Unity

Recently our class had the school's traveling Unity cross. Each week at the end of mass, the cross is handed from one class to another. During the week the class with the cross is supposed to focus on a way to show unity. In Preschool this may seem like a daunting task. Nearly our entire day is spent differentiating and individualizing not only lessons and instruction, but also procedures and routines to best meet the needs of our littles where they are developmentally.

Yet, we see Unity from our darlings in so many ways. When a friend is sad, hugs overflow. Someone needs help keeping up in line, a hand is offered to guide them down the hallway.

We sometimes use a strategy in class I refer to as 'Ready Teach'. When I ask a  question I often raise both fists above my head, spread out my fingers and this is our silent cue that the children should talk to a neighbor to try to figure out the answer to the question. This encourages children to talk through their ideas. It encourages conversation and allows students who many not readily know the answer a chance to participate actively in the lesson. What I really love is listening to the children teach the other children. They have the sweetest ways of explaining things. And it encourages Unity.

At this point in the year we have introduced all uppercase and lowercase letters as well as their phonemes. While we are still working on lowercase letter recognition almost all our students have 100% accuracy with their uppercase letters, which makes our clip boards so much more fun.

Every few weeks the children help out by 'hiding' words around the room. As one of their activities the children are able to take their clip boards and find the hidden words. The papers have the matching picture, all they have to do is transfer the word to the paper. They love writing and reading their words.

So Serious... I love this picture.

We are even learning to read number words

And using toys to spell words :)

They love this new activity. The children take turns hiding a tactile letter in the green bag. The other two take turns reaching into the bag and trying to guess the letter just by the way it feels. A really hard game but it shows how well the children are able to mentally recall letters.

And by the way, did you know we are figuring out addition. It happened by accident. 

We have been working on our ten frames. 

We practice the sentences : I have ____ I need ____ more to make 10. Of course the next logical step was addition.. Pretty exciting stuff happening in our room these days.

While we were busy playing, the learning snuck in

At the beginning of every month we change our Math and Daily 5 "on your own" tubs. They tend to be seasonal based themes. Some activities are a review of lessons taught in small groups, others are a small twist on previous lessons. We had such a great time with a few of our new tubs.

Feed the Sneaky Squirrel

Feeding our sneaky squirrel was fun to watch. The children had to roll the die (or dice 

depending on how high they are able to count fluently) and count out the correct amount 

of nuts. The best part was watching the kiddos try to use tweezers to pick up all the nuts.

Ten Frame Race

With a partner, the children rolled a die and colored the correct amount of spaces. 

Our focus with this game was to use math vocabulary. We modeled the sentences 

"I rolled ____" "I need ____ more to make 10". 

And our favorite...

Hidden Words

Taped under table 2 are several seasonal words. The children have white boards, markers and erasers. They get to slide under the table and copy the words. The help build vocabulary, pictures correspond with the text. It is a fun way to practice handwriting and it also encourages 'reading'.

We practiced how to safely go under the table, putting only the top half of our body under the table. Watching their strategies on how to best complete this task was amazing.

Some children brought their boards under the table with them.

Others kept their boards on the table. They looked under the table for words, 

were able to remember the letter, and then write them. 

Alex is so proud of his work!

(and gross little painty fingers have obviously been wiped under our table)

And more pictures from our Jackson Pollack painting activity...

I seriously love these duck feet.

Love these expressions. They were so into the painting!

In addition to our new learning tubs, we also added a few new toys to the room. 

I like to rotate toys so the children do not become bored. 

We are enjoying our marble run set. We also have new pirates and knights.

James and Jeremiah worked very hard to create a marble run. It was so cool that we saved it for the next day. Having this set up by our door could have been disastrous, but the children really wanted to play again the next day so they were mindful to enter and exit our room carefully.

Boo Breakfast

Our first class party was last week. Thank you to our amazing team of room parents who organized the event as well as those families who provided items and came in to help things run smoothly.

The children had a great time. We are always nervous before the first party of the year. The children love routine and predictability (and to be completely honest that is probably because I need it too). When we add a change to our regular routine ~ like costumes and parents coming and going ~ there is a very high potential for tears. Not this year. The children have really developed a rhythm for their day. They know when to ring the chimes, what to say, and what to do when they hear the chimes. They are really quite impressive to watch in action. We used the chimes at our Boo Breakfast to make sure the children were able to go to each center and they went about the activities as if we have donuts and wear costumes all the time. AMAZING

Loving the gloves on Elsa to keep her from freezing everything. I predicted four 

Elsa costumes, and was right. We even had lights and music on some costumes. 

Costumes sure have changed since I was a kid.

We listened to a fun story written by Jerry Seinfeld. 

We made adorable Halloween ornaments 

with sticky wiggle eyes!

We made necklaces with cute paper straw beads. 

And of course breakfast

Don't you just love the fancy serving trays for our Breakfast?!

And these two... this looks like such a serious conversation. Those expressions, I wish I knew what they were talking about.

Showing off her monster juice box :)

And this face...

We are seriously the cutest things ever!

At the beginning of every month we switch our activities in our 'On Our Own Tubs'. We practiced a few new ones today. The pictures we took today are adorable. Stayed tuned for those. 

Also, we have a fun new bird watching bench in our room. We are completely entertained by one friendly squirrel who likes to visit us.