What did we do today?
10/2/13 We are so very busy all day in PreK A! All 21 students were ready to go! Mrs. Waystack was our special helper. We continue to work on Letter Recognition and Knowledge. Today we started making an Alphabet House chart. The book Alphabet House is familiar but we carefully looked at the pictures again and choose five items from each page that had the same beginning letter/sound as Ms. A and Mr. B. Next each child was given a plastic alphabet letter and asked to stand when their letter was called as we choral chanted the ABCs together, challenging but fun! Our story was Leaf Season by Quinlan B. Lee. Questions and answers around the story are a prime time for oral language development. and building listening skills. Music was really great today as we put together our first Rock and Roll Rhythm Band! Ask your child if they played triangle (only 1), sticks, bells, shakers, or blocks. We ended the day with Mrs. Cole visiting for Library class. She read The Biggest Leaf Pile by Steve Metzger. Remember, tomorrow is Picture Day!
10/1/13 A new month is very exciting! The word October is now added to our Word Wall. Tuesday mornings are special. We visited Ms. Newcomb for Music. and PreK A were great listeners. There are many opportunities for solo singing and group participation in Music class. At Morning Meeting we celebrated Harsha's birthday! The birthday child gets to pick a friend and visit Mrs. Boyle to get a special birthday pin. That's pretty exciting. Harsha was so proud and I was quite impressed with how much everyone enjoyed his birthday. In fact, a couple of friends made birthday cards during Open Choice! Our ELA story was Clifford The Big Red Dog The Big Leaf Pile. This afternoon in Religion class we talked about Our Blessed Mother Mary. We talked a bit about who Mary is, Jesus' Mother and our heavenly Mother. October is a month traditionally dedicated to our Blessed Mother. We passed Rosary beads for the children to see and learned that the Rosary is a special prayer. The children are invited to bring in Rosary beads from home if they wish.
9/30/13 We love to start our Mondays with a conversation about what we did on the weekend. We heard a lot about playing at home with Mom, Dad, and siblings. One friend got to eat at a restaurant with her Nana! During our ELA segment we read Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Margaret Hillert and then we continued with our Starfall ABCs. The afternoon was lots of fun because we used beanbags in Music class for the first time! .We listened to a cassette tape and then moved our bodies and beanbags as instructed. "put your beanbag on your toe, put your beanbag on your belly and wiggle around your nose!..." It was a big hit, but everybody was tired. Let's rest up for the week ahead!
9/27/13 Today was another Fun Friday. Not only did we have Art in the morning with Mrs. Caruso but we also enjoyed Freeze Dance again. We continue to work on routines and forming good Pre K habits like cleaning up, putting things where they belong, pushing in our chairs when we get up and being good listeners. One of the ways we line up or move on to another activity is by looking for our name to be held up on a name card and identifying it as our own. Well, not only can almost every student regularly recognize their own name, but many can already identify the names of many friends! Impressive. This afternoon we met our 8th grade buddies for the 1st time. SMS has a long standing tradition of pairing upper grade students with lower grade students for a monthly 30 minute bloc.k where typically the buddies work on a craft together and get an opportunity to talk and develop a Buddy relationship. Both upper and lower grade students LOVE buddy days! I hope you like the pumpkin puppets created with our buddies" help.
9/26/13 Apologies for missing yesterday's posting. Uncooperative internet!! Did you hear???!! Mr. D, Ms. E, and Mr. F all came to visit PreK A! Mr. D does a dazzling dance and leaps as high as a dinosaur, Ms. E exercises with energy, and Ms. F is a fabulous sight with her funny feet. She's full of fun. The Letter People are a big hit! We read a familiar favorite Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault. Mrs. Waystack was with us as our special helper and we also enjoyed Library with Mrs. Cole. I wonder if you've heard about our friend Puff the Magic Dragon? This old Peter, Paul, and Mary tune has become a PreK A favorite and regular request during Music. I am sure they would be thrilled to hear you sing along!
Today Miss Renette returned reading a book about Ocean Friends. Lincoln Logs were introduced for the first time as a building toy. While I modeled building schools and houses our friends impressed me with race cars and super ramps! During afternoon Centers, some friends chose to create leaf people at the Art Table. The leaves were collected during recess on the playground. Fun and full days in PreK A. Please be sure your student gets lots of rest!
