ask a question each day. We also started doing some basic calendar and weather activities which we will do each day.

We sang "over the deep blue sea", "If you are happy and you know it" and "Tommy Thumb". The children enjoy music time.

We are enjoying having your children with us in our class.

Maple Room:

We read "Franklin Goes to School" . Music was "There's a dog in school", "The September song" , and "jump down turn around". We also used potato mashers and other fun cooking utensils to paint with in class today and the children did a lot of free art too. We did a number sequencing game at second circle, everyone got a stick with a number and part of a picture on it, we put them in order to create the pictures. The block area and kitchen were hot spots today.


Oak Room:

We read a book by Jamie Lee Curtis called "I'm gonna like me".
We used a mirror to look at ourselves and make a self portrait. We used yarn for hair, looked at what we were wearing to add clothes and we look great. The pictures are hanging in the hall, outside our room, see if you can guess which one is your child.

We sang "Animal Actions" and some other body movement songs.

We are talking about the letter "B" this week. We do a different activity each day to help reinforce the understanding of the letter "B".

Classroom Activities for Friday, September 17, 2010

Willow Room:

The children are getting used to school as this was their first full week. We had some tears, but they all end in jut a few minutes and I am confident they will be coming in fine in just a few more days. They will not even remember they once were scared. The teachers have done a wonderful job getting them all to feel comfortable and safe. the children really enjoy going outside and also seem to love music time. We have been lucky to have good weather this week so we could get outside. They really enjoy their outside time.

Today in the Willow Room we read a book called "Yes we can" about some friends who started out not being very nice to each other, but then they learned to play together nicely. We did gluing for art today and had dot painters at the easels. We did some cooking in the play house and played with the trains too. We had a great morning. We always enjoy the music.

Maple Room:

We read "Going on a bear hunt" by Helen Oxenbury, but before we could read the book we had to go on a book hunt as our book was hiding. We found it mixed in with the the puzzles, so we were able to read it. We sang two different versions of the "Bear Hunt song"

We used dot type painters to make "bear stomping prints" for art. The children were also busy building with the blocks, painting at the easel and making their own creations at the free art table.

It is nice to see them all so busy and involved. We enjoyed going out to the playground again today. We have fun in the sand, running around, and going down the slide.

Our class was busy in the dramatic corner today, making phone calls and taking care of babies. The block area was also a popular spot today.


Oak Room- Pre-K

We continued our series of "If you..." books by Laura Numeroff. Today we read "If you give a Pig a Party" and we had the children work on our version of the story, "If you give a snake a ...."

At the art table we we gave the children some tempra paint, and cornstarch. They mixed the paint and cornstarch and painted their picture. The cornstarch give sit a different consistency and also a different look when the picture dries.

We had out some table activities including writing names on magnetic boards, and a counting activity with wooden rings. The children also enjoy making creations out of Legos.

We are beginning to learn the alphabet, we work on upper and lower case, practice writing the letters, think of words that begin with that letter and learn the sound the letter makes. This week we started with the letter "A".

We worked on learning letter sounds with an ABC sounds song. We enjoyed the playground again today.

Preschool BLOG

Hello,

We are beginning our BLOG for this school year. I missed the first few days as we were busy helping our littlest ones feel comfortable at school, but I think we are finally getting there.

I will update you on what each classroom is doing and highlight a few of the activities. You can also check the "TIDBITS" that is posted outside each classroom. I hope you enjoy the hearing about our day at school.