Monday, November 11, 2013

Happy Monday!  I hope you had a restful and relaxing weekend!

Today many of the friends chose to create with stamp pads and toilet paper tubes.  












Some friends chose to do a leaf rubbing.  They said to each other, "Look at those veins!"  :) 



Some of our friends chose to create with the LEGOS and blocks.  We practicing resolving conflicts in a positive way and strengthened spatial relationship skills!





Many of our friends chose to write books this morning.  As the children write books they are learning valuable concepts of print.  They are also engaging in creative thinking; as you know, creative thinking leads to further cognitive development!  The books our friends write are so creative!   





Some of our friends read their books to the pretend preschool class! 


During small group time, we continued to learn and discover about trees.  We discussed different parts of a tree. We learned that the roots of a tree are kind of like straws in that they bring water to the rest of the plants.  We used our straws to blow paint on our paper.  It was a little tricky, but fun!









We then explored the pieces of bark in the science center.  We described how the bark feels.  We learned new words to describe the bark too!  We are expanding our vocabulary! 



We each wrote down the word we chose to describe the bark.  We are learning valuable writing skills such as correct letter formation and pencil grip! 
















We then added the words on the science center table.  The friends were reading the words to each other after we taped them to the table.  :) 



Often during transitional times at preschool we play games to increase the children's phonemic awareness.  Phonemic awareness mainly deals with the sounds of words and includes concepts such as isolating sounds, playing with the sounds, and blending and segmenting sounds in spoken word.  

According to the International Reading Association, "the acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly predicative of success in learning to read.  In fact, phonemic awareness in kindergarten are the best single predictor of successful reading acquisition"  (Phonemic Awareness and the Teaching of Reading 1998)

Here are some games we play in school that you can play at home with your child as well to increase phonemic awareness.

What word am I saying?  (break the word into syllables) TA-BLE

If I change the T (make T sound) in TABLE to a B (make B sound) it would be B-B- ________

What rhymes with HAT?  

It perfectly fine to make up silly words to play with the word sounds; that is part of the fun!  :) 

We played the above games today during small group time together. 







During Jesus time we started learning about the ten commandments.  We learned that we have rules to keep us safe and help us to treat each other kindly.  We learned that we sometimes mess up and make a bad choice, but Jesus forgives us.  He died on the cross and rose again to save us from our sins and bad choices! 

Before rest we read this book about being thankful.  Look for a thankful tree in the hallway soon!  You will be able to add what you are thankful for to the tree as well!


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