Van Y Preschool Preview: 2015

Thank you for being patient these first few weeks of school. We have been very busy in our classroom both with and without the kiddos and it took a little longer than expected to get the blog up and running this year. In the future, blog posts should come the same week the newsletter is sent home. All too often we hear kiddos explaining their day by saying "I played inside, I ate lunch, I took a nap, I played outside." Hopefully this blog will help you and your kiddos make deeper connections about what we do here at school. Enjoy!

- Miss Kendra -

September 14th - 24th

At Large Group:

We’ve been working hard to establish our daily routine and review our school rules over the past two weeks. We’ve read several stories about going to school including “How Do Dinosaurs Go To School?

We learned about the parts of our bodies with the song “Mat Man”.

We’ve been using masks to act out several familiar fairy tales like The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This is a great way for the kiddos to build their language skills and gain confidence. You could easily act out one of these stories at home with your family. If you are interested in the masks, you can find them here.

We’ve been focusing a lot on identifying the emotions and feelings of ourselves and of others. We read several books including: The Way I Feel. We also acted out various emotions using the song “If You’re [emotion] and You Know It [act it out]”.

Acting Out Our Feelings:

Happy

Sad

Mad

Excited

Scared

Every morning after we eat breakfast we answer a “Question of the Day”. These are typically a simple yes or no question which the kiddos can tell us more about at group time. We go over their answers and count to see how many friends said yes/no and determine which side had more/less.

At Small Group:

Our children see their names all over our room. We are focusing a lot on name recognition right now. Something you can do with your child at home is write their name with a yellow highlighter on a piece of paper and have them try to trace their name. Go over each of the letters with them to see if they can name them.

We’ve also been working on sorting various objects by color, shape, and size.

We’ve been exercising our fine motor muscles by playing with play dough, cutting with scissors, & painting with watercolor paints.

Encourage your child to talk about their day. Ask them to tell you about a story we read or what they did at choice time. Go through this post with your child and use the pictures to have them describe things to you.

At Choice Time:

Dramatic Play Area:

They were fixing the stove.

Making dinner for the babies.

Feeding the"puppy".

Pretending to play video games with the remote controls.

Feeding the "puppy".

Library Area:

Goldilocks and Pocahontas reading on the couch together.

Block Area:

The farm house is filled with animals every day.

They love building towers almost as much as the love knocking them down.

Lining all the cars up on the ramp.

Discovery Area:

We watched several caterpillars eat, poop, and grow. They made their cocoons and now we will wait until spring for them to come out and turn into butterflies and moths.

The girls are checking out the discovery bottles.

Fixing the table.

They used their magnifiers to find clues for most of choice time. They kept chanting "We are the EXPLORERS!"

Writing Area:

Music Area:

There were several times over these past two weeks when I heard someone count out "1,2,1,2,3" and then everyone started playing their instruments all at once like they were in a band.

Toys & Games Area:

Magnetic Fishing

Building with gears.

They were making characters from Sponge Bob (Patrick and Sponge Bob).

Art Area:

They cut out things they liked to make collages.

Playing Outside:

September 28th - October 8th

September 28 — October 1

At Large Group:

We read the book Shapes That Roll then sang the Shape Hokey Pokey (where we identify shapes).

We had a fire drill. Despite letting them know in advance that it was going to happen, our kiddos were a little freaked out by the alarm. Everyone did a fantastic job of staying together though.

We focused on following directions with music and movement with songs like "Going on a Bear Hunt", "Listen and Move", and "The Freeze".

At Small Group:

In Miss Kendra’s Small Group we:

Created patterns with counting bears.

Cut shapes out of magazines to make a shape collage.

Decorated mirrors then used them to practice emotional faces.

Used chairs to practice positional words (over, in between, under).

In Miss Michal’s Group we:

Created patterns with counting bears.

Cut string and glued it to paper to create our names.

Drew pictures of our families.

Used bean bags to practice our positional words (over, under, etc.).

At Choice Time:

October 5 — October 8

At Large Group:

We sang and acted out the song “Fire Truck” by Ivan Ulz and talked about what we would do if there was a fire at our home. We went home singing this song every day, so we're sure you know it word by word now too. They LOVED this song!
We had planned to talk about and then make a list of how firefighters help us and what tools they use, but the kiddos came to school so excited about their Halloween costumes that we spent our large group talking about that and then we danced to the Monster Mash.
We practiced how to stop, drop, & roll.
The kiddos also really enjoyed these books:

At Small Group:

In Miss Kendra’s Small Group we:

Went on a fire safety scavenger hunt around the school. We found all the exit signs, fire extinguishers, fire alarms, and smoke detectors.
Painted with yellow & red colors to create orange. Some of the kiddos chose to draw pictures of houses on their paper first (like in the story "The Firefighters" when the painter is painting what looks like fire on the building and the kid firefighters have to put it out).
Used pipe cleaners and beads to create bracelets for the firefighters/our families.
Used phones to practice dialing 9-1-1 and our phone numbers.

In Miss Michal’s Small Group we:

Tore tissue paper to make fire art.
Painted with yellow & red colors to create orange.
Created fire trucks with various shapes and tape.

Mixed together red and yellow puffy paint.

At Choice Time:

Art Area:

Helping each other put their smocks on.

Getting out her paint supplies.

We made various sized and shaped pumpkins with our orange play dough, googly eyes, corks, and more!

Her pumpkins had different emotions.

I have a feeling these pumpkins will be a big hit all month!

Making bracelets.

Using the letter cutters.

Making more fire trucks.

Block Area and Woodworking Area:

Toys & Games Area:

Dramatic Play Area:

Sweeping the floor. We actually did quite a bit of this this week as we had corn in our sensory table and it made quite a mess.

Writing Area:

Discovery Area:

This was a very popular area this week. We brought in pumpkins and showed the kiddos how to poke holes in them using hammers and golf tees. This is excellent fine motor exercise for them! It was also a good problem solving opportunity for them. There were two pumpkins, five hammers, and 15 kiddos. They decided to make a sign up for their turn with the pumpkins and we set a timer for five minutes.