Week of January 27

This week we have continued our snow unit. 

Tuesday - We are talked about things that melt compared with things that do not melt and completed a sorting activity based on this task.  We read a discovery book - Ice is Nice.  We also read It looked like Split Milk - then we created cloud pictures and discussed what our cloud shapes looked like.

Wednesday - We read Cold Weather and talked about items we wear in the winter.  We colored individual items that we wear in the winter and tomorrow we will put these puzzles together.


Thursday - We will read about Polar Bears and make a polar bear craft.

 On Wednesday we played a few rounds of Musical Chairs.  We are working on listening, sportsmanship and being flexible when it doesn't go their way.  We will continue to practice these skills.


Throughout the day we encourage our students to be independent, as much as they can.  I often encourage them to try as many times as they are old. So if they are three, then I expect them to try and do something, like open their snack or backpack, 3 times.  During these times, we try and encourage, prompt hand placement and watch how they succeed. 

Penguins!

Many pictures on our Picture Blog

We created life-size penguins for the Lucky Ducks to determine if they are shorter, taller or the same as a few penguins.  More Penguin photos are on the picture blog.

Unit 3 SNOW

Week of January 20

Unit 3 SNOW 

Here are the theme concepts for this unit:

• When it is very cold, sometimes it snows instead of raining
• Snow comes from the clouds
• Animals and people need protection from the cold and the snow
• Some animals hibernate during the winter  months
• There are many ways to enjoy the snow
• When the temperature gets warmer, the snow melts
• 
  

Questions for the unit:

• What is snow?
• When does it snow?
• Where does the snow come from?
• What do you wear when it snows?
• After the snow falls, what happens to it?
• What can you do in the snow?

Books for the week:

Tracks in the Snow by Wong Herbert Yee
A Bed for Winter by Karen Wallace
The Snowy Day - Ezra Jack Keats

Small Groups:

Things I Use in the Snow - We will sort items that are used in the snow compared to items used in warmer months

Snowman - We will build individual paper snowmen

Patterns - Hat/ Mitten Patterns


Choice Time

Art Table: Painting with frozen paint

 

Block Area: Tinker Toys

Library Area: Snow themed books

Sensory Table: Digging for treasures in ice

Writing Table: writing/tracing winter words and playing with winter stamps

Dramatic Play: Taking care of babies

Fine Motor - finding beads in theraputty

Week of January 13th

We are continuing our exploration of snow and ice.  During choice time, the Lucky Ducks have enjoyed playing in our snow fort, ice fishing, and water table.    We are adding to this unit some fun information about Penguins.  We will be creating penguins to add to our penguin wall.  We created life-size penguins for the children to compare themselves too.  We are making a very large class snowman, individual penguins and a positional book.

Snow much fun in the Lucky Ducks!

Flexible Friends

FLEXIBLE FRIENDS

We are working on our bonus life skill:

We started this life skill on Tuesday, and it will take some time for students to understand this concept.  Although, the Lucky Ducks are doing a great job showing their flexibility when we make a change, sharing super favorite superhero toys, and trying to say the phrase.  We encourage you to remind them to be flexible and say, "OK I can be flexible."  

Silly Sock Day is tomorrow January 9th.

Our class has earned another reward.  We will have silly sock day Thursday (1-9).  Please send your child to school wearing ‘silly socks’.  This can be anything you would like, but please do not feel the need to purchase socks.  Socks can be mismatched, inside out, multiple layers of socks, character, etc. We are working on making pairs and this is a fun way to reinforce this concept.

This week we have been working with the story

The Mitten by Jan Brett.

"When Nicki drops his white mitten in the snow, he goes on without realizing that it is missing.
One by one, woodland animals find it and crawl in; first, a curious mole, then a rabbit, a badger and others, each one larger than the last. Finally, a big brown bear is followed in by a tiny brown mouse and what happens next makes for a wonderfully funny climax...."Amazon

The Lucky Ducks have colored the animals from the story, decorated mittens, attempting to make them match, and will the sew the mittens together tomorrow.

We played shape bingo today including the shapes circle, square, triangle, heart, and rectangle.

During choice time, many students in the class have enjoyed playing with our small and large superheroes. We have Batman, Spiderman, Flash, Captian America, and Thor just to name a few. While playing with these toys, the kids are constructing buildings for the heroes, creating scenes and including great language in the process.

Other friends are enjoying our sand table, playing preschool lunchbox monkey, making pairs with shoes, socks, and mittens as well as using duploes.