9/24/61 If yesterday was Monday, today is .......? Yes, Tuesday! Try to remember to ask these questions regularly while getting dressed or eating breakfast each morning. Each opportunity to hear the order of the days helps our learners toward mastery and gives them a chance to raise their hand and participate when the question is posed at school. Mrs. Johnson joined us today and of course Tuesday is also special because we see Ms. Newcomb for Music. Last week the children were quite wiggly with Ms. Newcomb but this week they did a much better job being attentive. Perhaps seeing and hearing Ms. Newcomb play her violin helped! What a treat! If you didn't hear about that, do ask! Our Tales of Virtues book introduced the virtue of Responsibility today through the story of Adam and Eve and the responsibility they had to take care of all the beautiful plants and animals God created for them in the Garden of Eden. We, too, are responsible for taking care of things like hanging our coat on a hook, putting toys away where they belong, taking care of friends or brothers and sisters who need our help. This is a discussion we will revisit often this year!
9/23/13 Back to school today after the weekend, which we refer to as at home days. We started our day by taking turns sharing what we did that we enjoyed on those special at home days with our families. Friends enjoyed going to the park, riding bicycles, watching TV, and kicking soccer balls. Today was a very very special day in school. Aside from having Mrs. Johnson as a special helper we had three special guests visit us! After introducing The Letter People ABCs, the core book of our Letter People Curriculum, Ms A, Mr. B, and Ms. C came to our classroom to meet and greet Pre K A!!! Ms.A sneezes a-choo, Mr. B wears beautiful buttons, and Mr. C is very shy. He wears a colossal cap on his head. We returned to our Smartboard for Calendar adding a discussion of the season of Fall. We reviewed the story of Joseph and his beautiful coat during Religion and added the story Franklin Forgives to our Forgiving theme.
9/20/13 We call Friday Fun Friday in Pre K A and for good reason. We always look forward to our Specialist, Mrs. Caruso, coming into our classroom for Art on Friday. Today she read Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and we created our very own rainbow fish with one shiny scale! Pretty cool. The weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful time in the playground. After working on our calendar we explored alphabet songs and rhymes on the Smartboard. The highlight of the day, though, was definitely Freeze Dance! I played a Sugarbeats CD and we all danced until the music suddenly stopped and then we had to freeze! They loved it! I was impressed with the many fancy dance moves! It was great to have Mrs. Cole again as our special helper again.
9/19/13 This morning on the rug we shared a great book, Sparky and Eddie The First Day of School by Tony Johnston. It's a great tale of two very different friends. Being on the rug for even short periods of time is new to many of our Pre K friends and thus a challenge. We spent some time going over our Rug Rules and then added Rug Rules to our Word Wall. What are the Rug Rules at school? See if you can find out! At 9:30 our volunteer Guest Reader, Miss Renette, visited and read a favorite Dr. Seuss book, Go, Dog, Go. During Math we listened to Three Bears Rap from a developing Math Literacy CD. We are also learning a Days of the Week Song. Mrs. Waystack returned as our special helper. Tomorrow is Fun Friday! Stay tuned...
9/18/13 PreK A students love using the Smartboard! Did you know we use it everyday to do our Daily Calendar? We are forming routines and Calendar is a part of our Morning Meeting each day. We recite the days of the week together, say the name of the month and year together and point to and count each date through today's. The children are learning to take turns and listen when a friend or the teacher is speaking. The word Meeting went up on our word wall today as well as the word Sentence. Today our story was a Smartboard story The Gingerbread Boy by Brandi Chase. During Math we looked at shapes; circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. We talked about their sizes, colors, and number of sides. Then, out with the glue sticks! Wait until you see the shape faces we made! In the afternoon, we enjoyed Library with Mrs. Cole. Today Mrs. Waystack was our special helper. (Yesterday Mrs. Johnson spent the day with us.)
