Week 5

Week 5 Day 1 of Mrs. Horn’s Class

I hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day Holiday and were able to relax a little.  I always find that summer is not truly over until after Labor Day, I guess when I was growing up school never started until after Labor Day so it has always really been hard for me to get into the groove of things till Labor Day is over.  So summer is now over and it is time for us to start gearing up for the season of Fall.  We will continue learning about apples and other things that happen during the Fall.  I feel that it is important to for little ones to have a sense of time and talking about holidays and seasons allows our little ones to be able to follow what goes on during what time of year.  We will be doing lots of fall like activities over the next couple of weeks and months.  Please read below what we were busy doing today.  We added some more centers this week and will continue to do so as the month progresses

Jesus Time:  Today we practiced singing our Bible song that we start Jesus Time with and we learned about the second day of creation. We talked about how God on the second day created the water and the sky and after his creation he said this is good.  After we read our Bible Story we practiced singing the song THE BIBLE and Jesus Loves Me.  We ended our Jesus time in prayer.  When we get ready to pray we talk about how we need to fold our hands, bow our heads and listen. These are things you can practice with your child at home.  Here is this week’s special prayer. Dear God, Thank you for creating the sky and the water in your name we pray. Amen. During our center time we worked on the second day of creation.  We had to glue two clouds for the sky (this also helped us with the number we are studying about this month as well) and then we used a blue crayon to color the water.   Our creation books will come home at the end our study of the Bible Story Creation.  

Number:  We continued our study of the number two. We worked on holding up two fingers that will help us build our finger and hand muscles. We practiced counting 1-2 and clapping our hands two times, stomping our feet two times, turning around two times and waving our hands two times. We also spotted 2 butterflies on our number 2 that we look at as we are learning about it.  During our center time we used a red bingo dauber to find all the number 2’s on an apple.  Every time we found a number 2 we used the bingo dauber and say the number 2.

Shape: Our shape for the month of September is the OCTAGON.  This is a hard shape but we talked about how it looks like a stop sign and when we see this shape we need to STOP!  We talked about how it has eight sides and how we can see this shape when we are driving in our cars with our moms and dads.  Help your child this week when you are driving look for an OCTAGON! 

Letter:  We continue to work on learning the ABC song and today we continued our letter journey with the letter B.  We looked at different pictures of the letter B and the sounds the letter B makes.  During center time we colored a picture of a Bumble Bee with the letter B on it.  We also worked on the first two pages in our Alphabet books.  The letter A and B were done today.  These alphabet books will be coming home at the end of the school year.

Color:  We are studying about the color red this month. We had fun identifying different objects on our RED Color Board.  During our Center time we painted Red apples that we will be adding to our scene on the wall in our classroom.  Be sure and check out all the fun things we have been painting and working on for our wall. 

Music and Movement:  We had fun today doing a variety of different songs during music and movement.  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Wheels on the Bus, Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes; Clap your Hands, Bringing home a Baby Bumble Bee, and Five Days Old.

Outside Time:  We did go outside today for about 30 minutes it was hot but with the breeze blowing it was not to bad.  It is important for us to get outside and run and get fresh air.   I do believe cooler temps are on the way, which is exciting for everyone to be able to really enjoy the weather outside. 

We did a great job playing together today at times I almost didn’t want to have to stop what my little friends were doing because they were playing so well.  Lots of sharing and working together was taking place and I love to see those types of behaviors happening. 

Enjoy the pictures below of our fun day in Room C!   

Free Choice Play

Today we listened to music by The Piano Guys during our Free Choice Time.  

Magnetic Board

This was a popular place today.  Some of my friends and fun putting the apples up on the board and were able to recite some of the letters.  Even if my friends could not identify the letters they were able to see what they look like and if they heard a friend say a letter they were hearing what it was.  Exposure to early literacy skills is a great step into the wonderful world of reading.  Our Magnetic board is always open during free choice the items on it will change frequently and it is all about exposure.  

Block Building. 

 We had fun building and creating with blocks. Blocks are great for us to work on our spatial awareness, our counting, stacking, and color identification skills.  We are also able to work on our problem solving skills as well.  

Amelia had a really tall tower going and right before I was getting ready to snap a picture of her tall tower it fell over. 

Olivia did a great job getting the cylinder blocks to balance on the rectangular blocks. 

Play Dough/Sensory Table Play 

We love playing with play dough we had fun creating different cookie cutter cut outs and rolling out the dough to make funny looking worms and snakes.  Play dough is a great way to work on our hand  coordination and build up our hand strength.  We are really into cutting the play dough with scissors and plastic knives which is a great to work on our pre-cutting skills.  The sensory table still has sand in it and we have loved playing in it working on our scooping and pouring skills.  I was ready to change out the table but they were still very interested in it so I decided to leave it in there for another week.  

Painting A Red Apple

Morning Meeting

Happy Tuesday!

