Fall Fun

We have a board game in our room we like to play in the mornings.  The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel is an adorable game that encourages counting, color recognition and fine motor skills. The squirrel, a giant pair of tweezers, steals colored acorns from the tree. Inspired by the game, a few weeks ago we went outside to collect acorns. Of course we had to use tweezers. We then used the acorns for a craft. Dipped in red, orange, and brown paint we rolled the acorns around a box lid to create designs. It was interesting listening to the students discuss why the acorns did or did not roll well. The papers are now cut into leaf shapes and they adorn our Pete bulletin board in the hallway.

We also had fun talking about the difference between insects and spiders. We practiced counting to 8 while we made some adorable spider hats. If only real spiders were this cute!

Hiding on the tree behind the cutest spiders ever you might see a fluffy owl. We had feathers everywhere after this craft.

Our first class party is this week. I'm sure we will be back with lots more pictures.

Until then, enjoy the last few hours of your Fall Break!

And Just Like That We Are Ready to Read

Throughout the elementary grades at St. Monica we use a literacy program called Daily 5. There are five parts to Daily 5, clever name I know :) In PreK 4 we are slowly introducing our kiddos to the parts of this program. One part we have implemented successfully is the "Read to Self" portion. Every day after snack the children take out their "Read to Self" tubs and head to their spot. They are able to spend about ten minutes looking through their self selected books kept in their tub. They also keep the self created books we have made in class. The books we create in class have a predictable pattern and one common sight word that appears on each page. Using predictable texts allows the children to be somewhat independent in their reading. It also reinforces the idea that we are all authors. This week we will also begin delving into our journals. We will try to write in our journals weekly. Eventually we will write daily, but it is only October.

Another part of Daily 5 is "Reading to a teacher". This is new for  us, but we are slowly making progress. Although the words may not always be correct, we are working on turning pages left to right, following text, and understanding that words have meaning. These are all great pre reading skills.

Look how cute we are!

https://vimeo.com/141414701

Our class is participating in a study, piloting a new Math App called Math Shelf. At the end of the study we should have access to the App commercially as well as the written curriculum to go along with the App. It is loosely based on Montessori approaches to math. We are focusing much attention on number sense. The children are using dice fairly regularly in our hands on math activities. It is amazing how quickly they have learned to recognize the standard configurations of numbers. Without even counting dots on the dice many children are able to roll and cover the correct number simply by looking at the spacing of the dots. We are also working on recognizing the numbers in a ten frame.