Thursday, March 13, 2014

President's Day!

This week we learned about President Obama, President George Washington, and President Abraham Lincoln.  It was a little tricky for 3/4 year olds to understand what the President actually does for us, but hey, we still had fun learning.  When I asked the kids what the President might do for our country, some of the answers were, “He is my dad!”, “He helps us!”, “THE PRESIDENT PUTS US IN JAIL!!!”.   (The “jail” answer was my favorite.  Ha!)  We created an adorable log cabin that looks just like the one that Abe Lincoln lived in when he was a boy.  We used 10 popsicle sticks, a brown triangle, a grey rectangle, and a white square to create the cabins.  We used these items so that we could review some of the trickier things we have been learning.  (brown, gray, white, and the shapes)  We learned about money and which Presidents are on each type of coin or bill, thought about what we would do if we were the President, practiced cutting with scissors using under and over techniques, painted with red, white and blue while learning about the American Flag, and touched on the letter “K”. 

We continued to work on the assessment this week.  Please remember that this is just a tool to help you see what your child is learning at school, and to see how you may be able to help your child at home when discussing school.  I must say, I am very proud of our little class!  They are so smart and are trying so hard to learn, share, and remember all of the things we talk about at school.  Another note I would like to add is that I have been introducing a new letter of the alphabet each week.  We discuss what the letter looks like, the sound it makes, and practice writing the letter.  I do not expect the kids to master each of these letter skills, as this class focuses on introducing the letters rather than complete comprehension.  If you are concerned about your child’s progress with his/her letter recognition, I highly recommend the “Leapfrog Letter Factory” DVD.  I actually bought this DVD for my oldest son and it is fantastic!  Not only did it help Landon significantly before kindergarten, but my three year old son has also enjoyed the DVD and knows his letters/numbers as well.  They actually ask to watch it sometimes.  Wow!




We made a log cabin house, just like Abraham Lincoln's.  We counted 10 popsicle sticks, used one brown triangle for the roof, one white rectangle for the door, and one gray square for a window.  Using these specific items helped us review the tricky colors white, brown and gray.  We also reviewed trangles, squares and rectangles!


Josh was a super student of the day!  Thank you Josh!


Look!  A photo of some of our past Presidents.


Woohoo!  Let's make letters in big messy piles of shaving cream!




We practiced writing our names on these really fun marker boards!





I just love the imaginations of our little friends.


Look how well we play together!


In the green room, Mrs. Karen taught us how to limbo!


Every week we practice cutting with our little fingers and hands.  It is not an easy thing to do!




Monday, February 17, 2014

Winter & Snow, Space, Community Helpers and Valentine's Day!

Snow & Ice

Wow!  This sure has been a complicated winter season for our school schedule!  I was thrilled to see our class this week.  We were all so happy to be back at school.  Since we missed one day last week while studying winter animals, snow and ice, we completed several activities that were planned for that study. 







What a neat experiment!  While painting a snowflake craft, the kids found a hidden message on the paper!





Look at these sweet friends!


We are working very hard on cutting with scissors.  It is not easy to do!



Do you know how to make "Snowman Soup"?


Floyd was the "Student of the Day"!


I just love this picture.  Look at how sweet our little class is when we pray.


3-2-1....BLAST OFF!!!!

On Friday we learned about space.  Space is such a fun theme!  Ask your child about the “astronaut” that visited when they were at school on Friday. 

We each created our own planet “earth” as a craft, worked on number sequence, reviewed letters and numbers 1-7, created a big dipper with pretzels and marshmallows and even turned off the lights in the room and watched the stars!  In the sensory table, we dug through “moon sand” to find glow sticks. 



Isn't this picture great?  I just love the imagination and fun we have in our class!


I was so proud of the kids during this activity.  Look at how well they are listening.


Once we sprayed our coloring creations with water, magic happened!


We visited as a whole group with all of the classes to learn about space and astronauts!  We were even able to turn out the lights and look at stars, a space shuttle, and the moon projected onto the ceiling!  Cool!


Then we made our very own big dipper out of 7 marshmallows and 7 pretzel sticks.







Check out these adorable astronauts!




The Minds in Motion room was full of fun again this week.



We were even able to have some fun with a parachute activity!



Community Helpers

Community Helpers is one of my favorite themes.  This week we used our pincer fingers to tear pieces of paper to make a stoplight, created our very own police car craft while reviewing shapes, created quite a construction zone with rice and playdoh in the sensory bin (what a fun mess!), and even had a special visit from a real police officer!  We were able to see his police car too!



As a class, we sorted lots and lots of costumes, clothing and props to create our very own classroom of community helpers!


How cute is this?  Yipee for community helpers!


Happy Birthday to Cooper and Lola!


Noah was our "Student of the Day" this week!


He showed us how much he loves the Avengers and it just so happened that Mrs. Karen wore her favorite super-hero shirt that day!  So fun!


We are so thankful to Officer Striegel for visiting our classroom and teaching us about police officers.  Police officers are one of our most important community helpers.



Not only did we receive sheriff badges, but we were even able to take a close look at a real police car!





Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a wonderful time during our Valentine's Day party at school.  Thank you so much for all of the treats, activities, goodies, supplies, helpers and love that was put into this party.

Here are a few photos showing off what adorable valentine outfits some of the kids were wearing.  They were so cute!






Love is in the air!











I LOVE YOU, VALENTINES! XOXO
Mrs. Kelly