Snowy Tuesday in February

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

I hope everyone got to enjoy the three-day weekend and had a wonderful Valentines Day.  It sounds like quite a few of my friends got to play out in the snow yesterday.  We had a special visitor today Mrs. Linneman stopped by for a while.  The school district she is working in currently had a snow day so she came to visit we were so excited for her to visit us and spend sometime with us.  Mrs. Linneman is busy working in the Hazelwood School District working on her Early Childhood Degree.  Thanks for stopping by Mrs. Linneman and we hope to see her again soon. 

Today we continued along our journey of the number 7, the color pink, the shape of the heart, learning about Zacchaeus and about our letters.  We are learning and doing so much in the classroom it is amazing to watch and see how much all of my little friends are learning and doing.

We are really concentrating on sitting during our morning meeting and making sure that we are keeping our hands to ourselves and not bothering our friends around us.  This is something that your child will have to do when they go to preschool so we are getting a head start by working and practicing it in our classroom.  We are continuing to work on our new prayer the Superman Prayer see if your child can help you recite it. 

Thank you, God for giving us food

Thank you, God for giving us food

For the friends that we meet,

For the food that we eat,

Thank you, God, for giving us food

Amen!

Many of our friends have been fighting colds, coughs, fevers and snotty noses.  As a reminder your child needs to be fever free for a complete 24 HOURS before returning to school.  With that being said we are really enforcing hand washing, covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze and using a tissue to wipe our noses. 

Enjoy reading about our day and viewing the pictures. 

Jesus Time: This week's Bible story comes from Luke 19:1-10

A Very Short Man

Everywhere Jesus went there were crowds of people.  In one crown there was a very short man named Zacchaeus.  He wanted to see Jesus, but he couldn’t’ see over the crowd so he climbed a tree.  Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come down so we can go to your house today.”   Zacchaeus hurried down and took Jesus to his home.  Zacchaeus wanted to do good things.  He told Jesus that, he’d give half of his money to the poor. 

Today during our center time we made a tree for Zacchaeus and glued him in the tree and Jesus at the bottom of the tree.  While we worked on this project we practiced singing the song about Zacchaeus.  Ask your child if they remember any of the song.  Below are the lyrics to the song. 

Zacchaeus was a wee little man; a wee little man was he. 
(Using both hands, make it look like you are showing the size of a very small man.)
He climbed up in the sycamore tree, the Savior for to see. 
(Using both hands act as though you are climbing up a tree)

And when the Savior passed that way, He looked up in the tree, 
(using you fingers, make it look as though someone is walking.)
And he said, "Zacchaeus, you come down from there; 
For I'm going to your house today, for I'm going to your house today."
(Start clapping your hands when singing this verse.)

Number:  We continued learning how to count to the number 7 I was pretty impressed by how well some of my friends are doing counting to 7 all on their own.  We practiced counting 7 fingers, jumping up and down 7 times, counting 7 hearts and clapping 7 times.

During our center time we had to place heart shaped stickers on teddy bears that were labeled 1-7.  Using stickers is a great fine motor skill it helps us work on our pincer grasp and transferring from one sheet to the next.  We started this activity by counting the seven bears this is where I watched to see who could count all on their own. 

Shape:  It’s all about the Heart this month so we continued to work on recognizing the shape of a heart

We focused during our center time cutting out a heart that was folded in half.  Some of my friends were able to do this on their own, others needed help holding and maneuvering the paper and others need help holding the paper and cutting with scissors.  No matter where your child falls in cutting with scissors they all cut their own hearts out.  They got to choose the color red, purple or pink.  This allowed us to work on color identification.  Once the color was chosen we cut out our heart and then we painted it with pink paint. 

Color:  Pink is our color for the month we had fun placing different pictures on our board.  Ask your child what they got to place on the board and what color it was. 

During center time we painted our hearts that we had cut out with pink paint.  These will be displayed in our classroom be sure to check them out. 

Music and Movement: We sang Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We had fun learning the Zacchaeus song as well as Clapping our hands, doing the Silly Dance Contest and Going in the Wash Machine!  I don’t know about my little friends by I was exhausted after being in the washing machine. 

