I forgot something….  On Friday, 5/2/08, we will be talking about bees.  I told the children they will have an opportunity to taste some honey for snack that day.   The  honey that we will be tasting is labeled  “The Honey House – pure honey – all Minnesota Wisconsin Natural”.  I will offer a second snack for anyone that decides they do not like the honey. The honey will be served on crackers.  If  you have any questions or concerns,  please contact me through e-mail or a phone call.  Thank you. I’ll  see everyone on Friday.

Enjoy your evening with your family.

I love Wednesday!

Today the children listened to the silly story of  “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” and then we followed the story line through a  song.  The children will be making a project based on the  story on Friday. We reviewed the letter ‘Jj’ today and made another page for our ABC book, and we were able to enjoy God’s wonderful gift of a beautiful spring morning as we played on the playground.

It is that time of the year and PreK will be over in a blink of an eye.  Our last day for PreK  is May 30th.  The children would like to celebrate with their families on this special day. We will have our celebration, slide show and of course cake and punch beginning at 10am on that Friday. Our invitations will be coming home later this month.

The children had PhyEd this morning. One skill the children worked on during PhyEd was a large muscle rolling  movement. The children rolled on a mat path while keeping their bodies straight. WOW!

Back in PreK, the children worked on sorting ‘bugs’ in the bug jar, counting, and reviewing the letter ‘Hh’.

Curious George continues with his second round of visiting. To provide a second visit with everyone, he is going home during the week also.

Enjoy the evening with your family

Hello again, the children had a wonderful day – despite the rain.  Circle discussions were regarding the month of April and how fast it seems to be going. We counted to 25 and noticed that this was the last Friday in April already.

Curious George is trying to make his second weekend visit. It looks pretty obvious to me that he will have to include ‘middle of the week’ visits too so that everyone can have him a second time.   The children worked on another page of the ABC booklets. I introduced two ‘new’ activities to them – one involving peg work and a second is an activity involving crayon rubbings and fashion. Both were big hits.

Remember to mark your calendar for the School wide ‘Art Fair’.  The children will have some of their projects on display. Please join us for that event and take a look at their creativity.

Have a wonderful weekend with your families.

I hope everyone had a restful weekend and you were able to enjoy the beautiful weather on Sunday afternoon. I mentioned to the children today how my weekend went…. we are having our kitchen remodeled. What started out as a simple flooring project sorta ballooned into the WHOLE DEAL!  It will be wonderful when completed, but the two to three weeks of work will be a good comic act.   I couldn’t find the peanut butter this morning for lunches… I have a feeling this is only the beginning.

Meanwhile back in the PreK classroom the children had Spanish this morning followed by an activity with our 7th grade partners. The older students helped the younger ones with the making of the Days of the Week booklet.  These books will be coming home on Wednesday.

Have a wonderful evening with your family.

We continued with our discussion regarding butterflies. The children made a learning wheel to tell the story of the life of a butterfly.  They should have that in their backpack today.   I read one of my favorite stories to the children today, “The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings” by Carolyn Bailey. It is a beautifully told story to remind everyone  that God made us – and we should be happy with the way we are. I just love the story, and many of the children said afterwards that it was a GREAT story and I should read it again to them – and I will.

Hannah celebrated her 5th Birthday with us today.  Happy B-day Hannah and thank you for the yummy treats!
Enjoy the evening with your family.

Today the children had PhyEd w/ Mr. J.  The children worked on swinging a bat, catching the ball and tossing. WOW! we have some future ball players among us.  Back in the PreK classroom we continued talking about insects. We also shared what we know about butterflies and moths and the children finished up their filter paper butterflies. Look for these beautiful creatures ‘flying’ home this afternoon.

I introduced a new ‘Days of the Week’ song to the children.  This song can be found on Dr. Jean’s  ‘Dr. Jean & Friends’ CD/tape.  It is a wonderful, silly song and due to its repetition, it is a good teaching tool.  Music is such a wonderful tool for teaching many of our basic skills.  In the future, the  children will make a book to this silly song – complete with words and pictures.  They continue to work on their end of the year ABC book.  Today we did the ‘I is for Insect’ page. We used our finger prints to make the outline of small bugs.  The children used red ink for their ‘bugs’ – thus the reason their little fingers might be red. They did a good job of washing their hands, but sometimes that ink is rather stubborn – it will come off tonight in the tub.

Have a wonderful evening with your family.

What a wonderful Spring Concert! Thanks to everyone for working this around your schedules – the children were AWESOME!  Mrs. Jones came to the classroom this morning to thank the children and to give well-deserved praise.

Our unit on Bugs continued with the making of coffee filter butterflies.  This is always a highlight with this age group. The directions are so simple, it gives the children the independence to make another and another and another…   And the butterflies always turn out beautiful no matter what!  The children also reviewed the ‘days of the week’ with a Circle Time activity. We reviewed the letter ‘Ww’  today because we were all WINNERS last night at the concert. And finally during snack we watched the end of the older version of  “Horton Hatches an Egg”. This leads us to Friday’s review of the letter ‘Ee’.

Have a great evening with your family.

The children attended Spanish this morning and we also had one more practice with Mrs. Jones for our Spring Concert.

We started our unit on ‘Bugs’ today.  As the children studied some (plastic, but very life-like) bugs during Circle Time, we began to notice some common characteristics among the bugs – the number of legs, wings,  body parts.  The children further studied their bugs with magnifying glasses.  We read an informational book from the Golden Books collection titled “The Bug Book”.   Wednesday we will be talking about butterflies and moths  and then we will make  coffee filter butterflies.

See you tomorrow night at our Spring Concert. The children should stay with their families until they are called by Mrs. Jones to the stage. See you there!

Today we reviewed the letter ‘Ww’ and read the silly story of ‘Wacky the Walrus’.  The children practiced the sound that the letter ‘w’ makes and we made the puppet of Wacky the Walrus.  The children also went to Music this morning and did a marvelous job of singing.  They have several songs they are going to sing for you at the Spring Concert -  so come and join us for this wonderful evening of entertainment.

In the activity areas of the classroom the children set up the hop-scotch and everyone joined in the fun of hopping down the bunny trail.  This is a great activity for reviewing counting, number recognition, large muscle control of jumping, as well as the more complex large muscle control of the scissor-style  jumping.  This weekend invite your little one to draw their version of a hop-scotch or bunny trail on the driveway and join in with the hopping… have fun!

The children are also ‘investigating’ the properties of magnets in the science/discovery area of the classroom.

Meaghan brought in a book on Volcanoes which we read during snack time.  This was a great  spring board for  some deep ’scientific conversations’ – thank you Meaghan for sharing your book with the class.  Parents, please feel free to send in a  book that is of a special interest to your little one – I will always try to read it sometime during the morning.

In your child’s backpack you should  find a copy of the skill-checklist we used at conference time, this is yours to keep for your own records. If you do not find a copy,  please let me know and I will run another for you.

Have a wonderful weekend with your family. See you on Monday.