sitting with a friend

enjoying the last of the sunny days

learning about lines and drawings

making applesauce

birthday treats!

Busy times in the Ladybugs!  We continue our study of houses and things related to houses.  We have finished our cardboard houses and today worked on the floor plan for our bedrooms.  We are going to the Hylebos Wetlands tomorrow to find some animal houses.  We are also working on beginning sounds, reading, and math work.

Working together!

What a fun bunch of children!  We are having a lot of fun getting to know each other.  We are working with the Superstars and Sharks during our literature circle.  We have been working on "The House that Jack Built".  So far we have been comparing and contrasting different versions of the story, drew houses and dictated real estate ads.  Be sure to check the ads in the 3 different classes.  Though we
are doing these activities together, you will notice the results differ from class to class.  As the children get older, the drawings get more elaborate and the ads get more detailed.  The children enjoy working together and learning from each other.  Tomorrow we'll start building houses with a variety of materials.

Check out the designs the kids made on the geo-boards, they are a hands-on way to experience geometry.  Each of the children gave us a description of what they had made.

getting to know Sadie

introducing "The House that Jack Built"

working together

a house

lots of spider men

a design with squares

spiderweb

strings about to hook together

triangle, square, triangle

a house

2 refrigerators with pictures above them

we're pretty good with a hammer!

Hope to see all of you at Curriculum Night on Thursday.  Come and see what we've been up to!

getting to know Sadie

our first literature circle!

working on our houses

a houe

lots of spidermen

a design with squares

spider web

strings about to hook together

triangle, square, triangle

a house

2 refrigerators with pictures on top that can fold into a music maker.

we're pretty good with a hammer

Settling in with the Ladybugs

When you've got the bells, you just have to dance!

Library time, using our new SmartBoards.

We're settling into our routine in the Ladybugs.  The children come to circle time and mostly stay there.  They respond to the call for clean up and happily get ready for snack and recess!  We are working on taking care of our belongings and putting them where they go.  The kids were introduced to Dance Mat Typing, this is a program we have used with kindergarten to teach the beginnings of keyboarding.  These children's hands are so small that it isn't practical to teach keyboarding, but it is a perfect tool for matching upper and lower case letters.

We've also been working on writing their names using the D'Nealian style of writing.  We screened for reading readiness and found that some of the children are already reading and many are just on cusp of reading.  They recognize many letters and sounds and can pick out words.  This is the perfect time to introduce repetitive, predictable books.

In math, we are working on patterns using rods, beads, the calendar and our counting caterpillar on the wall.  While everything in Pre-K looks like fun, there is method to my madness and a reason for all the things we do.  Children learn by doing and discovering, so if they get a chance to handle the materials and figure things out by themselves, they will retain that information much better.

Even the shaving cream had a reason besides fun.  It's sensory, it's warm/cold, it smells good/spicy/bad.  You can play with a friend, you can do it by yourself.  You can draw pictures on it or practice writing your name.  When you add a squirt of paint, well, that changes everything!  Now there is color mixing going on.  We were lucky that the 5th graders joined us on Friday for a little shaving cream fun.  They would like to come back every Friday, we'll see.

This week we'll be starting our literature circles with the K and 1st graders.  We're starting with the book, "The House that Jack Built".  We think this is going to be fun and a great way to encourage in-depth thinking about books.

The only sleeping we've seen, it lasted about 10 minutes.

Is shaving cream more fun when you're 4 or 10?

Rice table, more opportunities for working together.

working on a self portrait- first check out the mirror

then draw the picture

working on the computer

writing our names

best of friends