Thursday, February 9, 2017

We had a wonderful Thursday in preschool!

Those not here yesterday began their day finding out "How Many Hearts Tall Are You?"

Each friend then had to find his/her number of hearts on the graph and write his/her name in the correct column!  Using non-standard forms of measurement is an early math skill (and some writing practice to go along with it)!

Teacher Claire (so excited to use the birthday chair) reads to Laina to get their morning started!

A couple friends are still hard at work cutting out and coloring hearts for the classroom!  A great way to improve small motor control!

It takes a steady hand and good hand-eye coordination to make a magnatile building this tall!

Meteorologists Josh and Elliot check the weather map to see that...

A TORNADO is coming...take cover!!!

Mrs. Helmkamp began recording our weather forecasts in front of the "green screen" today.  We were a bit shy at first, but we are getting the hang of it, getting more comfortable in front of the camera!

 Brrr...the feels like temp of 9 kept us inside this morning for large motor time!  But, we LOVED getting to complete the obstacle course!

And...fly our paper airplanes in the dedicated "fly zone"!

 We have been checking the local weather daily since we began our weather project, but we added another location: Belize City, Belize.  Mrs. Haun (EC Director), Mrs. Lohman (PS teacher), Miss Beach (2nd Grade teacher), and Miss Bevirt (3rd Grade teacher) are in Belize this week delivering Bibles we purchased with chapel offering and the change war.  While there, they are visiting 6 different schools, sharing and learning from each other hoping to find a partner school.  We found out it is MUCH warmer where they are...at 9:15 it was already 80 degrees!!!

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

Woo Hoo!!! Tricky Mouse is back!!!  This week he brought rain clouds with numbers on them!!!  He hid under different numbers and we did our best to find him.  Success for some was knowing each number.  Success for others was knowing some of the numbers.  While success for a few was getting help with the numbers from a friend!

Reese returned the favorite book bag today, bringing in "The Giant Jam Sandwich" to share with us!  We loved hearing from Reese about her favorite part of the book, and seeing her drawings.  We then enjoyed hearing the story as Mrs. Mudd read it to the class.

This activity is one way to encourage the love of reading.  Also, this activity allows the children (and teacher) to be introduced to new books!  Furthermore, it helps to continue to build home and school connections!

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!

Time for small groups (centers)!

With Mrs. Mudd, there were clouds with numbers on them.  Each child had to identify the number on his/her cloud, then count out that number of rain drops, lightning bolts, or a combination of both!  The ability to recognize/identify numbers and matching them to their quantities are early math skills.  Success for some was working with numbers 1 - 5.  For others success was working with 1 - 10.  While still others, success was working with 1 - 20!

With Mrs. Dose we worked as a team.  First we mixed black and white paint to see what color we would get.  I asked before we began, and no one was quite sure what would happen!  We were excited to see that black and white make gray.  We then took on the task of painting the whole paper gray.  Over the next day or two, we will use that paper to make storm clouds for the weather center!

We sorted pictures of winter/snowy, summer/sunny, or rainy/stormy clothes or items.  There were 3 papers, each with a picture (1 sunny, 1 snowy and 1 stormy).  Each paper asked the question, "Which will you use?"  Our friends had to place the items on the correct picture.  The ability to sort is an early cognitive skill.

Our friends did a wonderful job role-playing real life situations in the weather center!!!  There were many tornados and hurricanes reported again today.  Our weather project may begin to focus on storms, tornados, and hurricanes as that is what seems to be popping up each day in the weather center!

We enjoyed having the gym to ourselves to, once again, fly paper airplanes...

And run, run, run like superheroes!!!

During Jesus Time I retold the story of Jesus blessing the children.  While telling the story, our friends had to make faces for when the story was happy, sad, or angry!  We took turns whispering to the friend sitting next to them, "Jesus Loves You!"  So, we remembered that Jesus will ALWAYS love us!