Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Wednesday, November 30th...

LOVE IS IN THE AIR...

Today we celebrated the marriage of Miss Q to Mr. U.



Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Tuesday, November 22nd...

Playing Catch-up!

Looks like I've got a little catching up to do on the blog! Luckily I've got a little down time this week -
remember NO MORE SCHOOL this week -
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Tuesday, November 8th...

Letter L

Today was all about LEAVES! We had a great time looking at and comparing different types of leaves. We looked at size, color, shape, and more while picking out the best specimens for our leaf rubbings.

We read The Leaves on The Trees...



In addition to our leaf rubbings, our classes each participated in other leaf activities. Miss Jodi and Miss Tiffany's classes hung their leaves on colored paper in the windows for a fun decoration! They are waiting to see if the sun will bleach the leaf design onto the construction paper. In Miss Jamie's classes we pressed leaves between the pages of some pretty big books! We will check back on them on Monday to see if they are ready to be laminated.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Monday, November 7th...

Letter U/"Uh So Sad" sound


Today was UPSIDE DOWN DAY here at Little Readers! The kids had a good time noticing all the "upside down" things in the classroom. Some they caught on to right away, in fact before circle time had even started I caught a couple of the kids "helping" me out and fixing things that had been turned upside down in the Circle Time Chart. Other things were less noticeable and the kids discovered them as our lesson developed.

Our Morning classes made "UGLY" pictures to take home to Mom and Dad! We basically gave them free reign with the arts and crafts material and let them build whatever they pleased. Kids love to be in on little jokes and we told them that their Mom's were probably going to tell them how CUTE there pictures were and then they would have the opportunity to look horrified and tell them that they were actually VERY UGLY PICTURES! They couldn't wait!

Our Afternoon classes got to mix Upside Down Day with our UMBRELLA theme (of last week). We got to paint using our breath and straws today. The kids loved blowing through their straws and watching the watery blue paint (aka rain) spread across the paper. Then we decorated our umbrellas and added them (along with our straw, as the handle) to get the finished product!

We read "Mr. Funny" by Roger Hargreaves today.


Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Wednesday, November 2nd...

What a day!

Our regularly scheduled day was upset by the power outage today! Miss Jamie's classroom was too dark to hold class in so we had to improvise. Lucky for us the windows at the school kept the school lit up pretty nicely and the sun shining in kept us warm. We had thought we could go all day, until the water started drying up in the bathrooms! Right around this time, the teachers started getting calls from their own kids at school asking to be checked out. So, Miss Jamie made the call to cancel the Afternoon session.

Of course immediately following the last call/text sent out - the lights came back on. Figures. We are looking at having a make up day for the Afternoon session and will let you know what we come up with. Meanwhile...

We focused on the Letter U/Uh So Sad sound today...

We teach this with a simple little activity. We build up a block tower and when it comes crashing down (while we are trying so hard to carefully place the tippy-top piece on) we exclaim "Uh...so sad"! Then we have the kids chant along with us, "Uh... So sad".

Yesterday's rainstorm was a perfect segue into our UMBRELLA theme today. We got to paint using our breath and straws today. The kids loved blowing through their straws and watching the watery blue paint (aka rain) spread across the paper. Then we decorated our umbrellas and added them (along with our straw, as the handle) to get the finished product!

Today was a little chaotic (too much play time is TOO MUCH, even for the kids believe it or not), but we learned a few things and will be incorporating them into our emergency plan. Number one being that we do not have enough water on hand. Miss Jamie will be making a trip to the store for bottled water soon, and maybe a 5 gallon or two for storage (toilet flushing is pretty high up on a preschoolers priority list). :) The second thing I will be buying is BATTERIES for the CD players - the kids were really annoyed that we couldn't just plug them in and play our music as usual. Other than that, the kids didn't really seem to mind that the lights were out.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Tuesday, November 1st...

Letter H/Running Hard sound

We actually introduced this sound yesterday, but are pretty sure it got lost in all the chaos and fun that make up our preschool Halloween Party!

The sound we are going for is made when you run really hard and fast and find it a little hard to breath.. HHHHHHHHHH. It is important to note that is just a breathy sound, their is no vocalization from the throat or vocal chords.

We read a book titled "The Hiccupotamus" by Aaron Zenz



However, our main theme today was not hiccups, it was HANDS! We spent some time thinking up things that we need our hands for, then our teacher (attempted) to draw pictures of our ideas.

In arts and crafts we used our hands (traced) to make animals, there were a few options, but turkeys seemed to be the popular choice. Earlier in the day, we introduced our new month - November and there was a discussion about turkeys and Thanksgiving. We even learned a new song about Turkeys!