Outside Time: With the ground covered in snow we did not get to go outside today but we did walk to the commons to play with the balls, tunnels and some funny rubber animals and our other friends from the PDO classes. 

Patterning:  We continued working on our pattern today of pink and purple hearts.

We are continuing along our letter journey today we learned about the letter H and made a heart print with our hands for our letter Alphabet book.  . 

We are doing lots of exploring, learning and discovering all types of things through out the day in our classroom.  Everyday is an adventure and everyday is different.  Which is the beauty of working with this age group. 

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Free Choice Play 

We still have a few weeks with the toys that are currently in our classroom. The students are engaged and playing with them.  Our imaginations are starting to sprout and it is so neat to listen, watch and learn what they are doing with the toys in the classroom.  Today our music selection was some winter classical music. 

Dollhouse and Cars

These are popular items in our classroom.  It  is neat to see them play with the doll house and hear the conversations that are taking place while they are playing with the dolls.  

.Play Dough

Play dough is a great way for us to work our muscles and fine motor skills.  We are also working on our sensory skills.  

.Evan decided that he needed to clean the cars with my dry paint brushes.  What a great way to use his imagination.  Evan and Nicholas had some pretty clean cars when they were done washing them.   

.Three D Puzzle House

This has become a hot item in our classroom.  It stands up and the students need to figure out where the shapes go in the house.  I can be guaranteed that someone is playing with this during center and free choice time.  

.Art Easel

Is still an attraction in our classroom.  It is so neat to see the creations that are being formed on our board.  Someone always seems to be coloring and drawing.  A great pre writing skill happening here.  

.Reading in the orange chair we have new books in our classroom this week.  We rotate out our books every week.  It is so neat to see them all so interested in reading and looking at the pictures.  

.Observing the Snow 

There was a lot of talking and observing going on at the door today about the snow outside and what we did in the snow yesterday.  A great way for the children to work on their communication and people skills.  

.

Puzzles 

.Sophia and Nicholas were quite the team today as they put all three floor puzzles together by themselves.  I was so proud of how well they worked together to figure out how to make them work.  

.Mrs. Wegner was a busy lady today reading new books out of our book basket.  Our friends love to be read to and what a great thing to have happening in our classroom instilling a love for reading! 

Morning Meeting

Today we put a yellow square that had the numbers 1 and 7 on our calendar.  We then counted three yellow squares on our calendar.  Calendar time is a time where we are becoming familiar with hearing the Months of the year, days of the week.  We are working on shape, color, number and counting as well as pre-reading skills as we work on going from left to right.  Exposure is what is happening during this time.  

.We dress Mr. Weather Frog every day.  It allows the children to have a sense of what the weather is like and what is appropriate dress.  During this time we talk about the season we are currently in.  As we dress Mr. Weather Frog we are also talking about the different parts of our body that clothing and accessories need to be placed so we are working on body awareness as well. 

.We talk about the number of the month, count our seven hearts, identify our shape of the month and decide what color it is after the color has been identified we move onto our color board. 

We are doing our color board a little different this month.  Each child is given a picture that is the color pink and when their picture is called they get to come up and place it on the board.  I usually give a description of the picture before I give the name.  This is allowing for a little more interaction and class participation during our Morning Meeting.  

.Landry had a pink pig.  He made a great pig noise too and we decided that a pig lives on the farm. 

.A pink rose was put on our board by Avery. One of our friends pointed out that it has sticky things on the long part (stem) that could hurt you.  

.Reese had a pink hat with red hearts on it.  We decided a hat was best to be put on your head on cold days like today. 

.Sophia had a pink butterfly that we talked about that we will see in the next few months.  

.Emma had our shape for the month a pink heart. 

.Julija had pink boots that we need to put on our feet to keep them warm from the rain and snow. 

.Evan had a pink circle that use to make a snowman with. 

.Nicholas had a shape we have had before it was an Octagon and it reminds us of a stop sign and to STOP! 

.Susanna had our pink star today which led us to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 

.We were so excited to have Mrs. Linneman here during circle time! 

.Look at our beautiful color board for the month of February! 

Jesus Time 

We sang our Bible song that helps us settle down and get ready to learn about Jesus and the good news.  Ask your child if they can sing the Bible song.  

