Manners, Manners, and More Manners (Plus Some Snapping!)

We survived our second week together! We had a truly fantastic time this week, too!

We’re still learning routines and procedures. These things take time, and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of practicing and reviewing ahead of us. The kids have been doing a great job so far though. We focused on circle time manners this week. We watched a super cute video called Can You Teach My Alligator Manners?. (You can find it here, if you are interested in watching it at home.) We stopped as we watched and talked about what the alligator was doing that wasn’t okay and how he could change.

After we finished the video, we played a fun game to practice our circle time manners. I asked a question and rolled a ball around the circle to give each child a turn to answer. The children knew it was their turn to answer the question when the ball was in their hands. While they waited, they practiced their circle time manners; they sat on their X’s, watched the person who was talking, and waited for their turn to talk. They had a blast with this game!

On Thursday, after practicing all week, we made a list of circle time manners. The kiddos came up with everything I had hoped they would think of. Our four big rules are: (1) Wait my turn to talk. (2) Sit on my bottom. (3) Raise my hand. (4) Sit still. We’ll read through these rules every day, and I am sure circle time will be a breeze very, very soon!

Another highlight from this week was our snap paintings on Thursday. I read about this art project on another preschool teacher’s blog and thought it sounded like a blast. I was right! Here’s what we did: 

I stretched rubber bands around a cookie sheet, slid a piece of paper under the rubber bands, covered the rubber bands in paint, and let the kids snap away. This was a great fine motor exercise. The biggest challenge for them was holding on to the pan with one hand and stretching the rubber band with the other hand. It took quite a bit of strength for them to do this. Of course, the fact that they were splattering  themselves (and me) with paint made it all worth it! I'm hoping to get these paintings hung up on our art wall this weekend. Please come take a look at them!

We’ve also started to jump into some more academic areas. We’ve matched letters, sorted shapes, and practiced writing our names. 

Next week, we’ll be focusing on friendship manners. I’m going to introduce my absolute favorite friendship technique – buckets! I’ll share more about this next week. I cannot wait to share this with your children!

The Naked Egg Experiment

I cannot believe it's Friday already! This week flew by!

We continued our study of eggs with a super cool experiment called The Naked Egg Experiment. Here's how it worked. Since we wanted to find out what is inside an egg, we needed to take the shell off so we could see inside. We didn't want to break the egg though. I let the kids try get the shell off using their hands, but none of them were successful. (Imagine that! :) ) Then I explained to them that if we put the egg in a jar full of vinegar for a couple of days, the vinegar would eat the shell off the egg and we'd be left with just the insides. We filled up our jars and put an egg in each one. The kids watched them for two days, and we were finally able to take the eggs out and play with them yesterday.

 (I tried to get a good picture of this process, but my hands were covered in egg goo and the kids were so excited it was hard to find an opening to take a picture. This is the best I could do.)

After being in vinegar for two days, here were some of the things the kids noticed about them:

• They were squishy.
• They were larger than a normal egg.
• They could see the yolk moving around inside.
• They bounced.
• When they finally broke, there was some kind of sack around the yolk so the kids could pick it up with their hands.

The kids were amazed at this experiment! They were all so engaged and asked many questions about what might happen next. A few of them hung out in the discovery center (where the eggs were) watching them for a good chunk of interest area time on Tuesday and Wednesday. They noticed all kinds of things about the eggs, like the cracks forming in the shell, and the bubbles that completely covered them. The room was full of a bunch of little scientists.

I've been spending a good chunk of time this week working on individual goals with each child. Some of the goals are in areas where an extra push is needed and some of the goals are in areas of strengths. Since we are getting closer to the end of the year, I want to make sure the kiddos are ready for what kindergarten and k-prep have to offer. I work on these goals mainly through various games and in interest areas. For example, for some of my kiddos, my goal is to help them start using inventive spelling. To do this, I find the children in the art center and offer them paper and markers. As they draw, I help them find the sounds in words to describe their pictures and write them down. For kiddos who have goals in numbers and counting, I have created a few games that ask them to identify numbers and count out quantities. There are other goals too - these are just a few examples.

