22 Days of Christmas!

The Christmas excitement started today in the pre-k classroom! Not only is Christmas only 22 days away, but rest time officially ended (probably just as good as Christmas for a few :)). We started our new center groups during the rest time slot. The center games and activities for the month of December include: matching uppercase and lowercase letters, rhyming holiday words, reading responses, the creation of geometric shapes with rubber bands, and writing practice. Below are some pictures from our first day nap free :).

 

Two students are writing their Christmas lists to Santa in the writing center.

 

Students are reading their book of choice and drawing a picture of their favorite part.

 

Three students enjoy playing "Holiday Rhyme Time" while trying to find as many rhyming words and pictures as possible.

 

Below, one student is attempting to match the picture on each Christmas tree with the correct upper and lowercase letter sound.



Fall Fun :)

The pre-k class had a lot of fun this past October and November. We enjoyed learning about weight with the help of a very large pumpkin. We even got to cut it open and interact with the pumpkin at our sensory center! Besides pumpkin "guts" and getting excited for delicious fall foods, here is a peak into what went on behind closed doors:

 

Here are some snapshots of our friends enjoying our classroom pumpkin

 

 

While learning about one to one correspondence, we got to enjoy some pumpkin spice marshmallows (food makes the best math manipulative, of course!)

We had fun writing our letters in the rice trays found in the writing center.

 

Below is a picture of the yellow table making their own "igloo" (for the letter I) out of Styrofoam cups and marshmallows. 

 

Mystery Reader, Barnaby, Fall, Oh My!

We just started our "Mystery Reader" Fridays this month! Our first mystery reader was Lori Olson. The children really enjoyed the suspense and excitement behind the Mystery Reader concept. Below you will find a picture of Mrs. Olson reading a story to the class :).

 

 

 When Cooper soon discovers that the "Mystery Reader" is his mommy :).

 

 When learning about the letter "F", we talked about the season of fall and the things we observe happening to the trees at this time of the year. Below is a picture of some students working on their fall trees with their findings from outside.

 

 The candy corn match-up involves pairing upper and lowercase letters to form a complete candy corn. The class has really enjoyed this center game!

 

 As the peak of pumpkin patch season is upon us, we are starting a new unit in science about weight, using a pumpkin as our weight control. To kick off the new unit, we created our own pumpkins with torn pieces of construction paper and green rice (for the stem!).

 

 Barnaby is extremely busy traveling all over the world! He has visited Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. He has taught us all about the different cultures, languages, and unique characteristics of each country and region. Through Barnaby, the boys and girls are not only learning about maps and developing map skills, but they are also gaining an awareness for the world that is outside of their "own world".

 

Fall Update :)

We have been super busy the last few months adjusting to our new classroom routine and daily expectations, however that does not mean that we have not had a great time doing it! The boys and girls have really enjoyed the more "hands-on" approach in learning our letter sounds and formation. We have used everything from cotton balls to shaving cream to help us become more familiar with our upper and lowercase letters.

 

We worked on writing lowercase letters in shaving cream.

 

 We clearly had a great and messy time with it!

 

 Practicing letter formation with  colored cotton "balls" for the letter B.

 

 

 



You'll Have a HOOT in Pre-k!

Welcome to our very own pre-k blog! We're off to a very busy start! The students are enjoying getting to know their classroom and their friends. Below are some pictures from the first week of school. The students were introduced to a few different centers and were allowed to become more familiar with some of the objects in them.

Math Center:

The students are counting links to make a long necklace

Puzzle Center:

One student is working on beginning, middle, and end sounds with a puzzle. We have been learning how to put away puzzles the proper way as well!

Tactile Center:

The students are enjoying experimenting with play-doh.

Pre-k has their own reading buddies! Every Friday the second grade class comes down to read books to their pre-k "reading buddies". This allows the pre-k students to form positive relationships with their peers in other classrooms, as well as improving upon listening and comprehension skills.



Little Historians....

The students showed a strong interest in the beginning of the year for the Titanic after checking out some books at the library, so the 100th anniversary of the ship seemed like a fitting time to learn a little more about this historical event.

 Our "Titanic Facts" book. Each students received their own copy and we read it together as a class.

 Each child drew one thing that they remembered or thought was interesting from the book.

 Creating Titanic bubble maps summarizing some of the main facts from the book.

Finished product!

To end the week, the class created Titanic box creations. They loved showing off all their hard work!

Eggciting Easter in Pre-K!

It is crunch time in pre-k! I am so sorry that we have not been able to update this lately. They have been busy bees in pre-k and have enjoyed showing off their new kindergarten-ready skills!

This is our classroom sight word tree! During journal writing, the students look at the tree for the spelling of some of our Dolch sight words.

 "Dear Easter Bunny" letter and questions from the class!

 "Dear Easter Bunny" questions from the kids

 Easter center: Put the broken egg back together by matching capital and lowercase letters.

 Easter center: Eggciting word family board game!

Easter center: Number recognition and writing

The Easter centers were a hit with the class!

Hip, Hip, Hooray! Here Comes Grandparent's Day!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

This week is Dr. Seuss week! In honor of Dr. Seuss, the class is working on Dr. Seuss art projects, math activities and phonics games that all revolve around Dr. Seuss literature. The children have really enjoyed reading all his stories and learning about rhyming.

This is one of the many Dr. Seuss number puzzles new to our math center. The puzzle pieces are all numbered in different ways, some counting by ones and others by fives.

This is the start of our Cat in the Hat....

And this is the finished product!

Upon reading the Cat in the Hat, the class had to complete the sentence for their writing activity. They all enjoyed using their creativity to come up with something different!

The class made Dr. Seuss dice

And then we rolled our dice and played against our friends, while graphing each roll.

My oh my, how time flies!

We have been busy, busy bees in pre-k the last few weeks! With Dr. Seuss' birthday and finishing up the letter of the week, we have been working away. Here is a sneak peak as to what we have been doing in the classroom the last few weeks!

Letter writing with shaving cream

Fill in the missing letter (beginning, middle or end game)

Cut & paste phonics activity with the letter X

Having fun with yarn and the letter Y by making a scarf!