Thursday, April 14, 2016

We had a great day in preschool!

We are still having a blast with our puppet theater! Puppets enable children to plan and work together!

Some friends improved small motor control as he/she created from a blank canvas with "good junk"!

  Now that we have the hang of it, we are very much enjoying listening/reading books on CD! We are learning the proper way to read a book:  front to back, and left to right.  We are beginning to understand that letters make words, and words make a story. We are also improving our listening skills...we have to wait for the special sound that tells us when to turn the page! If a friend is waiting for a turn, he/she places his/her nametag on the table showing who is next!

These friends spend a little time enjoying a book together! The laughter coming from the carpet was contagious!

 These friends put a spin on ramp building!  They chose to turn some ramps upside down to make tunnels.  Each car took a turn down the ramp.  Once all had finished, each friend predicted how far the cars would travel in the tunnel.  Finally, lift the tunnels up to see just how far they traveled!

Time to climb, climb, climb and...

balance...balance...balance!

We did some more brainstorming...what do we need to build our pet store...

Today we introduced the letter "Y"!  

We remembered start your letter "at the top" then little line down diagonal, big line down diagonal to write a "Y"! Then we came up with words that start with "Y"!

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

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

Connor returned the favorite book bag today!  He shared with us "Rainbow Sea"!  We loved hearing the rhyming words throughout the book while learning about all the colors in the ocean.  Thank you for sharing this book with us Connor!

Time for small groups (centers)!

Last week a few friends noticed our tree was beginning to blossom...

So..we completed our 4th observational drawing (spring) of the tree outside our classroom!

"WE CAN READ!"

We found environmental print that we could "read" and improved our small motor control as we glued each to our paper.

We improved our writing skills as we wrote "spring" words (from our word wall) in our journals.

Peek-A-Boo...I see our class...outside!!!

We had a special arrival to our classroom...ladybug larvae!!!  Over the next few weeks we will observe and complete a bit of journaling as metamorphosis takes place.  We are very excited to see the change from larvae, to pupa, to adult ladybugs!

Since we didn't get to see the egg stage and the larvae are quite tiny...we had models to pass around and check out!

We learned that like all living things, the larvae need water to keep growing!  So...first, we added water to our special habitat...

Then...we added the larvae and their food to our new "ladybug land"!

Some of the day, our ladybug land will be on our cubbies to stay safe!  But, it will be down for our friends to observe and see what's happening multiple times throughout each day!

During Jesus Time today Zippy visited with a rose!  He said the rose reminded him of Easter, since Jesus arose from the dead!  We had to tell Zippy that was a different kind of rose.  Arose in the Easter story means "to get up".  But, we decided that any time we think of Easter flowers, we not only think of the white lily, we can also think of the rose (to remind us Jesus rose from the dead to save us all from our sins!)