Monday, February 1, 2016

Welcome back to Mrs. Mudd's preschool class!

A few reminders:

 This Wednesday, 2/3 is a half day (school dismisses at 12:00 this day) for teacher in-service.  Please make arrangements to have your child picked up at 12:00 this day.  We will not be eating lunch at preschool, but we will have morning snack.  If you pre-registered your child to attend half day care in the afternoon, he/she will need a cold lunch with a drink, a snack with a drink, and his/her nap bag (we will send down with him/her) while at half day care!

Valentines to give to friends...Our class will have our valentines parties on Monday, February 8 and Tuesday, February 9. Prior to the parties, each child will be making a valentine bag, AT SCHOOL.  Please have your child prepare 23 valentines at home (1 for each child in the class) and bring them on 2/8 or 2/9.  Below are a few tips when completing valentines:

• In my experience, filling out valentines can take a bit of time, completing only a few per day.
• Please write "Friend" or "My Friend" in the "To" line (or leave it blank), and then sign his/her name in the "From" line.  
• Including a small item (sticker, pencil, tattoo, etc) along with the valentine is okay, but not required.  Please, NO CANDY, due to possible allergies.
• If you attend on Monday and Tuesday, you do not need to bring valentines for each day.  The bags will be out both days, so you can bring your 23 in on either day.

Box Tops Contest…It’s that time again!  Zion will have a classroom contest for box tops! The classroom who brings in the most box tops between now and 2/19 will win a special treat!  I will have a bag in our classroom for you to turn them in! Questions? Contact Shawnda Burnham (shawndab@hotmail.com).

A few friends were excited to see that we had some hearts leftover from last week that still needed to be decorated!  Expressing creativity and improving fine motor control while having fun!

And even more excitement as we improved hand-eye coordination while working with magnatiles!

Korrinne was very excited to read a book in the birthday chair!

 We began the first step in creating our symphony orchestra...we worked as a team to put away all the kitchen items. First we gathered everything and then sorted by kinds of kitchen items.  Then we were able to "close" the kitchen!

SJ and Jonah planned and worked together to make this tower!

 After everyone was checked in, we decided we had the most "tired" friends this morning!

We headed outside to the "big kid" playground to have some large motor time with other preschool classes!

Now that January is over, we noticed our pie graph had another circle filled in!  We noticed that January was a little different than December, but not much!  Sunny had the most, cloudy was a close second, and rainy had the least with 1 day!

Happy 5 1/2 Birthday Korrinne!  Thank you for sharing your special day with us!

It was time to see what we remember about positional words!  I had 6 cards, each with a different positional word.  Friends got to "pick a card, any card".  I would read the card aloud and he/she would place his/her body somewhere in the classroom using that word!

Jonah is "under" the table!

Madalynn is "in front of" the drying rack!

Reagan is "behind" the book shelf!

Laina is "in between" Korrinne and the book shelf!

SJ is "in" the bathroom!

Ben is "beside" the smart board!

Today we introduced the letter "R" and number "7"!  

We remembered start your letter "at the top" then big line down, little curve, little line diagonal to write an "R" and little line across, big line diagonal to write a "7"! Then we came up with words that start with "R" and found "7's" around the room!

Anytime one of our friends thinks of a word that starts with "R" we can add it to our big letter.  Or, if at home, your child sees a small picture or item that starts with an "R", bring it in and he/she can glue it to our big letter!

Then we practiced writing "R" and "7" with our special handwriting without tears crayons (nice and short to reinforce proper grip)!

Time for small groups (centers)!

With Valentine's day around the corner, we talked as a group about "people we love".  Here are just a few that we came up with today!

We remembered that not only can we listen and sing music, we can also dance to it!!! Time for a little dance party!

With Mrs. Burnham we strengthened the finger, wrist, and hand muscles while rolling out playdoh.  We then used the rolled out playdoh to make different shapes (triangle, square, circle, oval, rectangle, and diamond)!

We had a third center, but SHHH! It is top secret!  Be patient, you just might get to see it next week sometime!

We headed to the preschool playground for round 2 of outside time today!  We were quite interested in what we could dig up.  A great way to explore the world around us!

During Jesus Time today we learned the story of the Good Samaritan! He was kind and helpful.  He showed the kind of loving kindness that God wants us to show one another!