Coming up...

We welcome Hannah to our Wednesday/Friday class!
Our Tuesday/Thursday class has 9 students and our Wed/Friday class has 10!

Valentine Parties will be on February 14th and 15th from 1-2 p.m.  You are welcome to join us for some fun!  More info to come soon.

We are considering taking a class field trip to the Duke Energy Children's Museum.  We are in the process of getting approval.  We would need volunteers to go with us.  If you are interested in volunteering please consider making an appointment at the main office to get fingerprinted.  All volunteers will need to be have this done prior to volunteering.  You can find out more information about fingerprinting on West Clermont's website http://www.westcler.org/. Please contact me with any questions.  Dates for the field trip are still being decided.  Most likely it'll be in the Spring.

It's Winter in our Classroom!

Have you heard that we are ice skating in our class?  That's right our dramatic play center has turned into an ice skating rink! 

Arctic Animals!

The arctic animal projects that were presented to the class were fantastic.  The creativity and diversity was great to see.  We learned many facts and it was a great way to supplement to what we are learning in class. I hope you all enjoyed working with your child on these.  The students showed a lot of pride in their work.

Preschool is just so much fun!

Check out our bulletin board.  The students worked very hard on their bears.  We practice using scissors on a regular basis.  One of the cues we use to help a child position their hand is "thumb on top". 

Our teddy bear picnic was so much fun.  We lined the animals up according to size (to go along with our discussion about large, medium and small).  We had some pretty significant debates about a few of the animals and which was actually bigger. 

We have been working on story writing.  We've discussed how everyone can be an author and illustrator.  Students have had the opportunity to write their own stories and dictate them to a teacher.  They have also contributed in whole class stories where each student can contribute to one story.  Remember every child is at a different level or writing.  Some are learning how to scribble while others are writing mock letters, letters and even words. 

One of our class stories. 

Here are a couple photos of our graphing of the gummy bears! 

Our sensory table is full of oats (for the Three Bears), bowls and spoons.  It has been a very popular center this week.

Shaving cream and teddy bears!  Here are some photos of some of the students in the class playing with shaving cream.  Shaving cream play provides a sensory experience but also provides an opportunity for so much more learning.  While playing with the bears the students were encouraged to count them, use their pointer fingers to draw or write in the shaving cream, and so much more. 

Graphing and Sorting

We used gummy bears today to sort by color and graph.   Every child participated at their own level whether it was matching, sorting, distinguishing most, least and the same (and using that language) or even answering the question "how many do you have altogether."  Every child was successful and of course had a tasty treat when they were finished.

Teddy Bear Picnic

As you know we've been learning about bears.  To have a little fun, expand our learning and to have an opportunity to share we will have a “teddy bear” picnic in our class on Thursday and Friday.  Please allow your child to bring in his or her favorite stuffed animal to school on Thursday we will share about our animals and eat teddy grahams and drink juice with our animals. 

                   

Bears, bears and more bears!

This week we focused on bears.  Two main themes and books stood out to be of most interest to the children.  First, Goldilocks and the Three Bears was a hit.  The students enjoyed listening to the story and watching it retold with props.  Many students spent much time in the dramatic play center with the story props.  Our sensory table will be full of dried oats next week (porridge) and we will continue to expand on the story.

Here are some of the props available in the dramatic play center!

                                                           Scarlet and Goldilocks.

                                          Ellie is using the story props with the felt board.

 Bear in a Square was also a favorite this past week.  The students especially enjoy the activities to go along with the book.  We play a game where the bear gets hidden under a shape and the students take turns guessing which shape it's hiding under.  During this time we aren't just working on shape recognition but also on turn taking, predicting, using full sentences (i.e. "The bear is under the blue diamond"), color recognition etc...  The students have had a blast playing in our large group activity time but also with each other during center choice time.

                                              We made shape collages this week!

                                                 Zander beginning his shape collage.

                        Our name chart.  Everyday students place their name on the chart as part of attendance.  This promotes name recognition, participation and counting (we count who is present).