Hello Preschool Families!
It was Letter A Week at Preschool, and it was absolutely amazing! A good time to remember that...
"...All things work together for good to those that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28
A big thank you goes out to all of our preschool angels, especially...
Our families who have provided snacks for us recently and
Our shopping angels who have donated Goo-Gone and more painter's tape!
A few quick things to mention...
1. Now that the weather is getting colder, make sure that your child is dressed appropriately for our outside play time! It's definitely been "jacket weather" these last few days! I'm hoping that next week doesn't bring out winter wear!!
2. Please send your child to school in shoes that are safe for active play. We suggest "gym shoes" for everyone. Dress shoes, clogs and "crocs" are hazardous to those little ankles when we are out in the playground or when we are inside playing in the gym.
3. Our fund raiser from Mixed Bag Designs will run through October 16. Thank you to everyone who has already participated in this unique new fund raiser!
4. All of you should have received an order form for the amazing class photos that were taken recently. Please try to return those to me by October 20.
(PS...Mixed Bag orders and photo orders can be dropped in the gray box next to our sign in sheet)
And now onto our weekly news....
Dear T-Th Families,
We've had another fun and exciting week at preschool! The rainy weather kept us indoors, but that just led to even more fun playing with balls in our BIG gym! We broke up the class into two smaller groups (one with Miss Lacy, and one with Miss Jean). While one group played in the gym, the other group stayed in the classroom to look at books and hear some stories. Here are some of the other things that have been going on in our Tuesday-Thursday class:
For art, we used big ABC stamps with orange paint and we made alphabet collages on orange paper. We also played with playdough and pretended to make acorns with some acorn caps.
For our pre-writing and fine motor practice, we played with alphabet puzzles, and practiced learning and writing the first letter of our first name.
For math, we brought out some different sized plastic circles, and used big pencils to trace around them (also great for developing our fine motor skills and hand strength). We also worked on learning numbers 1-10 by hearing a rhyme about a hungry little squirrel. It went like this...
Ten little acorns, sitting in a tree
Teasing Mr. Squirrel, "You can't catch me!"
When along came the wind
And shook that tree, then
SNAP! Went the squirrel,
Happy as can be!
Everyone had a squirrel at our rainbow rug with a different number on it. When the acorn with the matching number "fell" out of the tree, that child got to SNAP the acorn away! (Miss Jean was inspired this week to write that little rhyme. It was based on the original rhyme about the monkeys in the tree who were teasing Mr. Alligator)
For science, we explored real antlers at our Exploration Station. Many of the children were excited to learn that they grew out of the head of a deer. The antlers were given to us by a forest preserve employee who saves them for education purposes.
For dramatic play, we continued playing with the doctor kits. The children love to role play and work through some of their "fears" about going to the doctor. We also had a chance to play with our workshop bench and tools in the hallway by the steps.
Dear MWF Parents,
Once again we are very pleased to announce that we have another new student in the classroom! He is a wonderful addition to our class! Our M-W-F class is now at full capacity. Hip, hip, hooray!
Miss Lori was very thankful to have Miss Lacy from our 3’s Class and Miss Jean help out in Monday’s class (Miss Lori was at home recovering from a foot injury). And we are always thankful for Miss Donna and Miss Pat too!
This week we learned about the letters of the alphabet, focusing on letter A for letter A week. We brought in antlers to explore, with supervision, of course. The children really enjoyed looking at them. Also Miss Lori brought in her friend Allie the Alligator for Show and Share, and taught the children an Alligator Rap Rhyme. And we explored the insides of an apple. We also celebrated another birthday this week, and played outside on our playground both days.
Here are some of the other things we’ve done this week at school…
We used ink pads and stamps and stamped letters on the letter A.
We made Apple prints by pressing halves of apples into red and yellow paint on painting paper. We made two huge paintings as a group.
At Greeting Time we looked at ABC books and worked on puzzles.
In small groups, we played with our workbench and tools by the steps for dramatic play. We took turns picking out our tools and learned that we can "trade" a tool if someone had one that we wanted. One group had a fabulous time "fixing the sink" on their house. There was some great role playing going on!
We practiced writing letters of the alphabet. we are especially encouraging the children to start their name with an upper case letter, and using lower case letters for the remaining letters.
We practiced counting and number recognition with apple cut-outs that had matching "worms."
We listened to part of the book ABC by Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright.
We heard the book AA Is For Aardvark by Mark Shulman. This book was from the local library and it had words in it with double letters! (Aardvark for AA, puddle for DD, kitten for TT, etc.). A very clever bOOk!
Enjoy the long weekend, and we will see you back at school on Wednesday!
