Wednesday, December 9, 2015

What a wonderful day we had in preschool!

We began our morning with a special check-in..."How Many Gingerbread Cookies Tall Are You?"  Each friend was measured in gingerbread cookies (using and understanding non-standard forms of measurement is an early math skill)!

Then each friend found that same number on our graph.  Once he/she found the number, he/she practiced writing his/her name on a vertical writing surface!

We decided that so far...11 has the most while 10 and 12 are equal (or the same).  All of the other numbers have zero, or none!

During check-in, these 3 friends were planning and working together making a cat bed!

Check out all the detail!!!

A gorgeous day for large motor time outside on the "big kid" playground!!!  FUN for everyone!

 We finished up morning meeting with Wiggle Worm!!!  Today he brought with him uppercase letters on snowflakes.  If wiggle worm was picked from the bag...everybody WIGGLE, then stop!  Having to stop is tough, but it helps us learn self regulation!

  If a letter is picked, that friend told everyone the letter name and the letter sound!

Time for a little science!!!

We were excited to see that Scientist Mudd had left us an experiment with candy canes!  There were 3 glasses of water and 3 candy canes.  One glass had hot water, one had warm water, and one had cold (ice) water. We observed that all 3 candy canes were the same.  

Each friend then predicted which cup of water would dissolve (or melt) the candy cane the fastest...

"Hot" had the most with 8 votes, while "warm" had the least with 2 votes!

Time to test our predictions!  

Scientist Mudd put one candy cane in each of the glasses.  We noticed right away that the hot water was fizzing and turning red, while the cold water had barely changed.  Before we had a chance to leave the commons the candy cane in the hot water was already dissolved!

We checked again when we returned to the classroom.  We decided that the warm water candy cane was all white, while the cold water one still had a couple red stripes on it!  We predicted that the warm water candy would dissolve next!

Once center time was over, we gathered around the sensory table to see what had happened while we were hard at work!

All 3 candy canes had dissolved!  We learned that any type of water (hot, warm, or cold) can dissolve things, but the hot water will dissolve the fastest and the cold with dissolve the slowest!

 Time for small groups (centers)!

Uh oh!  Santa had some beautiful Christmas trees, but they were missing their ornaments!  Each friend was given "ornaments" with different colors and designs.  His/her job was to sort the ornaments and decorate the tree with ornaments that were the same.  He/she could choose to sort by color or design to decorate the tree.  Then...repeat using a different color or design!

With Mrs. Dose we "rolled a gingerbread"!  Each friend took a turn rolling 2 dice.  He/she stated or counted the number of dots.  Then, every friend at the table found the gingerbread with that number on it and colored it in on his/her paper.  Identifying/recognizing numbers and connecting them to their quantity is an early math skill!

We love books and we love getting to "read" to friends.  We used pictures to give us clues what the story is about.  We used those clues to "read" the story to each other!

With me we had some poor snowmen that had tumbled apart!  The bottom had an uppercase letter, the middle a lowercase letter, and the top a picture!  Each friend was given the bottom of the snowman.  He/she then had to find the matching lowercase letter and the picture that started with that same letter.  Not only were we recognizing upper/lowercase letters, we also had to recognize letter sounds and the beginning letter sounds of words.  When each was found, he/she built a snowman!  Success for some was building the snowman by his/herself.  Success for others was working together to help each other build each snowman!

 We haven't been to our preschool playground in awhile, so we headed down there to play with preschool friends from other classes!

During Jesus Time we remembered how the shepherds must have felt afraid when an angel first appeared to them.  But, God brought good news through that angel, and the shepherds didn't want to be afraid.  Sometimes we feel afraid too.  But, God has given us a Savior, Jesus, to turn all of our fear into joy!