CIRCLE TIME

 
Welcome Back!  We began the month of January sharing stories of our Christmas vacations and happily welcoming each other back to school.  We also reviewed the rules and joys of friendship, including how to make a friend and reiterating our #1 rule: “you can never say ‘you can’t play’”.     

Senses:  The children had fun using their eyes to play “I Spy”, their ears and noses to identify a variety of sounds and scents, their taste buds to distinguish between sweet and salty, soft or crunchy, and their hands to feel items that were smooth, rough, prickly, hard or soft.  They were able to build vocabulary as well as learn about their five senses.      

Nutrition:  We sorted plastic food into piles of “healthy” or “not as healthy” as we identified vegetables, fruits, meats and sweets and talked about healthy eating.   

Space:  We are currently having lots of fun sharing our knowledge of outer space, astronauts, space ships, and planets! 

Each child was encouraged to put on their own coat without assistance, and to try to zip, snap and/or button it.  Zipping, in particular, requires skill and patience.  We will continue to practice this throughout the winter.   The children also put together several different puzzles according to each child’s skill level.  This too requires patience, practice, and persistence through trial and error.    

Another small group was devoted to number recognition and counting.  As always, we learn through helping each other and having fun!

Friendship Drawings:  During friendship week the children were encouraged to draw pictures of their friends here at school or outside the school.  These will be placed in a special “book of drawings” to be sent home at the end of the year. 

Vegetable Painting:  During “senses” week the children used their sense of smell and of touch as they painted with real vegetables.  They enjoyed feeling the different vegetables and seeing if any of them had a smell.  The paintings are currently hung up around the school.  Feel free to look around and see if you can identify what vegetables were used. 

Number collages:  Following through with our small group on numbers, the children used number stamps to create a collage on a piece of white paper.  Some of the children also went as far as making pictures with the numbers and using their fingers to make prints.

SCIENCE

Exploration, discovery, observation, and predictability:  “Tornado” bottles served as a platform for discovery as the children witnessed a real “cause and effect” activity.   The bottles were made by using a connector to attach two soda bottles together.   Both contained blue colored water along with shimmer paint to enhance the “tornado’s” appearance.  The “tornado” was produced as the children tipped and swirled the bottles upside down, simulating a “tornado.”  This activity proved to be a very popular hands-on experience.  In conjunction with the “tornado” bottles, assorted water toys were added to expand upon the theme of water.            

Sorting and classification:  The properties of “smooth” and “rough” were explored as the children engaged in a true sensory experience.  Two containers, one encased in sand paper and the other with smooth paper were on display.  Assorted items challenged the children to discern between rough and smooth, resulting in the eventual distribution of items into the appropriate containers. 

Auditory discernment, sorting and matching:  Next, the children were introduced to a “match that sound” game.  This challenging activity presented the children with twelve wooden cubes.   The object of the game was to shake the cubes and identify and sort similar sounds.  Colored dots on the bottom of the cubes served as clues to let the children know if they had guessed correctly.     
 

MATH

Number recognition and sorting:  The children enjoyed this homemade game, which involved numbered paper plates with corresponding red dots, assorted items, and dice.  The object of the game was to roll the dice and find the corresponding plate bearing the number that was indicated.  The next step involved gathering the number of items, either similar or dissimilar, and placing them on the plate for accuracy.  Variations on the game ranged from child to child.     

WRITING/LANGUAGE CENTER

Letter recognition, matching, and eye/hand coordination:  Fishing took on a new meaning as the children enjoyed playing the “ABSeas” fishing game.  The children “fished” for sea creatures that displayed an upper or lower case letter using small fishing poles with a magnet at the end.  They then matched their “catch” to game cards that corresponded with their perspective letters.  Some children simply enjoyed “fishing” while others enjoyed identifying and matching letters of the alphabet.

Encouraging and promoting pre-writing and fine motor skills, letter recognition and duplication:  The children were introduced to a wonderful pre-writing game entitled the “Write Stuff.” Dry erase letter boards provided a canvas for the children to hone their writing skills.  This Discovery Toy game indicates through a series of dots where the child begins the stroke and the arrows direct the pencil movement toward completion. 

In addition to the readily available crayons, markers, pencils, colored pencils, paper, alphabet books and stencils, dot-to-dots and mazes were added for further pre-writing and fine motor skill encouragement.  Colorful booklets were also added to promote word formation and illustration.  
 

CREATIVITY ROOM

Sensory table

Discovery and exploration:  The children enjoyed finding objects hidden in the sand as we explore our senses.  The sand table was transformed into an “eye spy” experience.  As they sifted and poured sand, the children were delighted in what they found- keys, crayons, animals, pencils, and many other items.   They equally enjoyed burying the items so that they could find them again. 

Playdough

Strengthening fine motor muscles, promoting social skills, language and imagination:  Although the temperatures until recently have not reflected the season, our ice blue playdough sparkles with glitter bringing “winter” inside.

Easels

Creativity and experimentation:  Glitter paint and koosh balls made an abundance of interesting effects.Fine motor, eye-hand coordination:  Short, stubby animal markers are fun to use.  They develop the fine motor muscles and promote an efficient writing grasp. 

Sensory experience:  The children used big brushes to experiment with textured paint on dark paper.  Flour was added to white paint to create a puffy appearance, like snow.

You may have noticed some colorful noses as the children explored their sense of smell with the smelly markers located at the easels. 
 

DRAMATIC PLAYROOM

The Dramatic Playroom returned to its ever- popular housekeeping theme.  The children enjoyed resuming their daily activities of cooking, cleaning, and dressing up.  Imaginary play has been abundant!  They also look forward to playing in the “Space Station” coming soon!
 

MUSIC AND MOVEMENT

Eye-hand coordination, gross motor skills, balance, rhythm, and  rhyme!  We enjoyed using rhythm sticks and shaky eggs to sing “Counting Polar Bears” and “I Know a Chicken”!   We danced to “The Twisty Freeze”, “The Gong Song” and “Shake your Sillies Out”, to name just a few of our favorite songs this month.

MONDAY ENRICHMENT

Our Monday Extended day program has grown, and we are having lots of fun.  We have made ooey, gooey goop, which was fun and also a great sensory experience.  We made prints from foil where the children crinkled the foil into a ball and carefully unfolded it to make a flat surface.  Next, they painted it, put a piece of paper on top and peeled it back.  There were so many interesting designs.  We also painted using tiny little sea sponges, and we learned that acrylic paint can peel off our hands.  We have a lot more fun activities planned (a spaceship, marble painting, a tissue collage etc.) but we won’t tell all, so we don’t spoil the fun!
 

TERRIFIC TUESDAY

WACKY WEDNESDAY

FRIDAY ENRICHMENT

Favorite book days have proved to be a lot of fun.  Many new books have been brought in and the children have enjoyed sharing them with us.  Sometime in February we will introduce 2 new class pets that the children will be able to take home and enjoy for a week then write about their adventures with them (these are not real pets!).  More information will follow in the next couple of weeks.
 

QUOTES

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

Think Snow!

Miss Kelly

Miss Nancy

Miss Meg

Miss Julie

Miss Brenda

Miss Maryann

Miss Chris

Miss Andrea