9/17/13 It's truly amazing and lots of fun to be a part of the Language Explosion in PreK A! Books,books, books! Each time we read a book we start by reading the name of the book, of course. Which leads to the question, "What's another word for the name of a book?" "The TITLE!" Let's put TITLE right up on our Word Wall! Somebody has to write the story. "What do we call the person who writes the story?" "The AUTHOR!" Another word for our Word Wall. Lots of giggles erupted when I suggested maybe someday I would be reading a book by Vittoria Tesfaye or Jackson Pilleri or Keira Twomey or ...! Yes, we can all be authors! Tuesday is a favorite day because we make a special trip to Music Class with Miss Newcomb who is quite talented and always keeps us busy listening, learning, singing, and moving to the beat. For Religion class this afternoon, we talked about God as our all loving Father in Heaven. Using Tales of Virtue, a Book of Right and Wrong, I read the story of Joseph and his brothers. The virtue of Forgiveness is defined in a way children can understand: when someone does something not very nice to us, we can choose to be kind to them. That is forgiveness.The biblical character of Joseph portrays that virtue. Perhaps you could ask about Joseph and his brothers. Didn't Joseph have a special coat? Who gave it to him? What did it look like? Why were his brothers mean? Was Joseph mean to them? Learning about God's love for Joseph and for each one of us had the children captivated!
9/16/13 I think the highlight of our day today was playing Stop The Music during our morning meeting. The children sat in a circle while I played music on a CD. We passed a soft nerf ball around the circle and when the music stopped, the child holding the ball had to get up, say their name, find their name on the Word Wall, touch the ball to their name, then return to their spot. We all had a lot of fun and the children practiced listening to and following directions and learning their classmates' names. We spent some time singing and learning hand motions to Nursery Rhymes. You may be surprised at how well they can sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Georgie Porgie, The Farmer and the Dell, and Little Miss Muffet! Despite mixed weather, we enjoyed afternoon and morning recess outdoors. (Remember, sneakers are the best, safest footwear for school.) At Centers, the children rotated between Magnatiles (a favorite for many, especially building rocketships), table puzzles, pattern blocks, Links (beginning to make patterns),and trains on the rug. We were delighted to have Mrs. Cole join us as special helper.
9/13/13: This morning we had Art Class with Mrs. Caruso. We are continuing to learn about shapes and read a great story about them. We then colored some different shapes in, using lots of color. For Math today, we did an estimation jar activity. This time, we had 5 square blocks in the jar. We then charted our responses and counted the blocks together. I am amazed at how quickly they are understanding the concept of "more than and less than". We also enjoyed listening to some stories on the Smartboard. This afternoon we had centers. The choices focused on "building", and some of the choices were using our new alphabet blocks, building with play dough, building towers with Magnatiles, and using Legos.
9/12/13: This morning we talked a lot about the alphabet. We each had a turn singing the alphabet and did a great job waiting patiently for our turn! We read ABC'S by Dr. Seuss and did a great job recognizing many of the letters. We enjoyed using the Smartboard for the calendar. For music and movement, we sang some different nursery rhymes. This afternoon we had centers. Some of the choices were using cookie cutters with play dough, playing in the housekeeping area, using lacing beads and building with Magnatiles.
9/11/13: This morning we reread the book, The Alphabet House. We talked about members of our own families and recognized various objects within the house in the book. We then made our very own Alphabet Houses! We incorporated our math skills of using different shapes to create our pictures. They are fabulous! This afternoon we had centers, and some of the choices were sorting various colored fish, using building tubes, pattern blocks, and shape puzzles. We then had Library with Mrs. Cole.
9/10/13: This morning we had music class with Ms. Newcomb and did a wonderful job! During Circle, we continued working on recognizing our names in print, starting with recognizing the first letters in our names. During Math time, our daily survey was whether we prefer taking baths or taking showers. Seven children prefer showers, while fourteen prefer baths. The children actually made their own notations on the graph! We also enjoyed learning some new movement songs on the Smartboard. This afternoon we began working on a project involving our traced hands and a hand poem. We then read some silly stories from the author Mo Willems, who writes about his friend, The Pigeon. We also read our newest class favorite, The Monster at the End of This Book (starring Grover).