.Today we talked about Zacchaeus and Jesus and learned a new song to go with our Bible Story.

After we sang our new song we worked on our pattern for the month.  We have purple and pink hearts that we have to put in order.  I start the pattern with a pink and purple heart and then ask each student to tell me what comes next.  When our pattern is complete we practice counting the hearts.  We counted 10 hearts and this helps us remember that we have 10 fingers and 10 toes. 

.After we are done counting to 10 we read this funny book about Biscuit's Valentines Day.  We usually talk about what is on the cover of our book before we read it and try and figure out what our book might be about.  

.After we read our story for the day  we say our prayer for snack. We are learning the Superman Prayer right now and are doing a great job at trying to remember the words.  

.Transition and Snack Time 

As we prepare for snack each of us are given a heart with our name on it.  When our name is called we bring our heart up and find a spot on the board to put it.  We are asked to identify the color of our heart as well.  We are working on several things at this time, listening, following directions, color identification, letter sounds and fine motor skills.  

.Landry Landry, Landry begins with L

.Nicholas Nicholas, Nicholas begins with N.

.As we are coming up some of my friends are able to repeat the saying of the first letter of the their name.

.After snack time we head to the commons to play

.We came back from the commons for circle time.  Apparently the walk tired us out when we got back and some of us decided to lay down while we sang our ABC's.  We also went through our letter sounds and learned about the letter H.  

.We read this Book about Llama  Llama and the fun things he does in his red pajamas. 

Center Time

Coloring A Valentine Picture

We are working on coloring the picture and not the picture around it.  This is a great pre-writing skill and fine motor skill.  We have got some friends that are doing really well at coloring.  

.Number Seven 

Today we practiced counting seven bears holding hearts we then had to place stickers on each bear holding a heart.  We are working on counting, recognizing the numbers 1-7 and using our fine motor skills as we place stickers on the hearts.  

.Cutting & Painting

Today we had to cut out our own heart and then painted our heart pink.  Working with scissors is something we try and hit every class period.  Some of us need help opening and closing the scissors some of us need help just getting started and then can complete the project from there.  This is not something that has to be mastered by the end of the year we are exposing them to the skill and helping them get ready for preschool.  

.Imaginations Hard at Work 

.Emma came to show me that her puppet the wolf was drinking some tea from a cup. 

.Avery was busy playing house with the Doll House

.Sophia was working up a storm in the tool bench 

.A game of Peek A Boo was taking place in the kitchen area.  There were lots of giggles and laughing coming from over here for a good ten minutes or so. 

.Bible Activity

Today we had to glue on the trunk for our tree, glue Jesus at the bottom then paint a green leaves on our paper to make the top part of our tree then we glued a picture of Zacchaeus in the tree leaves.  As we worked on this project we practiced singing the song we learned during our Jesus time.  

.I did not get pictures of us painting our hands today for our Alphabet book.  Time was getting away from us and I totally forgot.  I am sorry for no pictures  of this activity. 

.Music and Movement

Today we did Hands are for Clapping, we had fun clapping, stomping, shaking, tapping and brushing our teeth.  

.We then got Silly doing the Silly Dane Contest.  They love this song and I love to see them dance, laugh and giggle.  It always fills my heart with such warmth and love

.We ended our music and movement time with being in the wash machine and moving and shaking!  

.We read this book about what a dinosaur does when he gets Mad.  These are some of my favorite books, I feel like children can really relate to this books it shows what a Dinosaur might do if he was mad and what he really does which is the right thing to do. 

We prayed for Lunch doing our Superman prayer again and then today we had to practice tossing a bean bag into our large heart once we tossed our bean bag into our heart we had to find our heart on the board and bring it to me. 

.This activity allowed us to work on our fine motor and gross motor skills together.  We also were having to work on following a series of three simple directions. 1.  Toss the bean bag into the heart.  2.  Find your name on the board and bring me your heart 3.  Go find Mrs. Wegner and wash hands and go potty.  

.  We had a great day in our classroom.  We are learning so much and have all grown emotionally, physically and academically.  It is amazing to see how far all of them have come since August.  Our routines are well established and we know what is expected of us each day.  I hope you have enjoyed seeing our day and seeing what all we are doing!  Have a wonderful evening and stay warm!!