Welcome to Mrs. Douglas Full Day Preschool Class at Zion Lutheran School!

Looking Ahead:

Friday, March 15th is Spirit Day! Wear red and black to show your Bobcat spirit!

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. We will return to school on Monday, April 8th.

We had a great day in school today! Check out what we did!

Of course we continued to investigate maps! The children are making observations and comparing the different maps. They are using the maps to also enhance their imaginary play!

Many of the children worked together to complete the alphabet puzzle together. They used positive social skills as they resolved conflicts independently, and they worked together to find the piece of the puzzle that was next! They practiced identifying letters and even their sounds and they looked for the pieces. One child said, "We are looking for D. D-D-Duck!" They are making letter and sound connections which is a pre-reading skill!

We started discussing building the city in our classroom. One student observed that we needed neon lights for the "Preschool Tower" part of the city. We also discussed how when we build the buildings and go inside, it might be dark! I asked the children how we could fix that problem. Here are a few of their responses:

"We could use flashlights."

"Yeah, but the flashlights would run out of batteries."

"We could flip the switch!"

"Yeah! We could flip the light switch!"

I asked the children if they knew how the light switch worked. Here are a few of the responses:

"There are a lot of wires."

"There's power."

I asked the children if they knew anything about electricity. We brainstormed what electricity is, and then we watched a short video about electricity. (If you would like to watch the video with your child at home, click the link here)

We then webbed what we know about electricity. As the children explore and brainstorm about electricity, they are learning more about their world. They are also learning to ask questions that can lead to further learning. This will foster the love of learning! The more children love to learn, the more they will want to learn. They more that they want to learn, the more they will learn!

We then had a special guest, Mr. Smith, come and teach us more about electricity. He showed us how to be safe around electric wires.

He then gave us a map of the electric wires here at Zion! We looked at the map and used our map reading skills to see where the electric wires are here at Zion.

Then, using our maps, we located the transformer box for our church. By looking at the map, we could tell that the wires coming from the transformer box were underground.

We then went to look at the wires above ground that bring electricity to the main school building. We used the map Mr. Smith gave us to lead the way!

There they are! We had a great time learning more about electricity and maps! As the children learn more about electricity, they are learning more about the world around them.

We enjoyed exploring the beans in the sensory table! We used the scoops and measuring spoons to count to see how many scoops it would take to fill up the tub we put in the table. Through this child-initiated activity, the children explored estimation as they estimated how many scoops took. They also practiced counting as we counted each scoop we put in the bucket. Counting and estimating are both foundational math skills!

We again practiced recognizing shapes as we used classroom items to 'fill up' laminated shapes on the floor. We estimated which shapes would take more items to fill up and which shapes would take less. We discussed the sides of the shapes and if they were straight or curvy. The children are investigating and discussing the characteristics of shapes which is a valuable math skill! They also decided to re-create other shapes using classroom items. This, again, is a foundational math skill!

We also started building our city! We began by sorting the boxes by size. We then looked at our map to decide what to build and where to put it. The children worked together to figure out which boxes we should use to build the different buildings.