Friday Update Sept 14 to 18

Reminder:  Next week the students only have school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  THERE IS NO SCHOOL next Thursday because of Hari Raya Haji and on Friday because of a Faculty Inservice Day.

We have had a fun and busy week!!!! J This week we… 

*did an amazing job with our lockdown and evacuation practice!

*had our first counseling lesson with Mr. Pearson—he taught us that we can use “Do you want to play with me?” and “Can I play with you?”

*had a mini field trip over to our Elementary Library!  We met Ms. Cuthbert the librarian and took out some books for our classroom library.  The kiddos are really helping to make it their own and picked out some wonderful books that they are really interested in! (Of course Frozen and lego books made it in!)

*have continued talking about identity and our families.  Some of the students showed us their family pictures and talked about who is in the picture and what was happening at that time. (the other students will continue with this next week.)  We have had the pictures out but this is the first time that the cuties came to talk in front of the class and they did amazing!  If you haven’t sent in a family photo, please send one in!!!  We really want to have all of our families on the wall to refer to!

*I shared something about my family that led us off into an amazing project! I told the students about one of my favorite memories as a child about growing up in a Ukrainian Canadian family and seeing the stained glass windows when we went to church. Each different piece told a different story.  The students were asking about what stained glass windows looked like, so we found pictures together on the computer and in books. Liam said they look like pictures his family has—a few of the pictures were mosaics and the kids were enthralled by the stained glass and different mosaic pictures. They wanted to make one to tell a story—together we started hunting around the classroom and the ECC for things we could make our own mosaics.  See the next blog post for more. J

*the students wanted to continue to look at S, so they cut out snakes and made SLIME!!! (Don’t worry-it easily comes out of clothes!)

*we explored shapes with pattern blocks and rubber bands and geoboards, as well as with shape stickers.

*we used beads and pipe cleaners for fine motor skills—the kiddos want to decorate the classroom!

*I have been doing beginning of the year assessments on the cuties and will continue next week.

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES

I look forward to meeting with all of you to discuss your child’s progress. The pre-K teachers will be holding Parent Teacher Conferences on October 15^th and 16^th. During conferences we will discuss your child’s strengths as well as goals for the year. You should be getting an e-mail from the office at some point over the next couple of weeks to sign up for a time.

UN DAY and BEING A PART OF OUR CLASSROOM

UN Day will be held on October 9^th—we will attend an Elementary School Assembly in the High School Gym.  As part of this celebration, students are invited to dress in the native costume of their home country, a costume representing their heritage or even a costume of a country in which they have lived or visited. 

A big part of our learning at school revolves around identity, our family, our community and special celebrations.  UN day is a part of that, but in addition to the things we are doing in the classroom, we would like to invite parents to be a part of this over the next few weeks.  We would love you to come in and share about your family, your culture, your traditions or celebrations…the list is endless! The cuties LOVE to cook, you could come in to teach us how to cook something (anything from something cultural to your family’s favorite sandwich on the weekends,) you could read us a story (we have already had a couple of parent readers in and the kiddos are very enthusiastic,) you could show us flags, decorate some artwork special to you or your culture, celebrate a tradition with us….really anything you would like to do!  The best time for us is between 8:20 and 9:15. (You do NOT need to do something that entire time though!) You could do something with the entire class, or just a small group of students (we would make sure that the kids rotated so everyone had a chance with you of course.)  Please let me know a date that would work for you. J

REMINDERS/IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday September 24^th:  NO SCHOOL-HARI RAYA HAJI

Friday September 25^th:  Faculty Inservice—NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

Friday, October 9^th :  UN DAY—wear clothes from home country

Thursday/Friday October 15^th/16^th :  Parent-Teacher Conferences

*Return red library bag and book on Monday

*Please return Identity/Family Banners when they are finished.

*Let me know if you would like to share something about your home country for UN Week, and what date and time you would like to come in.

Thank you!!!  Have a wonderful weekend!  Lynsey

An extra look into our week

Some of our students were very interested in the unifix cube blocks this week.  There was a lot of discussion going on as the kiddos interacted with them.

"I can make a pattern just like the book Ms. Lynsey read! Orange, orange, red, red, orange, orange, red, red!"  -Aria

"I can make mine so long that it will be taller than me.  Maybe tomorrow I can lay down on the floor to see if it works."  -Katarina

"I made one small, one medium and one tall tower."  -Jasper

"I made three different patterns and then stuck them all together."  -Map

We also had some intrigued scientists who were looking at the skeleton of a snake.  They observed with their sense of sight and then recorded their observations down on paper with pictures.

"It is really white and yellow.  Do our bones look the same color?"  -Daniel

"I think our bones are white.  I see so many little bones and one long big bone."   -Liam

"I think our back looks like the snake.  After we draw this, can someone feel the bones in my back?"  -Rania

"I wonder if there are too many bones to count.  I am going to try though!"  

-Ella

We also had some more construction and building going on--this time it was less concrete than the legos and magnatiles--the students were using wood pieces!  An imaginative storyline came along with the building.

"I made a castle with a bridge!  A train could go on it!"  -Dylan

"Will the train go near our princess castle? It is really strong."  -Malia and 

Si-Yoon

We also had some dress up.  I overhead the students planning their meal as a family.

"I'm the dad and I'm heading to work."  -Shayne

"I am going to take the babies to the party."  -Rania

Thursday Update Sept 7 to 10

We had another exciting week in the yellow starfish classroom!    Even though it was a short week we have done a lot!!!  The students participated in some focused activities as well as a lot of exploration. J                                                                                  

This last week we…

*had a fun appearance from Professor Peabody (aka Ms. Jo) who gave us clues and sent us on a search! (The clues were all about the letters, and boy did we find them EVERYWHERE after that!!!)

