Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Day 2 of week 2 of the school year is under our belts and we are doing great!   We still are working on learning the routines, how the classroom works, meeting new friends and getting to know our teachers a little better.  There may have been more tears today but that is to be expected as what I like to call the "honeymoon stage" is over, but despite the tears we had a great day on Wednesday.  We had fun painting and furthering our studies on the shape of square, the color blue, the number one and learning our ABC's as well as learning about Jesus and how important he is to each and every one of us and learning about the theme of the school year! 

Jesus Time:  Today learned our Bible song that we will be singing every morning during the beginning of Jesus time.  This will help us settle down and learn about the wonderful teachings of Jesus.  Today we looked at pictures to help us learn about the theme of the school year that comes from 1 Thessalonians's 5 16:18.  After we talked about the Bible verse.  We sang Jesus Loves Me.   We got to use markers today to color a book of each of the pictures we talked about today.  Markers are a great way to work on pre-writing skills in holding a writing tool and working on taking off the lid and putting it back on. 

Number:  We continued our study of the number one by holding up one finger, saying the number one and then waving our 1 finger in the air.  We practiced counting 1 blue square today during our morning meeting.  We used a number 1 stamp to make a number 1 stamp collage on a blue piece of paper.  As we used the stamp we said the number 1 each time to help us remember what number we were working with. Some of  stamped one blue sailboat in the sea.  This will be the start of our number book that will come home at the end of the school year.  

Shape:  We continued our study of the square.  We talked about how it has four sides and often looks like a window.  We also found other objects in our classroom that look likes a square we found a table, the window and the tiles on the floor not only have small squares but bigger ones to.  We then used a blue stickers  to outline the shape of a square. Stickers are a great fine motor activity as we have to peel the sticker from the sheet and place it onto our paper, it also helps us with our sensory skills as a sticker is very sticky.  As we did this activity we said we are make a blue square with four sides.  We also made Sammy The Square we got to use the glue bottle today to help with our hand muscles as we made Sammy all out of different size squares.  

Letter:  Today we  continued to practice singing our ABC's and colored a picture of an animal alphabet.    Some of our friends were able to identify different letters on the alphabet hearts that they colored. This activity came home with them today in their red folders. This is great exposure to the different letters of the alphabet as well as we are working on our pre-reading skills and pre writing skills.  

Color:  We are continuing our study about the color blue this month.  During our morning meeting we identified different blue objects and during center time we had fun painting a picture of a blue butterfly we would find in the great out doors.  We talked about if we had ever been to the Butterfly house and if we had what kind of butterflies we would see there.  If you go during the month of MARCH you can see thousands of the blue butterflies it is pretty spectacular!  These beautiful paintings are in our hallway on the way to the cubby rooms be sure to look at them.  It was so fun to see all my friends with blue on today!  We had fun see what everyone had on that was blue! 

Music and Movement:  This group is warming up to the idea of singing and dancing.  So we are easing into this time of the day.  We did some funny songs, where we had to practice swimming, kicking our legs and jumping up and down.  We sang about 5 Little Ducks and brushing our teeth at funny times of the night!  Shaking our bodies up and down and all around was a lot of fun too! 

Outside Time:  We did go outside today for about 10 minutes today to play in the water tables after we were done outside we took a walk through the new early childhood wing and got to play in the commons area with our other friends from the PDO program.  We had fun crawling through tunnels, throwing balls and playing with hula hoops.  

We are settling into our routines and each week will be better than the previous week.  Enjoy looking at all the pictures of our Wonderful Wednesday!   

FREE CHOICE PLAY

This is the time first hour of the morning where we pretty much can explore the entire room and play with the toys, look at books and do a few activities set out on the tables.  Today we had blocks, puzzles and play dough as our morning experiences.  We also had fun painting our blue butterflies! 

Jack likes to start his morning in the Orange chair reading books with Mickey! 

Mrs. Linneman reading books with friends early this morning. 

Play dough is a great way to work on our sensory skills and to build our finger and hand muscles. 

We loved seeing what kind of different shaped animals we could make with our blue play dough. 

The Little People Town was in busy action with Sydney!  

Kate loved painting her blue butterfly! 

Jack enjoyed painting his blue butterfly. 

Our new friend MD had fun painting for the first time in our class. 

Avery was not to sure about painting at first but then had a great time. 

Morning Meeting

This starts our second hour of the day.  We come together as a class and learn about our calendar, number, shape and color of the month.  We also had a fun learning about the word of God, and reading a book that helps us learn to count.  

Getting ready to sit down for morning meeting. 

Our calendar our square for today was the number 27 and was the color purple. 

Mr. Weather Frog is ready for some more fun in the sun.  

The number one we practiced holding up one finger, clapping one time and stomping one time.  We also looked for other things that were the shape of square 

Our color of the month identification for the month of August.  Ask your child if they can identify the objects on the board. 

