Jobs

The children have been doing classroom jobs for the 4th week now.  Classroom jobs include bell ringer, snack set up (see above), recess bag carrier, door holder, server and folder distribution.

Pasta Sensory Table-It's more than Ziti!

Writing Workshop

Pancake Reward-Using a knife and fork too.

DRESS UPS

Dress-ups in Prekindergarten not only addresses skills such as donning and disrobing clothing, zippering, and tying, but it allows for imaginary representations.  Children also develop their social skills as they vie for specific articles.  

Books we read to get ready for Thanksgiving!

As part of the Second Step Social and Emotional Program that we use here in Prekindergarten, identifying our feelings is the section we are currently from.  Children are learning about the different emotions and the reasons why they or someone else might be experiencing these feelings.  Being thankful and knowing what we are thankful for is part of being a self-actualized person.

Como parte del Programa Social y Emocional del Segundo Paso que usamos aquí en Prekindergarten, la identificación de nuestros sentimientos es la sección en la que estamos actualmente. Los niños están aprendiendo acerca de las diferentes emociones y las razones por las que ellos o alguien más podría estar experimentando estos sentimientos. Ser agradecido y saber lo que estamos agradecidos es parte de ser una persona auto-actualizada.

Our latest big book read!

Why Use Big Books?

Louisville Free Public Library

The size of pictures and words in big books are exciting to children.

·        Big books are a fun way to motivate children to want to read and to create an exciting way for them to experience books.

·        The size of pictures help children to focus attention and follow the story as they are learning to listen.

Rereading familiar texts in our Reading Center

Why Should Beginning Readers Reread Familiar Materials?

   Rereading familiar materials builds beginning readers’ sight word vocabularies. Beginning readers are not yet able to recognize many words by sight and their letter-sound  knowledge is not secure enough to help them sound out words. Their word recognition must be supported by text that is predictable and memorable. As they read and reread the familiar books, either commercial or as you see here, teacher-created, beginning readers will gradually  remember words out of context as "sight words." Very soon they will acquire  a bank of words that they can recognize automatically at first sight and be able to use the decoding strategies that they are learning to figure out unknown words. Soon they will be reading text that they will not be able to memorize and will need to rely on their bank of known sight words and decoding abilities to read the text.   Rereading familiar materials builds fluency and is important for comprehension. A fluent reader reads with speed, accuracy and expression. Research shows that fluency is important for comprehension. Readers, who are not fluent, expend so much effort decoding words that they are not able to devote mental energy to understanding what they read.

Rereading familiar books provides beginning readers with a sense of success, which is very important while they are developing their reading skills.
www.Icps.org

Performance Standard 3-Cares for Self Independently

In Prekindergarten, some children are learning about dressing and undressing.  "Dresses, eats and toilets independently" according to the Preschool Assessment Framework.  This document gives an example of "puts on dress-up clothes or costumes by self, using zippers and buttons."  In addition, in our dress-up area, children must pull clothing over their heads, or they may need to step into a garment or step out of one.  All skills necessary for life!

Dramatic Play is now two areas, Pizza and Dress ups!

Using our 5 Senses

Last week the children explored a Touchy-Feely box.  Children listened to the story above and then used their sense of touch to explore an unknown/unfamiliar object in a box.  Descriptive words reinforced oral language skills and the concept of touch.  The children then were able to pull their artifact from the box and use their sense of sight, and sometimes hearing or smell to tell the group about their artifact.

Pre-writing skills!

Working with sticks and pipe-cleaners improves fine motor skills as well as developing prerequisite skills for writing.   

The shapes we made were extended into letters and words!  

Writing Group-writing about our Fall trees. Short pencils and lined paper.

THINGS WE LIKE TO DO WITH OUR FAMILIES-GO GET PIZZA!

Dramatic Play Area #1 on Opening Day

WATER COLORS-DISPLAY IS IN THE MAIN HALLWAY DOWN FROM THE OFFICE

What Prekindergarten-aged children learn from WATERCOLORS.

Watercolor painting involves using a small brush to paint light strokes onto thin paper. The delicacy of watercolor painting, unlike painting with heavier media such as poster board paints, requires a degree of gentleness and precision. Practicing these skills will facilitate and promote a preschooler’s fine-motor skills, which are crucial to her development at this stage. Fine-motor skills are a child’s ability to coordinate small muscle movements, especially in the fingers, making this type of arts and crafts activity developmentally appropriate for a preschool-aged child. From watercolor painting, a preschooler will learn how to coordinate the small movements of her fingers to produce a work of art. This will aid in her long-term ability to write, manipulate tools and objects and perform other small movement-based tasks essential to everyday life.

Watercolor painting requires young children to put paintbrush to paper and create strokes, shapes, letters or numbers, depending on what the child is painting. This promotes a child’s hand-eye coordination, which is her ability to use her eyes to guide her hand movements. As your preschooler paints, she is using her eyes to direct her brush strokes and create the picture, shape or line curvature she has in mind. Reinforcing hand-eye coordination now will help her coordinate larger visual-muscular movements later, including swinging a bat at a baseball, using a computer mouse and driving a vehicle.

Watercolor painting will enable your youngster to develop her creative skills, which are just as important as the other skills this kind of activity promotes and develops. Opportunities for creative thinking reinforces a preschooler’s ability to engage with the world in new and novel ways, which promotes inquiry, reflection and critical-thinking skills. So go ahead and let your preschooler paint a purple sun or a blue bunny rabbit -- it will only reinforce her cognitive skills and her ability to interpret and respond to the world in meaningful and insightful ways later!

FARM UNIT WRAPS UP AND BOOKS ARE ALWAYS AVAILABLE FOR READING

This book was a class favorite for both sessions!

FARM UNIT WRAPS UP AND BOOKS ARE ALWAYS AVAILABLE FOR READING