Week Of The Young Child

Dear parents and families,
This week, April 16th- April 20th, is The Week of the Young Child. The Week of the Young Child is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The purpose of the Week of the Young Child is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs. NAEYC first established the Week of the Young Child in 1971, recognizing that the early childhood years (birth through age 8) lay the foundation for children’s success in school and later in life. This week allows us to celebrate early learning, young children, their teachers, and families. We will be participating in activities each day in our classroom and I will be sharing these with you through the school website and Facebook page, as well as posting pictures outside of our classroom. Please join in by participating in activities with your child at home!

Music Monday! April 16, 2018
Sing, dance, celebrate, and learn

Through music, children develop math, language, and literacy skills-all while having fun and being active
TRY THIS: Find the beat to connect music, movement, and math. Practice clapping, drumming, or stomping to the beat of the music while counting.

Tasty Tuesday April 17, 2018
Healthy eating and fitness at home and school

This fun, food-themed day is about more than just cheese and crackers. Cooking together connects math with literacy skills, science, and more. With the rise in childhood obesity, you can encourage healthy nutrition and fitness habits at home and in the classroom.
TRY THIS: Measure your ingredients while making your snacks! Ask children if they’d like the same or different amounts of each ingredient.

Work Together Wednesday April 18, 2018
Work together, build together, learn together

When children build together they explore math and science concepts and develop their social and early literacy skills. Children can use any building material—from a fort of branches on the playground to a block city in the classroom, or a hideaway made from couch pillows at home.
TRY THIS: Practice organizing blocks by size! Try building a block tower with large blocks on the bottom and little blocks on top!

Artsy Thursday April 19, 2018
Think, problem solve, create

Children develop creativity, social skills and fine motor skills with open-ended art projects where they can make choices, use their imaginations, and create with their hands. On Artsy Thursday celebrate the joy and learning children experience when engaged in creative art making. Use any materials—from crayons to paint, clay to crafts!
TRY THIS: Bring art outdoors! Offer dark and light paper, chalk and pastels, and suggest children create their own versions of the day and night sky!

Family Friday April 20, 2018
Sharing family stories

Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of supporting our youngest learners. NAEYC applauds family members’ role as young children’s first and most important teachers. Since we do not have school on Fridays, this would be a great day to plan an activity as a family!

Horses, Ducklings, Chicks and Dogs – Oh My!

We have had some very exciting Show and Tell times in afternoon preschool this year! It has been great to see the show and tell process grow throughout the year. During show and tell time the listeners practice their listening skills by being quiet and respectful while the student shares and then they ask questions. We first had to learn exactly what a question was, rather than sharing our own stories. We then moved from asking the same questions each time, such as, ‘where and when did you get it’, to more meaningful questions like, “do you keep it in a special spot” and “do you take care of them like give it a bath”. Also, during this time, the speaker is able to strengthen their communication skills, their language, and their confidence as they share about themselves with the class. We have had animals visit for show and tell in the past (some very calm cats, a playful dog, and even a small horse), but this last week was full of them! When children bring animals for show and tell, we work on being quiet and gentle while getting to know the animals. We loved getting to see and pet a “unicorn”, ducklings, chicks, and a small dog. These animals came at a great time as we have been talking about springtime animals being born and learning all about the different baby animals. The children took turns feeding cookies to a very patient “unicorn”. We had learned about ducklings webbed feet and then got to see them in our classroom! The kids have done an amazing job with bringing in show and tells that they enjoy sharing with the class.

PreK Show and Tell

The preschool class got to enjoy another great learning experience at show and tell. One of the students brought his father in to show his hay grinder! The children were fascinated by the huge machine and learned all about how hay is ground to be fed to cattle. Mostly though they want to know when they will be getting one of these for the playground?

Preschool Leprechaun Traps

Both morning and afternoon preschool students made leprechaun traps today! They worked together to come up with ideas for traps and how they would work. They used materials brought in by the students and their parents as well as classroom art materials. They had so many creative and interesting ideas to trap those sneaky, tricky leprechauns. They also drew pictures of the 3 wishes they would make if we did catch a leprechaun in our classroom.

Equine Visitor

First Grade is working on a Social Studies unit about Life Long Ago. We conducted interviews of family members to find out what life was like long (or longer) ago. We learned from our interviews many things such as how some people rode horses to school longer ago. We were fortunate to have a pony visit us this week! Goliath quickly made friends with everyone in our class and also made a visit to the PreK class as well. It was a great experience and we now have many horse enthusiasts! Thank you to the Gaswick family for sharing Goliath with us.

Fall Book Fair

2014-10-20 04.53.59The Book Fair was a great success.  Thank you to the many parents, grandparents, and others who purchased books for their students.  We were able to add more than 50 books to our library collection and the preschool collection.  In addition to books, we are able purchase  from the Scholastic Resource Catalog.  We recently purchased some science equipment for the preschool and primary grades. This equipment is made for easy use by little hands.

The Preschool Receive a Visit from Local Firemen

Hero. Strong. Courageous. Brave. Honorable. These are just a few of many words that we used to describe firemen. This week (Fire Safety Week) our preschool class received a visit from two of our local firefighters. Matt Anderson and Everett Langford took time out of their busy schedules to teach the afternoon preschool class all about fire safety. We learned how to Stop, Drop and Roll, how to check a door if it is hot, how to crawl out of a burning building and even how to call for help if we are in an emergency. The firemen let us try on their turnout gear and let us try and lift their air tanks….boy are those heavy!! Our favorite part was riding on the fire truck around town. Matt even turned on the siren for us! Throughout the rest of the week you could find us dressing up and pretending to be firemen and help rescue each other. If you happened to walk through the halls this week you may have even heard us making the fire whistle sound!

We want to send a shout out to all of the local firemen who help keep us safe in an emergency. Your dedication and sacrifice for others is truly amazing. Thank you for all that you do!

Augmented Reality Experience

Preschooler, Kindergarten, and First Grade had a different experience during Library this week.  Instead of listening to Mrs. Matthews read a book, they watched the book video of The Dot by Peter Reynolds.  A little girl, Vashti, who thinks she can’t draw is challenged by her art teacher to make a mark on the page and then sign it.  She goes on to make more and more dots.  The students then made their mark by  creating their own “dot” pictures.

The pictures were then turned into 3D creations through the Colar app (http://colarapp.com/). The app is free as well as several sheets to color.  Parents can then download the app and view their child’s pictures.

Here are some samples of the creations from Tuesday:

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