Our book we read this morning.  We found a lot of blue animals in our book today. 

Standing in line/Washing Hands/Snack Time

We spend time learning how to stand in line we are doing really well with this task we will be pros by the time we are ready for preschool! 

We practice standing on the wall while we wait to wash our hands

After we done washing our hands we sit down and wait for the rest of our friends to wash their hands. 

Snack time!!!  We practice sitting in our chairs till all or our friends are done with snack.

Circle Time

Our second circle of the day we spend time learning our ABC's and the sounds of our letters.  We do a couple of songs that work on our fine motor skills, read an alphabet book. We love to sing our ABC's and have fun identifying the different colors for the drawing I make. 

Clapping our hands 

Fun with friends 

Hi Mrs. Horn! 

Getting ready to sing the ABC's 

Our letter sound book, I will try and post a video of me doing the sounds so you can see how this is done 

Getting ready to see what is going to be drawn for the day. 

Learning our colors.  We counted 1 yellow sun, 3 blue clouds and four pretty flowers and five black birds 

Our ABC book today was all about different animals 

OUTSIDE/COMMON TIME 

We spent about 10 minutes outside due to the extreme heat we had fun playing in the rock pit and the water table.  We then headed to the commons area of the new Early Childhood Wing and played with more friends 

MD Checking out the rock pit. 

Kate and JD dumping and scooping all types of rocks into the bucket

Sydney and Avery keeping cool in the water table 

Jack watching the water go through the funnel 

Washing the toys to make them sparkling clean! 

MD loved the rock pit today! 

Playing with the beach ball. 

Having fun with the beach ball 

Jumping in and out of the hula hoop 

Running and jumping is what we like to do 

Crawling through tunnels 

Peek a boo! 

Playing with new friends 

This is a great way for us to learn how to play with friends and share 

Having a conversation with Mrs. Linneman 

Practice standing on our shapes.  

CENTER TIME

During this time of the day we work more on depth on the things we have talked about during our morning meeting and circle time.  The students are also given the opportunity to play with some of the toys in the classroom again.  The students are called over the table to do the centers.  

Jack and MD decided to start center time with a little airport and bus action. 

Avery decided to play in the housekeeping area 

Sydney was tired from our commons time and took a small break in the orange chair. 

The first center we started with was stamping the number 1 with a blue ink pad. 

Kate began her center time with placing blue circle stickers on the outline of a square. 

Avery came over and enjoyed stamping the number 1 on her paper

Sydney working with the stickers to make a square.  Stickers are a great way to work on fine motor skills and our sensory skills as well.

MD showing how he had stamped the number 1 on his paper 

Kate stamping her number 1's with a little help from MD

MD getting ready to put more stickers on his square 

We also worked  with Mrs. Linneman coloring with markers to make a book about the theme of the school year. 

Markers are a great way for us to work on our pre writing skills as we are learning how to hold a writing tool as well as how to maneuver the marker 

We had some great coloring going on during center time. 

As we colored with the markers we talked about the pages we were coloring and why they were so important. 

With using the markers we also are working on a fine motor skill as we have to pull the cap off the marker 

When we are done with a marker we have to work to get it back on the marker 

Sydney was very excited to show me her pink mouse she had been working on. 

Jack finished his Bible book he came over to work on stamping the number one 

Avery worked on peeling the stickers off the sticker sheet and putting them on the outline of the square 

We then got to work on making Sammy the Square 

Sydney working on coloring the ABC's 

Kate and Avery had a great time coloring with the crayons.  As we are coloring not only do we talk about the ABC but we talked about the colors we were using. 

As we made Sammy the Square we talked about the different parts of our body to help us build Sammy

We talked about how we have two eyes

A nose and a mouth this allowed us to work on body awareness as well. 

Music and Movement

We had fun clapping our hands and squishing up our Baby Bumble Bee and watching 5 ducks swim

We had fun doing a little jumping 

and kicking our legs 

We ended our music and movement with a great book! 

LUNCHTIME

NUMBER BOOK

After lunch we worked on the first book in our number book we will be making through out the year.  Today we stamped 1 blue sailboat.  This book will come home at the end of the school year. 

END OF THE DAY

We had time for one more story and to sing a few more songs.  The children really like to listen to stories there is enough books to read.  Reading is a great way promote early literacy and a love for reading.   

We had another great day and we had a lot of fun learning and exploring.  I hope everyone enjoys the Labor Day weekend and you find time to spend time with family and friends as well as finding time to worship Jesus.  If you are looking for a home church Zion would love for you to join us at one of our worship services we have services on Saturday at 5:00 Sundays at 8:00 and 10:30.  I look forward to seeing all my little friends back next week when we start the study of the color red, the shape of an Octagon, the number 2, the letter A and the beginning of the story of  Creation.  We have lots of fun stuff to do and learn!  

Mrs. Horn