March 18-21, 2013

What a fantastic week we had in Pre-K!   Below are some highlights from our week: 

-The students made bunnies after watching Peter Rabbit.  They used the rabbits to help re-tell the story.   They loved getting up in front of the class and re-telling the details from the short video.  If your little ones ask to watch this again, you can find the video on YouTube under "Golden Book- Peter Rabbit".  It is about 12 minutes long.   

 

-We had an Easter Egg hunt on Wednesday!  Parents, if you have any extra plastic eggs at home, we would love to have them in our classroom.   I have a list of literacy and math centers that use plastic eggs. 

-In math, we are working on ABAB patterns and AABAAB patterns.  

-Our story of the week focused on shapes in our environment.   Let your little ones find shapes while you are driving down the road..they are everywhere! 

-On Thursday, we took a trip to the Library.  We had SO much fun.   Our Pre-K class showed off their amazing skills.   The librarian pulled me aside and told me how impressed she was with our class...again!  Yes, I am beaming.   I love my little sweeties and I am so very proud of them!   The students listened to three stories and made a craft.   

I hope you all have a wonderful Spring Break.    After break, I have lots in store for our Pre-K class.   We will be doing a Challenge Based Learning Project.  I am excited to try this and I am confident that our young students will benefit from this project just as much as older students.   Our class has already been brainstorming.   After much discussion, I have seen that our students have a strong desire to learn about money and how it is used in everyday life.  

 More details to come on our CBL project.  

Love, Mrs. Weathers

Click on Read More to see more pictures. 

EASTER EGG HUNT!

Week of March 11

Enjoy!!  

  See you next week!
  Don't forget we have a field trip to the library on Thursday!  
  Mrs. Weathers

The Hungry Caterpillar.. And more!

One of my all time favorites is Eric Carle's, The Hungry Caterpillar.   It is one of those books that you never get tired of reading aloud.   This week, not only did we read the book, but we also studied the parts of an insect.  My students love to sing, so we learned the parts of an insect to the tune of a Dr. Jean song.    They had to sing some pretty big words like: thorax and abdomen.    I wish I would have recorded the class learning how to say abdomen.   We took it real slow: AB- DO- MEN.   But, it came out many times like AD-oh-Man.    We also learned about how the caterpillar builds a cocoon.  One of our students went home and told mom that they went to CANCUN!    Cocoon/Cancun...the same thing, right?    There is never a dull moment in our room! 

You will also see a picture of our students doing a writing activity.  We dipped Q-tips in paint and used them to trace the letters.  This was a big hit.  I think we will do this activity again really soon.   

Until next time, 

Mrs. Weathers

Click READ MORE to see our weekly pictures. 

Focus on Literature

This week has been very busy.   There are times when I think we won't be able to fit all of my planned activities into the day, but somehow we make it work!   This week, we added two new centers.   The first center is a laminated sheet of the alphabet.  The students take the sheets, marker, and eraser and practice writing the letters.   They are getting so much better.   I think back to the first week of school and how weak their fine motor skills were, and now they are just writing away!   It's so exciting and rewarding to see the new things they are learning.   It really makes my heart happy.   The other center we added focused on using one to one correspondence.   The student matches the correct amount of beans with the number.  They really loved this center!  Center time is flowing so smoothly these days.   We use a picture chart and I place the child's picture next to the center area I would like for them to work at.   We rotate every 10 minutes.  Center time is 30 minutes each day.    My goal is to get a sensory center up and going.    We do a lot of sensory activities, but I think it is time to add a sensory center for them to work at independently.

We read the book, The Mitten, this week and it was a class favorite.  We practiced our sequencing skills.   There were a lot of animals to remember!   They did a great job.    We also read Dr. Suess books this week in honor of his birthday.   I really loved our Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprint art.   Are they not the cutest?    Dr. Suess has always been a favorite of mine and it was great to be able to share his books with the class.  Many children had never heard the story, "The Cat in the Hat."

I can't wait for Monday!   We have lots of good things planned for next week!
Love,
Mrs. Weathers

Layna is working hard.  She is doing a beautiful job!

Aidan is doing a tear paper craft.   This is a great activity for fine motor skills. 

Shaving cream!   This is a great sensory activity.   We also practice writing our letters on the table. 

Little Scientists

This week our Pre-K students became scientists!    After reading our story of the week, "I Love Tamales", we decided we wanted to mimic the activities demonstrated in our book.    I took out the balance scale and we got busy!  As you can see from the pictures, the students LOVED using the  balance scale to see what items weighed more and less.   We discovered that water is very heavy!   I loved hearing all the "oohs" and "ahs" during our science activities this week.   We worked together in a group and used our "noggins" to make observations.   Towards the end of the week, we also used magnifying glasses.   My plan was to take the children outside for some "discovery" time, but Mother Nature had other plans.   We improvised and went on a letter discovery hunt in our classroom.   The children discovered all kinds of letters that have been hiding from us!  Can you believe those tricky letters?    Don't worry, we found them all!    

Next week, all of our activities will focus around our literature story for the week, "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.    Many of our activities will focus on sequencing.  I also plan to have the children practice re-telling the story.   Maybe we will use our I-pads and record our re-tellings?   The kids love to be movie stars!   It will be a fun week of learning!

 New Pre-K standards that we covered this past week are: 

                                                   
- Sort and classify objects as solids or liquids 


-Use a variety of scientific tools to investigate, explore, and compare objects in the classroom and schoolyard 

-Begin to understand the concept of currency as a means of exchange


Have a great week! 
Mrs. Weathers

Caden, Abbie, Alex and Jacob watch the balance...

Caden adds the water....

The water is heavy!  We had to add lots of keys to make it balance!  Way to go R.J.!

In our story, the boy measured his hands using connecting cubes.

So...we decided to do the same thing!  Layna's hand is 5 connecting cubes long!

Alex is placing star stickers on our letter of the week.  This is a great activity to strengthen fine motor skills. 

We also learned about money this week.   A penny is worth one cent.  Abraham Lincoln is the man that we see on the penny.  Some of the children brought in pennies and we looked closely at them. 

Alex is enjoying a book. 

Abbie is on a letter scavenger hunt!

Week of February 4th

This week we concentrated on the letter O. We auditioned for the talent show on Tuesday morning in the gym. The children were super cute. I am so excited to share it with you. On Thursday, we were told that the list was posted displaying all the students who made the cut. We were all so nervous and as I read the list to them , the excitement built! When I said, "Pre-K", the children squealed! Don't forget to mark your calendar to attend the Kitty Stone Talent Show. It will be February 19th at 7pm. Enjoy the photos from the week.