Welcome back!!

Welcome back everyone! It was so fun to see your children's smiling faces back in preschool this week! We have also been privileged to begin a new afternoon class and are excited to get to know the new kids! Please be patient with us as we try to figure out how to work out the blog. Since we have essentially the same schedule for each class, we are going to put all the pictures and info on the same blog. And to avoid completely stressing ourselves out, our formatting will be a little different than usual, but hopefully it will still be fun and informative to look at!!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Today we welcomed the morning children with a bean bag toss and the afternoon class with blocks.

After Calendar time and a great discussion about Christmas, we reviewed our three classroom rules. 1) Keep your hands to yourself. 2) Listen and follow directions. 3) Share.

The afternoon class played a getting to know you game. We tossed a ball to each other as we called out names and named things we liked to do.

We introduced our "fun"damentals for January.

Oval

An oval, an oval, it can roll all around (roll arms around and around)

It looks like a circle... (make a circle over head)

That fell on the ground! (drop arms down and sadly look at ground)

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For the number 6 we played follow the leader. Whoever was wearing the #6 necklace got to choose an action we did 6 times.

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We found the colors white and blue around the room.

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And we looked at some ABB patterns.

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Next we read Polar Animals by Wade Cooper. We learned about Polar Bears, Penguins, Seals, Arctic Foxes, Snowy Owls, and Walruses. Test your kids and see if they can name some of them!

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After our book we played "Penguin, Penguin, Polar Bear." (Which you play just like Duck, Duck, Goose) The children had a lot of fun and only wanted to stop when I told them it was snack time!

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After snack, the morning class had time for a math game. I had some pictures of polar animals, they picked one out, counted the animals, and picked the number that matched.

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Everyone was able to pick from the review bags. We reviewed shapes, colors, and letters, then we introduced the letter Ii.

The Letter Ii

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter I. The letter I. (make ASL sign for letter, showing one hand then the other)

Has a sound. Has a sound. (bring 1 hand to ear and then the other hand to the other ear)

What sound do you make? What sound do you make? (palms facing up, shrug shoulders)

/i/ /i/ /i/! /i/ /i/ /i/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

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We sang the song twice so we could say both the short and long i sound. Then we learned how to write the letter Ii and we colored a page for our alphabet books that the children will take home in May.

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After playtime the morning class sat down and read Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak and the afternoon class danced.

phew! I'm dizzy after spinning durning follow the leader!