Monday, May 2, 2016

So...somehow May has snuck up on us and here we are at the last month of school!

A few reminders:

• Week of the Young Child at Zion is this week...May 2nd - 6th! 
• Taco Tuesday (5/3) - Wear silly socks (and your BLUES shirt!).  We will have a tour of the kitchen, eat nachos, and a librarian will visit us.
• Workout Wednesday (5/4) - Dress like your favorite sports figure. We will have a special workout at school and a librarian will visit us.
• Thankful Thursday (5/5) - Wear your favorite color to school. We will add our leaves to our “thankful tree”.  Remember to return your leaves to school by Wednesday, 5/4.
• Favorite Book Friday (5/6) - Dress like your favorite storybook character and bring the book to school to share with your friends.

Change “War” is this week…May 2nd - 6th!  A local family recently lost their home and all of their possessions in a house fire and needs our help.  Let’s have a...Change War! Please bring in your change to add positive amounts to our class’s total and add paper money to other class’s milk jugs to subtract from their money totals.  Collected monies will be given to the family in need. Thank you for your generosity!

Picnic at the Park is Tuesday, May 24 we will have a Preschool Picnic in the Park evening from 5:00 - 7:00 at Laurel Park.  If you would like to bring a picnic dinner, Mrs. Stanglein has reserved the “upper” picnic pavilion.  Please note that we will not be providing any food.  Please also note that you will need to stay with your child(ren) for the time that they are in attendance.  It will be a fun night!

On to our day...

We were excited to improve our hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness as we used the new gears in the classroom!

On Friday we still had a ladybug land filled with pupa!  Over the weekend, the final stage of metamorphosis took place and we now have adult ladybugs.  We did get to see one fresh out of it's pupa shell today.  When ladybugs first emerge they are very pale with light dots.  It takes about 12 hours for them to darken and get their spots.  There is still one pupa left!  We are hoping it waits to come out until tomorrow so our Tuesday friends can see a brand new ladybug too!

While others enjoyed free choice time...

Each friend began his/her day with a special check-in!  Each child completed his/her "May My Name" for his/her portfolio.  Each friend was given the choice if he/she wanted to write first and last name or just first name. Whatever he/she chose all were successful without using his/her nametag!!!  While each friend wrote his/her name I took special note of :

pencil grip

right or left hand

did he/she know the letters in own name

We LOVED Pajama Day!!!

And we LOVED getting to watch Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales.  They reminded us where God is when we are scared.  We don't have to be afraid because God is the biggest and he's always with us, on our team!

Upon returning from our Monday movie we noticed during morning meeting that we started a new month! Our April pie graph was filled in!  We quickly decided that yellow (sunny) had the most...by A LOT, and black (cloudy) had the least!  Being able to compare more, less, and the same is an early math skill!

"Hippos in a Hut" visited at the end of morning meeting today!  We started with 5 hippos...

Some got a little sleepy and decided to take a nap in their hut!  Our job was to figure out how many hippos were sleeping by counting how many hippos stayed out to play.  How many are in the hut if 3 are left outside to play??? This is a tough concept to grasp, but we recalled what we had learned when we did this with dinosaurs, so we did a good job today.  As the week goes on, we will add more hippos and continue to improve upon this early math skill!

How many are in the hut if 1 is left outside to play???

For science time today we finished our ladybug journals.  Most of our pupa have moved on to stage 4, adult ladybug. We looked at models and our little ladybugs as each friend drew a picture of stage 4 of our ladybugs. We loved getting to see what our ladybugs look like now that metamorphosis is complete!  

As we celebrate the week of the young child with all of the preschool classes, our schedule is a little silly!  So, we will not have our usual small groups this week.  Instead we will have a larger group activity in the classroom!

Each friend observed his/her 2 bags of beans and drew his/her observations for "day 15" in his/her own "Bean Journal"!  This will be our last week to observe our beans.  Some still aren't doing much but growing mold, while a couple are sprouting and growing!

We couldn't believe that a goose was hanging out on one leg at the edge of our playground!

 So those who wanted to, took a little time to check him out...

Then...off to play to improve large motor control!

During Jesus Time today we learned that 40 days after Jesus came alive again, it was time for Him to go back to heaven. On a hilltop with His disciples Jesus raised His arms and blessed His disciples.  While they watched He began to rise up into the air, until a cloud hid Him from the disciples' sight!  It is now our job to tell all people what He has done for us!