Thursday's good work...

I was glad to be back at school today. We had fun playing in the gym. Mr. Anton stopped by and took some students for a ride on the "scooter train".
The class has really been enjoying the song "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night". It is at the top of the list on our classroom YouTube channel.
We had an emergency practice today. When the bell rang the group hopped right up and followed my directions quickly and calmly. The whole school made it in to the gym in one minute and nine seconds, us included! We were very proud of the whole pre-k team.

This week- Animals in Winter

Today's book illustrated this weeks theme perfectly. We learned that animals migrate, hibernate, store food or hunt (be it for seeds, bark or other animals!) during the winter.
We made some snowflakes and one student made a pirate ship out of blocks.

Welcome back!

After a nice long weekend the teams were raring to go.
There has been some great teamwork happening in our block area for the week or so but the new magnet trains I found over the weekend really brought the student creations to a new level.
The snowman collages came out nicely and were enjoyed by all. some students also also made snowmen on the smart board and printed them out. Check out the photo of the awesome mixed media creation by A.S.
There was also some great creativity at gross motor play time. Who knew there were so many things to do with cones?

Snowman week was superb!

This week was all about states of matter.  We learned how water freezes, melts and turns to steam.  The class loved watching a snowball melt in to water during our morning.  They made good observations about the changes they saw.

We got a little inspiration for an art project

We used tacky glue to stick all sorts of little objects to our foam snowmen.

We played with snow indoors at the sensory table!

This is a great book about a girl who keeps making snowmen throughout the winter but when spring comes she has some very creative ideas for saving her snow man for next winter. 

Today the snow was a little dry to make a snowman so instead we built a snow castle.

Here are some nice examples of some Team 3 students great work.

Busy Monday

For math this week we are estimating how many blocks can fit inside a mitten.  The students will guess, then stuff the mitten full of blocks, then take the blocks out and count them to see how close their estimate was.  

On Monday we read:

One student noticed the repetition of the word snow in the title. 

We also were able to think of quite a few words that rhymed with bright and white.

Hard at work running our skating rink.

Serving hot chocolate!

Our cashier is collecting money for a skating ticket.

This student is making food for the hungry skaters. 

Note the very organized hot chocolate shelf... she did it herself. 

Fab Friday...

We had a nice time at school sing this morning. During choice time the class enjoyed skating on our skating rink. We learned the letter Dd to today at literacy time. There are a lot of words that begin with the letter D and we explored many of them. We went over the stroke order for writing a D then practiced independently. We read the story "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. There was even a little extra time to watch a brief video of Olympic ice skaters for some inspiration for next week's Dramatic Play ice rink time. Mrs. Black will be in on Monday as I have to go to jury duty selection. We'll see what happens...
Have a great weekend.

Super sunny, snowy good times!

Today's book was a little silly story-wise but really it was all about the physics of the weight of snow vs. the weight of George. We learned that skis and snowshoes spread our weight over a larger area of snow, thus keeping us on top of it. We had ample opportunity to put this to the test today. Outside time was so much as you can see by the photos...

Wild Wednesday Fun!

Today's story time book was:

Fun with Science:

Counting spoonfuls and honing those fine motor coordination skills.

Stirring in the borax and observing it dissolving to become a "magical solution".

Winter fun has begun!

We've started our winter unit which will last for most of January.  Through the accessible topics of winter sports/activities and snowmen the students will learn about the changes winter brings to the world around them.  Our science focus is states of matter.  Later we will shift to how our local animals are effected by the changes winter brings.  

Yesterday Team 5 really enjoyed reading "Cross Country Cat" by Mary Calhoun. This week for math we will be taking surveys about favorite winter sports. They were really excited to check out the results of the borax snowflake crystal science craft that we started on Friday.
In lieu of a story today we started watching the Royal Ballet School's version of Prokofiev's  "Peter and the Wolf".  The class loved it! Click here to watch it on our You Tube channel. We also discussed the similarities and differences between snow and ice and looked at some of Wilson Bentley's snowflake micro-graphs. Team 3 started making snowflake crystals of their own. They have been very busy with all sorts of invented games using balls or scooters in the gym.  The hip-pity hops are quite popular as well.

The doll house has become a recent hot spot at center time.

The addition of marbles to the sand in the sensory table has been a hit as well.

Writing a checks in Dramatic Play is excellent early literacy practice.

Team 5 explored how to dress properly for winter weather in Health today.

This student demonstrated excellent ingenuity when asked to help clean up after gross motor play time!

"Snowflake" crystals...

We started a winter science/art project. The class looked at some microscope photos of real snow flake crystals. At choice time we measured and dissolved Borax powder into hot colored water. With some help the students twisted pipe cleaners into a snow flake shape. They had to lower the shape into the water and check to see that it was completely covered by the liquid but not be sticking to the bottom. As the water cooled the class noticed how crystals formed on the pipe cleaners. We will make more with team 3 next week.
Team 5's letter for today was another vowel- Ii. We played "I spy an I" every student was able to find the letter somewhere on our learning wall. We talked about the two main sounds the letter makes and explored different word beginning with this letter. We even wrote and sounded out short sight words such as it, is, and in. Afterward the class did some independent writing and sound practice.
Have a great, snowy weekend.

Today's story time book:

Our most favorite page was the end where Peter and his friend went out in the snow to play together.