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.