*practiced writing letter Ss and read books such as Silly Sally, Smelly Socks, Swimmy, and The Stray Dog.

*observed like scientists (with our sense of sight) a real snake skeleton and drew a picture of it.

*played with snakes (pretend onesJ) in the sensory table

*wrote numbers on paper snakes and dotted the correct number of dots to practice one to one correspondence

*learned the poem The Sandwich and made real and paper sandwiches that are just like the ones in the poem!  Kiddos who wanted to made sandwiches, and independently spread butter, jam, jelly, and peanut butter on the bread to make them.

*worked with S pattern blocks

*learned the Alphabet Song and compared/matched the upper case letters with the lower case letters.  Can your child remember the number of letters in the alphabet?

*talked about what makes us the same and what makes us different and then made pizza faces for fun.

*made name bracelets to practice the letters in our names and other students in the class.

*read pattern books and made patterns with unifix cube blocks.  We also used the blocks to measure and compare.

*used wood and other natural materials to build.

FAMILY/IDENTITY BANNER

In your child’s zippy pouch are the instructions for your and your child to make a family/identity banner.  Please read them and have fun…the entire family can help with this project. J  (This is pretty much the only “homework” your child with have in Pre K J)  If you would like me to send home a piece of paper for you to use, please let me know what color and I would be happy to do so.  (I just wanted as much individuality as possible, but I can easily send paper home with your child if that helps you out J)

REMINDERS/IMPORTANT DATES

Friday, September 11^th:  NO SCHOOL

Thursday, September 24^th:  NO SCHOOL

Friday, September 25^th:  NO SCHOOL for students—Faculty Inservice

*Return blue Friday Folder bag and red library bag and library book on Monday

*Return Family Banners whenever they are finished.

*I will be talking with you soon about UN Day and cooking and volunteering in the classroom. J

Extra excerpts from our week

This was a busy, busy week!  Here are some extra comments and pictures from it!

Building, building, building!  From legos last week, to magnatiles and castles this week!!

Exploring letters everywhere!  When we read Silly Sally the cuties discovered S, connected it to our school SAS and then decided to look for SAS everywhere!

Some of our kiddos have been into making bead necklaces (you may have a few coming home!!) Many students found their name off the wall, and spelled their name onto their necklaces (along with many colors too!)

An exploration of color and reading such books as Mouse Paint, Little Blue and Little Yellow, Pete the Cat and Dog's Colorful Day led to painting and an "exploding colors" science experiment!

Friday Update Aug 31 to Sept 4

We have had another wonderful week in the Yellow Starfish classroom!!!!  We celebrated Jimmy’s birthday on Wednesday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIMMY!) and also had our first library day with Ms. Jo!  

One point of interest…I have watched your cuties become more and more independent as the days have progressed! Really encourage your child to practice being independent at home as well.  Feeding themselves, starting to help dressing themselves, doing up their bags, and also starting to practice things like using safe scissors to cut will really help them out! J

This week we…

*read the book Mouse Paint (along with quite a few others such as A Color of His Own, Dog’s Colorful Day, Little Rabbit’s Color Book, and Pete the Cat (which has turned into a lot of singing! J) and finger painted with the three primary colors. Can your child tell you what they are?

*the kiddos were SO INTERESTED in mixing colors I decided to do a fun experiment with them—exploding colors!  Ask your cutie to tell you about it!

*read the book “Silly Sally” and realized both words start with S!  This led to an amazing conversation and discovery that the words are very similar to the letters in SAS…our school!!!!  One of our cuties had the idea to go on a hunt to find SAS, and the kiddos ended up finding lots of them!!!!!

*our wonder of letters continued—some of us made name necklaces out of beads, some stamped letters into playdoh, some found different letters in books and we read the book Smelly Socks! 

*we went on from this to learn the sound, formation, and hand motion for the letter Ss.

*learned the poem “I Am Special” and drew a picture of ourselves on the poem

*we had a lot of building going on this week!  We had a group that moved from legos, to magnatiles, to blocks to castle blocks!

*we continued to talk about ourselves and how we are alike and different.

ALL ABOUT ME

This week we practiced learned specific vocabulary for parts of the body. We played Simon Says using these names and also sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes using different parts of the body.  We are concentrating on those parts of the body that we might not normally be familiar with:  forehead, eyebrows, eyelashes, chin, earlobes, biceps, elbows, wrists, knuckles, abdomen, chest, thighs, waist, knees, ankle, and heel.  Give your child a butterfly kiss with your eyelashes, just for fun (just flutter them against their cheek or arm! They will love it!)

REMINDERS

*Check in your child’s Friday Folder (the BLUE BAG) take everything out and return bag back to school on Monday.  We keep certain projects/activities here at school to put in your child’s portfolio (in case your child was talking about something you didn’t see.)  Also, SONG BOOKS are coming home again, so be sure to return those on Monday as well.

*Return Library books and RED LIBRARY BAG on Monday.

*ALTERNATE DRESS DAY on WEDNESDAY!!!

*NO SCHOOL NEXT FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11^th

*Please send in a family photo if you have not done so yet!

*Please make sure to send in healthy snacks! J  Chocolate and biscuits are good treats, but don’t give us the brain food and energy we need for our learning. Thanks!

Have a wonderful weekend!   

Lynsey  J