Holiday celebration videos

Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas are all discussed during the month of December in our classroom.  For each holiday, there will be a short video assisting in the explanation of the celebration.  While no participation in right/wrong discussion regarding these holidays will happen; we want each parent to be aware of the videos being shared.  

While these celebrations are important and create the morals and standards that some of our families build their lives around, the conversations regarding a child's view will never begin with a staff's inquiry or be challenged by individuals within our classroom setting.  It is joyous to hear your children share their thoughts with others, of all topics, as these conversations are building friendships and trust.  

Diwali video - Festival of Lights

Hanukkah video

Kwanzaa video

Tooth brushing with our students

Tooth brushing time can sometimes be hectic, getting 20 four-five year olds to practice dental hygiene. In pre k each day we have organized floor centers.

Tuesday - using manipulatives to work on fine motor

Wednesday - using dry erase boards to practice writing the letter of the week and our name

Thursday - puzzles

Friday - board games

Pictured below is Friday board games where Miss Jasay works on the floor teaching the rules of the game for a week during center time before its introduced during tooth brushing small group play. Learning how to follow the rules, take turns, overcome loss, and working together happens!

Teddy Bear Parade

Friday we celebrated National Teddy Bear day through our "Teddy Bear Parade."  Students made floats for their teddy bears (and other animals) with their families at home.  During small group students lined up and walked through each classroom at Children First.  As they pulled their floats they grew in confidence!  As they waved their hands they understood more about presenting in public.  

What an incredible time they had showing off the perfect float they each made!

Orr's Farm Field Trip

Field trip to Orr's Farm is cancelled for Wednesday, October 28th.  Pre K Class will be held in our classroom today at normal times.

We might be able to make up this field trip next week.  I will keep you updated.

Safety Drills in the Classroom

We have been practicing emergency drills in the classroom over the last few days.  Fire drills, shelter in place, and our emergency lock down drill.  These drills require students to remain quiet for their protection and cooperation.  They have all done a fantastic job learning new things that might be scary for them. 

It is great practice to ensure children understand what to do in an emergency at home as well.  This week your at home project is to talk with your little ones about fire safety in your home.  Where do you go in case of a fire?  Where do you meet outside of your home?  How do they get out of their room? 

Need help with what to do and how to plan your home fire safety procedures?  Homefiredrill.org offers great tools to prepare your family for an emergency like this.  Use this as a helpful resource or go to your local fire station for information.

A fire engine and ambulance will be by the school soon for a visit.  Students will have the opportunity to tour the vehicles and go inside of them.  Pictures will follow.

WV Pre K State Standards:

PH.PK.SP.SPP.2	Recognize symbols indicating danger.
PH.PK.SP.SPP.3	Respond appropriately to harmful and unsafe situations.
PH.PK.SP.SPP.5	Demonstrate and communicate an understanding of the importance of safety routines and rules.
PH.PK.SP.SPP.4	Follow classroom and community safety rules (example: fire drills, bus rules, pedestrian safety).
PH.PK.SP.SPP.1	Participate in safety games and stories.

Reading Bags and Scholastic Ordering

Our reading bag, "Come Sit With Me" program has been very successful over the last few weeks.  These bags are reusable colored bags that your child has the ability to choose 2 books from our class library and take home for a week.  Beginning a love of reading starts at home.  Reading to your little ones each night, having them sit on your lap, pointing to words and letters in the books, asking them questions about the book or what they think will happen in the book, and then using the composition book.  

The composition books are a great way to encourage your child to grow in comprehension and understanding what they read (was read to them).  Let them draw a picture of something they remember from the book.  Let them tell you a sentence or two and you dictate it exactly as they say it.  Then finally, have them practice writing their name.  

Can your child write their name already?  Practice writing their last name too.  Practice proper upper and lower case letters.  Practice improving what they are already doing.

Is your child currently practicing how to write their name?  Write it for them and ask for them to copy it.  Give it a shot!  We (the parents) sometimes feel like our children are not ready or capable of doing this.  But let them show off their skills for you.  You might be surprised.  

Scholastic books offer great books at awesome prices!  Ordering books either through the Scholastic fliers that come home or online at the  Scholastic website (with our classroom code NF6ZF) offers a wide selection including clearance books online.  Scholastic orders are shipped to our school and distributed into your child's backpack.  If you choose to purchase books as a gift, please just email me (Miss Shelly) so we can place them in a paper bag for delivery at pick up/drop off.

Our next book order is due by October 21st in order to have delivery to you by the end of October.  We do book orders monthly.  If you are interested in holiday books, make sure to order them in advance so you have have them the week of each holiday.

September 8th - 11th

This month's theme is All About Me.  Helping our new students to familiarize themselves with the world around them and sharing about who they are is a big deal, especially to a four/five year old!

At the art easel we placed mirrors, encouraging the kids to look at themselves in the mirror and to draw themselves.  What color eyes do you have?  What shape of a face do you have?  How can you draw that on your paper?  Their creations were wonderful.

In the Math center, students were encouraged to walk around the room and look at our All About Me pennants and document/graph some of the responses.  We were also able to practice how to hold a writing utensil.

In the block center, students enjoyed using the toy cars and trains with a drawing of our center parking lot.  Seeing a familiar scene, like our parking lot, assists students in understanding more of the world around them.

Playdoh was also opened and started this past week.  Working on fine motor skills is a bonus when children use it.  Play doh is available each day in Pre K.  Playing with it on our white surfaces and ensuring students wash their hands after each use is also in practice.