9/9/13: We did a fantastic job joining right into the morning routine! There were no tears at drop off (yay!) and we settled in quickly. We read the story The Alphabet House by Nancy Elizabeth Wallce and are starting to recognize many letters of the alphabet. We also started our Word Wall today. We put up the most important words of all--our names! During Math time we read the book Would You Rather Be a Bullfrog by Dr. Seuss. Our survey question was, "Would you rather be a dog or a cat?" which was taken right from the beginning of the book. Six of the students would rather be a cat while fourteen would rather be a dog. We charted our responses and are doing a great job recognizing which group is bigger and which is smaller. This afternoon we had centers. Some of the choices were doing a huge floor puzzle (5 of the children worked on this together and did a fabulous job working cooperatively), painting, iPads, and pattern blocks.
9/6/13: This morning we had Art class with Mrs. Caruso! We read a story about different shapes and colored in a paper with the different shapes that we learned about. We also played with instruments today--we loved making such loud noises with our instruments! The daily survey today was to pick which instrument (out of three) we liked hearing the best. We had a tie for sticks and bells, and shakers were our least favorite. We also enjoyed using the Smartboard. This afternoon we had centers. Some of the choices were playing a memory game, housekeeping, playing with the dollhouses and making racetracks with the cars!
9/5/13: This morning we had a great time dancing and singing along with The Learning Station on the Smartboard. We learned a new song, Boom Chicka-Boom. For our daily survey, I asked the children if they were a boy or a girl. They had to mark the correct column, and then we made a graph based on the information. We have 7 girls and 14 boys! We also had a guest reader come today from the parish. Her name is Miss Renette and she is going to visit us on Thursdays to read a story. Today she read a story about trains! We also read one of my favorite books, The Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. This book is an action book and the children had a great time acting it out! This afternoon we had centers. Some of the choices were iPads, play dough, trains, building blocks, and safari animals.
9/4/13: This morning we read the book, Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle. We then began making our own self-portraits. This will take a few days, so not everybody had a turn to make one today. We also worked on pattern squares and enjoyed putting together some new puzzles. We also loved using the iPad! We learned a new song, "A Counting We Will Go", and did our estimation jar using the number "4". Our daily survey was which kind of milk do you like better--white or chocolate? Five of the children liked white better, and fifteen preferred chocolate. We also loved using the Smartboard today! For a quiet activity, we watched a story online (Rainbow Fish). This afternoon we had Library with Mrs. Cole and learned about elephants!
9/3/13: What a busy day in PreK-A! This morning we had our very first music class with Ms. Newcomb. The children were fabulous! During Circle time, we talked about the alphabet and letters. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.--so many of the children knew the words to the story and they "read" along with me! For our math portion of the day, we did an estimation activity (see question of the day). Each day will have a "daily survey" as part of math. Typically, there will be a question that has two possible answers (yes or no). After I ask the question, the children have to put a mark (either a dot or a line) under the "yes" column or the "no" column. We will then use this information to formulate graphs and use our estimation skills. Today's survey was , "Do you like going to the beach?" Not surprisingly, we had 2 "no" and 18 "yes". This afternoon we enjoyed having centers. Some of the choices were using the iPads, creating with play dough, coloring a geometrical design, lego table and painting at the easel. Be sure to check out "news and notes", as there is updated information posted.
8/29/13: The day flew by today in PreK-A! We continued to enjoy exploring the many different areas of the classroom. In all of my years of teaching, I think I have the best group of cleaner-uppers ever! The children have been excellent listeners and are following directions so well. During Circle we read the book, It's Time for School Sillyface, by Lisa McCourt. We also did a few "getting to know you" games with a ball. Before we knew it, it was time for recess and the school day came to an end. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I look forward to seeing you for our first full day of school on Tuesday!
8/28/13: We had a fabulous first day of school today! This morning we had fun using blocks, play dough, building with Magnatiles and playing in the housekeeping area. We also loved playing with the trains! During Circle we read the book, We Love Our School, by Judy Sierra. We also talked about what we need to do in the morning before coming to school (see the question of the day). We had a great time at recess--we love the playground! We also sang some new songs and danced along to Thomas the Train!