Thursday, March 28, 2013

Have a Happy and Blessed Easter!  He is risen!!

There is no school March 29th-April 5th for Easter Break. (Happy Easter!) We will return to school on Monday, April 8th. 

Spring Conferences are coming up on April 22nd and 23rd.  Although Spring conferences are optional, they are a great time to discuss your child's individual growth throughout the year.  Please check your e-mail for more information about Spring conferences.  Thank you! 

We had another great short day of school!  

Check out what we did today!

We praised Jesus for rising from the dead to save us by singing songs with the guitar!  We discussed that some people think Easter is all about candy, eggs, and the Easter bunny.  We discussed that those are fun parts of Easter, but the REAL reason for Easter is Jesus rising from the dead to save us!

We completed our learning centers in partners today.  The children did a great job helping each other and showing God's love to each other.  We talked about how God gave us each different gifts; some friends might be better at counting and some friends might be better at letters.  We discussed how Jesus doesn't love us more because of our gifts, but He loves us all the same! Learning to work together and help each other are social skills that will benefit the children throughout their lives! 

We practiced number recognition, counting, and one to one correspondence as we recognized the number written on the Easter egg, and counted the same amount of jewels to place in the egg. Counting, number recognition, and one to one correspondence are all valuable foundational math skills!











We then refined our fine motor skills and expressed creativity as we decorated Easter eggs! 













We matched upper and lower case letter eggs today.  This activity helps the children to recognize the correlation between upper and lower case.  


















Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 28th school will dismiss at 12:00.  Please pack your child a sack lunch on this day as there is no school lunch program, but we will still eat lunch before the end of the day.

There is no school March 29th-April 5th for Easter Break. (Happy Easter!) We will return to school on Monday, April 8th. 

Spring Conferences are coming up on April 22nd and 23rd.  Although Spring conferences are optional, they are a great time to discuss your child's individual growth throughout the year.  Please check your e-mail for more information about Spring conferences.  Thank you! 

We had yet another great day in school!  

Check out what we did today!



 We discovered new maps in our block center!  Thank you Abby for showing us the maps from Disney World!  What a treat! 




We played Tricky Mouse this morning.  The students LOVE this game!  As we play the game, the children are working on recognizing letters and the sounds that go with the letters.  Learning the letters and their corresponding sounds is a pre-reading skill! 


We matched upper and lower case letter eggs today.  This activity helps the children to recognize the correlation between upper and lower case.  







We practiced number recognition, counting, and one to one correspondence as we recognized the number written on the Easter egg, and counted the same amount of jewels to place in the egg. Counting, number recognition, and one to one correspondence are all valuable foundational math skills!


 






We were so excited about the new fabric for our city today!  The children brainstormed how to use the fabric in the city.  We decided we should cut the fabric since it is so big.  As we were cutting the fabric, we noticed that the blue fabric was easier to cut.  We discussed why we think the blue was easier to cut. 
"It's smooth."
"It doesn't have the butterfly stuff on it."




As the children cut the fabric and hypothesize why one was easier to cut than the other, they are not only strengthening their fine motor skills, but they are also practicing their critical thinking skills! 

 The children are also practicing number recognition as they read how many students can go in each building.  As you can imagine, there are times when more children are in a building than our rules allow.  Helping the children to resolve these issues by posing questions that allow them to find their own resolution will foster problem solving skills as well as valuable conflict resolution skills.  They practiced problem solving skills as they worked to resolve conflicts in the city in a positive way.  





We also worked in the writing center today.  Even if the children are not writing, they are strengthening their fine motor skills through coloring, removing stickers, cutting, and gluing.  Strong fine motor skills are necessary for the children to be successful writers.

The writing center also provides children more exposure to written print.  The children today, without promoting, used the alphabet chart in the writing center to practice writing letters.  They also used the number line to practice writing numbers.  

















We worked cooperatively in the block center creating various structures too! Working with another child allows the children an opportunity to practice positive social skills and conflict resolution.  Learning these social skills will benefit the children throughout their lives. 











We strengthened our fine motor skills further today as we added glitter to our play dough to make glitter dough!  Because our dough is a little old and we wanted to be sure the glitter was spread throughout the dough, we had to squish the dough really hard.  This, again, helps the children refine their fine motor skills.  The children need strong fine motor skills to become successful writers!