We also were able to catch a few critters to add to our science center this week.  The hysterical scene watching Miss Shelly and Miss Jasay catch the cricket was a sight to be seen!  These insects are in our bug viewers and the students love coming over to look at them with the magnifying glasses.

During small group this week, students were encouraged to draw pictures of their classmates.  We worked on understanding what features were noticed on our classmates that we should include in these pictures.  Helping everyone understand that a picture of a person can include eyes, nose, mouth, hands, feet, fingers, etc.

We also practiced our public speaking as every student that brought back in their All About Me pennant was able to share them with the class.  Getting to know our classmates and encouraging respectful behavior.  It's so much fun getting to know everyone.

Spring Fling

Our class parties cannot happen without our parents.  Thank you to each person that has ever volunteered to run a center during a party or to plan and organize one.  The time and thoughtfulness that goes into them shows.  And the faces of excitement on your little one's faces are worth all of the chaos.  They look forward to these special days.  THANK YOU!!!!

Here are a few pictures from our Spring Fling.

April pictures of learning

It's hard to believe that we are already in the month of April!  We have been so busy planning and organizing exciting fun things that I apologize for not posting fun pictures of things we've been doing.

Our Original Works projects went home.  They had such a great time making them!  We hope you enjoyed them as much as your little ones enjoyed making them.  These projects will be back to us before Mothers Day!  YIPPEEE.  And you will get the original art piece back as well.

Encouraging students to think creatively without examples of art pieces assist in drawing out their imaginations.  In our block center we have two boxes where students have been working hard on creating their own doll house.  These items are so imaginative and full of their personalities!  Please stop in the class and check them out!

During free choice time students are encouraged to learn together.  Working as a team, during "Week of the Young Child" our students were building towers and houses for our miniature people to live in.  This is one huge tower and such pride in showing it off!

Using marshmallows and toothpicks, students were beginning to understand 3D shapes and objects.  Allowing students to create and engineer projects is exciting as their imaginations are growing with the empowerment to make what they want.  We were able to sit with them and talk as they built to strengthen their knowledge on what a 1D shape is compared to 3D.

Huge thank you to Jefferson County Public Schools for allowing their bus to come by the facility for a tour of the bus and a fire evacuation drill on it.  Both our AM and PM classes were able to participate.  Enabling our students to see the inside of a school bus prior to boarding one on the first day of school will help excite them for the opportunity when it arises.  Their faces were so fun to watch!

Earth Day videos

This coming week we will be discussing Earth day and how we can better take care of the world we live in. 

On our class lesson plans, we normally have a book that is shared two or three times during the week.  This week we will be sharing videos to help students understand better what Earth day is and simple things we can do as children to help recycle, reuse, or repurpose.

Below are the videos that will be shared in our class.

Betsy's Kindergarten Adventure; Happy Earth Day

Berenstein Bears, Don't pollute

Read Across America, Dr. Seuss Week

NEA’s Read Across America Day is a nationwide reading celebration that takes place annually on March 2—Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Across the country, thousands of schools, libraries, and community centers participate by bringing together kids, teens, and books, and you can too!  CHEERS has challenged each family to spend time each night reading as a family.  What have been some of your favorite books you are reading each night?

Not all of our parents get the opportunity to walk into our building.  This past Saturday our staff volunteered their time to come in and decorate the facility to help surprise our families with Seussville.  We hope you have enjoyed seeing the decorations and it continues to be an encouragement to fall in love with reading!

Class projects, themes, and projects

Our class became scientists with scientific journals.  Doing experiments as a class helped students to understand more what the word hypothesis means and how to make predictions during experiments that are backed up with reasoning.  Students shared their results from the experiments with another student and greatly enjoyed having their own journal to document their findings. (*These journals went home this past week)

While the snowstorms and cancelled school days affected our number of experiments.  The students enjoyed the fun experiments and growth learning about what a hypothesis is and how to make predictions for experiments.

 

Black History Month gave us the opportunity to share with students the great things African Americans have done to help make our world a better place.  During these talks two of their favorite crafts were making "President Obama" where each student was able to share with us what they would do if they were president.  These crafts are hung up in our classroom and will be distributed at the end of the year with their portfolios.  We also learned who Dr. Martin Luther King was and how he has challenged each of us to show Love and Respect instead of Hurt and Hate. 

We cannot forget to share about our wedding of letters Q and U.  Thank you so much to Miss Jill, our site supervisor, for standing in as our Priest to marry our letters.  The students had a huge blast sharing the items they brought in that started with letter Q and U as well as watching the marriage ceremony and enjoying a cake and cookie at the end. 

Of course our week of our wedding would not have been complete without the opportunity to dress up in costumes in our dramatic play center. 

Jam Day

West Virginia will joined schools and organizations from around the world on February 12, 2015 for a Just-A-Minute (JAM) fitness break. For two years in a row West Virginia has had more schools participate than any other state in the nation.  JAM Day for JAM World Record is the first of its kind physical activity campaign created to rally everyone to pause wherever they are at 10:00 a.m. their local time for a quick fitness break to promote the importance of making physical activity a lifelong daily habit.

Our Pre K class joined in with JAM Day as we danced away to "Happy" led by Miss Scooter.  We participated in stretching and dancing during our gross motor time.

Teaching students the importance of making physical activity a lifelong daily habit is important in our classroom.  Helping children to desire to make healthy choices each day, includes physical activity.