We had an awesome start to our day and our tears were minimal as some of us joined us today which is great!  We have been in school for almost a month and we are getting into the routine of things.  

Our calendar this month has yellow and red apples on it and we are starting to see the pattern forming.  

Soon Mr. Weather Frog will have to put away his flip flops and swim shorts and trade them in for jeans and tennis shoes.  But for now it is still hot and sunny here in St. Louis 

Our Shape, Color and Number for the Month 

Our Red Color Board, you might ask your child to help you identify some of the objects on the board.  This is a great way to work on learning new words and saying new words.  

Our apple pattern for the month

This week we are learning about the letter B! 

Our funny book to go along with the theme of apples that talks about the funny things we found under the apple tree.  

Transition Time 

We each had an apple with our name on it.  When our name was called we had to bring our apple up tell Mrs. Horn what color our apple was and find a spot for it in our basket.  This activity helps children to work on waiting their turn, following directions, self regulation and listening skills.  We also are working on learning the first letter of our name and color of the apple we have.  

Snack Time

Please remember to pack a drink for your child in a spill proof cup as well as making sure they have something that they will enjoy eating and can do on their own.  

Jesus Time

While my friends were cleaning up from snack we are able to get out books and look at them.  Isaiah found some more letter magnets and added them to our magnetic board.    

Today we learned about how God created sky and the water and it was good! 

Transition Time 

Today we played a Creation matching game.  When our name was called we had to match the right day of creation together.  This is just another way to expose our friends to the story of Creation.  After they made their match they had to find a Mickey Mouse to stand on to get ready to head outside. 

Standing in line waiting to go outside! 

Outside Play 

Circle Time

This is the time of day where we come inside wash our hands and sit down on the carpet and listen to a story and in the future we will do a finger play or flannel board story.  We also play a transition game of a sort.  

Today we read a book that went a long with one of the songs we did during Music and Movement

Transition Game

We were each given and apple and we had to place the right colored apple in the right basket.  

 Center Time

We listened to music from the soundtrack How To Train a Dragon 1 and 2.   

Alphabet Books

Over the course of the school year we will work on each of the letters of the Alphabet.  Mainly so your child is exposed to the letters and is aware of what each letter looks like and sounds like.  We will be making an ABC book that will come home at the end of the school year.  This year we are using our bingo daubers to make each of the letters of the Alphabet.  Last week we studied the letter A for Apple and this week we are studying the letter B for Butterfly.  Bingo Daubers are a great way for us to work on self control, working in a small space, holding a writing tool and work on our pre writing skills.  

Coloring

Today we colored a picture of a Bumble Bee to help us with the letter B that we are learning about.  Coloring is a great way for us to work on our pre-writing skills and to work on holding a writing instrument.  Children at this age may not have a specific hand to write with yet which is ok.  We allow them to pick up the crayon and which ever hand they chose to "write" with is fine, this hand can change daily and that is ok.  Other friends have a dominant hand that they use every time.  

Number 2

Today we used the red bingo dauber to find all the number 2's on our Apple.  As we found each number 2 we would say 2 out loud.  This allowed the child to become familiar with what the number 2 looked like and what it sounded like.  Repetition is so important at this age the more they hear it and see it the better they are at remembering it.  

Bible Activity

Today we completed the second page in our Creation Books that we are making.  We had to glue on 2 blue clouds for the sky and then use a blue crayon to color the water.  It was a great way for us to work on the number 2 that we are studying as well as review the color blue.  We also had to work on our pre-writing skills as we had to hold the crayon and color the water.  We also work on using our pincer grasp as we picked up the clouds with our thumb and pointer finger and placed them where the glue was at.  Creation Books will come home when we are done studying about the 7 Days of Creation. 

Music and Movement

Last Book of the Day

We had to search for our little duck friends in this book.  Some of them were not so easy to find but we found them all!  

Transition Time

We had to wait for our name to be called and then we had to find our apple with our name on it and take it off the board.  This again is helping with our listening skills, following directions, letter and color recognition as well as learning what our name looks like.  After we took our apple off we had to find a Mickey Mouse to stand on.  

Standing in Line

This is something we work all year long on we are working on staying on our Mickey Mouse and letting the person who is at the front of the line go out the door first.  

When we are done washing our hands we have to sit down and wait for all of our friends to finish washing their hands and going potty.  

LUNCH TIME!  

Please remember to pack things that are child friendly for your child's age as well as things you know they will eat.  We only have about 20 -30 minutes for lunch and too much food in the lunch box can make it overwhelming for a child of this age and then they don't end up eating anything or very little.  We also encourage them to eat the healthy foods first and then they can have their "treats."  This is how they do it in preschool so it is best to start this practice while we are in Pre-Preschool!   

We had lots of fun today and it was so much fun to see how well everyone got along with each other today.  We did some really great cooperative play and sharing taking place through out our day which I don't always see at this time of the year so we are definitely headed in a great direction.  I hope you enjoyed a peek into our day and wish you great blessings on the evening.