December Holidays

Students shared about how they celebrate the holidays at home:

ELC- I ate cookies.  We sang some songs.
SB- We decorated our Christmas tree with a beautiful angel.  Dad plugged it in cause it's fragile.
EV- We get a tree.  We put a star on and get out things for the tree from last year.
RF- I decorate my house. We have tree lights.
GA- At Christmas time I'm going to be with my dad for two days then come to my mom's for Christmas dinner.
MS- I decorated my house with tree lights. Then I put a wreath on my door. We put the tree where the TV was.
AK- I already did my tree. We put decorations on there.
9 students have advent calendars
MC- I help my mom make gingerbread cookies when it's Christmas.
LC- My Christmas tree fell over and some of the balls broke.  The tree looks beautiful when it's decorated.
GaM- We have a train that goes around our tree.
9 students have advent calendars.

Some of our story time (group reading) books.

The students loved playing dreidel with parent volunteer Mrs. Cohen

 I gave everyone some Hanukkah gelt later as a treat.

Great work on a Menorah Math activity.

Team 5 working hard during independent literacy time. 

We had extra left time for Discovery Ed. video about Christmas traditions around the world.

We also watched several scene's from the Royal Ballet's production of the Nutcracker.
As you can see, the students were inspired to try some moves for themselves.

Playing a physics game on the smart board.

"I made a gingerbread man."

The whole class made a family gifts inspired by our reading of "The Gingerbread Man".

This Team 3 student made built this all on his own!

"Don't knock down the towers."
Students experiment with the architecture blocks.

Nice architectural details on this building.

A Team 3 student shares her bone collection with very curious classmates.

Students enjoyed pouring water, something they don't always get to do at home.
They also tested out how many cups would fill different sized buckets.

A lovely selection of "smoothies"... apple, orange, cheese, cookie and peach.
Very modern American cuisine in our kitchen.

We have to play store in Dramatic Play during the Holiday Season.


These two are planning their shopping trip.

The tricycles are still really fun  to ride, even in the gym.

We also enjoyed a very nice foot of snow.
If you can't build snow people, you can always make castles, forts and snow food.
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A Nocturnal November...

What we learned about bats:

RF- A bat can fly.

EV- Bats can hold their babies when they are flying.

EC- Bats fly with their wings fast (flap them fast).

GA- Bats sometimes use the moonlight to find their way & their eyes. 

         GA- Bats have super duper finger bones that go into their wings.  

SB- The mommies hold their babies so they don't fall.

CS- Bats fly at night time.

LC-  They have wings

ELB- They can see in the night time.

AK- They have long wings. 

MC- They are furry.

A personal accomplishment for me: 

several students now think bats are cute not scary!

What we learned about owls:

AK- Owls sleep in the day.

LC-Owls have feet because they need to land on trees.

MC- Owls have wings and feathers.

ELC- Owls eat mice. 

I made a Smart Board sorting activity for choice time & circle.
Students had to sort the animals by when they were awake.
This helped us to learn which animals are nocturnal and which are diurnal like us.

These are some of the books we read about bats & owls
We also watched quite a few short Discovery Ed. videos.
We learned there are so many types sizes of bats and owls are birds of prey.

Some Team 3 students show of the bat and owl masks they made.

Students have been exploring magnetic shape block on the light table.


The block are excellent for learning about 3D shapes.
G & A show the cubes they made.
They also figured out how to make 2D trapezoids on their own...
"Mrs. Dix, come see! We made trapezoids!"

As always the block areas is a busy place:

"We made a zoo."

The garden set has renew interest in the doll house.

T demonstrates the new scooping tools we have in the sand table.

A sneaky way to add more scissor practice opportunities.

We explored the physical details of owls with these art projects:

The students were eager to make Thanksgiving cards for their families.
They drew a picture & completed the sentence "I am thankful for ____".
For some students I took dictation,
others were able to trace or write on their own.

A bit of pre-Thanksgiving baking in the sand table.
"We're making pie! Mine is pecan, my favorite."

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Dover Pre-K: "Bat Come Under my Hat" Rhyme w/ Signs

Our class learned the rhyme "Bat Come Under My Hat" so well we made our own video.
Notice the girls in the back right also learned the ASL signs for bat, hat, bacon & oven.

Our Bat & Owl unit happened to coincide with our need to improve & hone rhyming skills.
Bat is easy word to generate rhymes with so it inspired my literacy focus for the unit.

Dinosaur Discoveries...

Facts About Dinosaurs:

Mary- Some have long necks.

Amelia- Some have long legs.

Liam- Some dinosaurs have spikes.

Robert- They have bones.

Erynn- They have long tails.

Elliot- Some have horns.

Elijah- Some are meat eaters, some are plant eaters.

Grace- Some eat leaves.

Miles- They use claws to scratch and eat other dinosaurs. 

Summer- Some dinosaurs have spiky tails.

Charlotte-Some eat grass, some don't .

At the end of our dinosaur unit we gathered facts again.
This time there were more details & collaborative thinking.

Elliot- Dinosaurs have sharp claws & run faster.  

Erynn- Dinosaurs, T-Rexs eat meat.

Elijah- The one that runs fast and have sharp claws are a saber tooth cat /tiger

Grace- Dinosaurs always look for food.  Some eat fish from ponds.

Mary- Some dinosaurs have wings.

Summer- Those are the ones that eat fish.

Amelia- Some dinosaurs have plates on their backs.

Robert-  Dinosaurs eat plants.

We learned they come from eggs.

Acting like paleontologists at the sand table..

...and at the science table with real fossils!

Exploring color and transparency at our new light table.

Designing our own dinosaurs at the Art center.

Some proud Team 3 students display their work.

Every dinosaur was different!

Team 5 made dinosaur "skeleton's" with Ms. Wheelihan in Art class.

Some Halloween themed painting.

These students worked together to find every square in the geo-block box.

"I made a person!"

Our new math toy is also great for fine motor work and persistence.

I love this game from Lakeshore.
It is good for every developmental level in the class.
Team 5 works on numeral recognition, ordering from least to greatest and counting quantities.
Team 3 can work on basic counting and building fine motor skills as you see here.
Plus the cakes and extremely appealing!

Books we read for our dinosaur unit.

One one our wonderful grand parents came to read to the class during choice time!

Time to bundle up for active play.

Team 3 was introduced to the smart-board last week.
My number one rule is "computer hands are clean and dry!"

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