Here's a picture example:

I feel this individual time together is really helping the children improve! In the last week, I have seen a ton of growth in quite a few children! If you would like to know what I'm working with your child on, let me know and I can give you some ideas for how you can help at home.

We'll be continuing our egg study next week by answering the questions the kiddos came up with yesterday! We'll also be doing a few more fun things with eggs (dyeing eggs and eating eggs).

I posted a schedule for spring conferences (April 17-29) on the alley door. Please sign up for a time that fits your schedule! There was also some information about important dates that will be coming up in the newsletter. Please put these on your calendar!

Have a great weekend!

Holiday Celebrations Around the World and a Whole Bunch of Singing!

Wow! This week went by super fast! I realized yesterday that we only have two and a half school weeks until Christmas break! How did that happen?

We spent a lot of time this week trying to get back into our routines. Coming off of long breaks can be a challenge for preschoolers, but luckily we didn't have any problems! We also spent a lot of time preparing for Sunday! I cannot wait for you all to see the hard work the kiddos have been putting into our little program! I think you'll enjoy it. :)

We have been working on transitioning from our Lake Mills study into a study of holiday traditions around the world. In the next two weeks, we'll be learning about various celebrations families around the world celebrate, like St. Lucia Day (Sweden), Los Posadas (Mexico), Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas. To start this study I added a few celebration artifacts to the classroom and let the children explore. They:

 made bouquets out of artificial poinsettias and

decorated a Christmas tree.

A few of the kiddos made and decorated trees out of play dough and a few painted some trees too!

Outside of those beginning exploration activities for this new study, we also: 

 played doctor and patient in our clinic,

played many new math games where we practiced counting, patterning, and number recognition, and

played with endless amounts of play dough.

Next week, we'll really start to delve into the different celebrations, and I'm incredibly excited about it!

I'm also excited to see you this Sunday! Remember to have your child in the classroom wearing a yellow SON Shine shirt by 10:00 so we can be ready to go by 10:30! I know there are a few kiddos who don't have a shirt yet, but I'll have one for them to borrow on Sunday and I'll be ordering a few more so that you can have one to keep. See you then!

 

When I Grow Up, I Want to be Micky Mouse!

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping your children with their homework on Monday! Taking that time to count with your children shows them that you care and it is a memorable experience for them!

With that homework, we did a couple of activities. On Monday, the children all guessed how many pieces of candy they thought they might get. I had guesses from 2 pieces to 1721 (pronounced seventeen twenty-one – it’s impossible to not smile at these things) pieces. We compared our guesses with our actual number of pieces the next day. No one guessed completely correct, but there were a few who were pretty close.

The wrappers opened up a whole new world of sorting. We sorted by color, type, size, and chocolate/not chocolate. The afternoon class was particularly interested in this activity, so they helped me create a graph of some of the favorite treats. The two favorite candies in the afternoon class were Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Willy Wonka candies. 

We also started a study of Lake Mills this week. We began by talking about what kinds of workers we might have in Lake Mills. We made a list of all the jobs our parents hold, and wrote a classroom book about what we want to do when we grow up. Some of my favorite answers to that question were an engineer (almost fell backwards out of surprise at that vocabulary!), Mickey Mouse, and Diego.

In the block center, we built our own model of Lake Mills. The children helped build The Grand, Pizza Ranch, Mills Theater, and a horse pasture. After they finished these buildings up, they started on their own houses. As they played in our pretend city, they discovered a need for a gas station and a fire station too. It was a blast to watch them build and label their constructions!

We also started building a city outside. My hope is to find some big boxes we can paint and decorate to be the different businesses in Lake Mills, but for today, we simply used sidewalk chalk. I drew a set of roads, complete with stop signs, for the children to ride the scooters on. The children helped me come up with ideas for what kinds of businesses we would need in our city. We ended up with a grocery store, a hardware store, a hospital, a farm, a gas station, and some houses. The children had fun as they pretended to drive around the city.

On Monday, we’ll be taking a walking tour of Lake Mills (just the downtown area, most likely)! The children will have a chance to look around the town to see what kind of businesses there are, and hopefully, they will begin to incorporate them into their play. Please dress your children warmly!

Have a fantastic weekend! See you on Monday!