Sunday, September 27, 2015

Hello! This week the Giraffes have been exploring what they might want to be when they grow up. We have been talking about different jobs and having fun testing them out Giraffe style! Our letter of the week was F. We are continuing to work on numbers 0 - 5. We are getting better at connecting the symbol of these numbers with the quantity. A few students are even starting to count to 10 (and 20) without help! 


Enjoy our pictures from this week!

Students were given matching cards with different jobs on them. 
One card has a person dressed in a uniform for their job and 
the other card has the setting where they work.



The sensory table had a fun surprise!
The students became archaeologists and dug 
for fossils.





We had fun becoming construction workers as we 
built towers out of straws, castles out of legos, and 
a small fort using a fitted sheet and chairs. 







Anybody hungry??? 
How about a nice fish dinner?
The students became fishermen and 
caught some fishy letters using magnets.





The students became artists and painted pumpkins. They explored
mixing colors, and painting on different textures. 


The students enjoy cooking in the class kitchen. 
We talked about how chefs make food at restaurants.



How many students can fit 
on Ms. Dana's lap for a story?




We had fun pretending to sell ice-cream at recess! 






 The students did an excellent job tracing the letter
F with a Q-tip.




 We love catching friends sharing 
stories with each other!

God gives us many talents! We can use these talents to praise God and thank him for our blessings, whether we choose to become a pastor, missionary, teacher, archaeologist, artist, or anything else. 

See you next week!


Saturday, September 19, 2015

Happy Saturday! Sorry about the delay. The Giraffes finished our Apple unit this week. We practiced using descriptive language as we talked about the apples. Some of the words we chose to describe apples were juicy, smooth, wet, and hard. Our letter of the week was E. The "Eh" sound is tricky and can be easily confused with "Ah" for A.

This week look for opportunities to find things with sounds from letters A - E. This can be one way to make grocery shopping more engaging.
"What do ah-ah-apples start with?"
"Can you find any b-b-broccoli?"
"I spot some c-c-corn!"
"I wish I could have a d-d-donut..."
"How many e-e-eggs do you see?"

We don't want to confuse kids by emphasizing beginning sounds of words all of the time, but it can be very effective when we are training their ears to hear specific sounds. This is a prime time in their life to start these activities. As the year goes on, you will need to emphasize the sounds less as the students begin to do it more independently.


Scroll through our pictures to see some of our fun learning activities!


Students enjoy playing interactive learning games on the computer. The alphabet train
 is one of their favorites! The computer also give them a chance to practice 
taking turns and talking to each other with a clear communication goal.





The children really enjoy playing on our race track. They are
using a lot of imaginative play as they pretend to give each other gas for their 
cars and talk about different scenarios for each car. Even though it was not really about
apples - this was a great new free play activity that we started this week.






The students love going on picture hunts around the room!
This is great for their vocabulary development.




Letter Match-up Apple Picking!
The students were challenged to pick an apple
with a letter on it and find its basket. 
We used this game to work on letter identification and 
letter sounds for A - E. 









We have been talking about how apples can be red, green, or yellow. 
Students were given these colors to paint their own apples for a 
class apple tree.





Students were give the letter E this week to turn into elephants!






We love the fall weather!




The students enjoy playing matching games.
It's a nice quiet game for sleepy mornings.





At the end of Jesus time, Ms. Cari likes to ask the students 
if they had anything special they wanted to talk about. 
Some students showed her their boo-boos, 
while others wanted to show a silly face. 




God loves us, whether we are silly, happy, mad, or confused. 
This week we have been talking about how Jesus prayed too - 
just like us! God loves to talk to us! This week the students
thought about what they would like to tell God, and we practiced 
telling him how we feel.

Check us out again next week!

Friday, September 11, 2015

Happy Friday!It has been a fun week in the Giraffe class as we started learning about apples! We learned that apples start as little seeds that we have to plant in the ground and cover with dirt. We learned that the seeds need water and sunshine to grow into big, strong apple trees. The kids had fun enacting the life of the seed as it grew into an apple tree. We also learned about the letter D this week as we identified things that start with the sound "duh."

Scroll through our pictures to see some of our fun learning activities!

This week we practiced matching the letters of our name by gluing apples on a tree. The students were responsible for matching the letter on the apple with the letter on the tree and coloring the apples. They did an excellent job!


 
 
This week we explored the smell, feel, and color of apples.
One way that we did this was by using apples (cut in half) as stamps.
The students had red, yellow, and green paint to remind them of the
most common colors of apples.
 


 Naptime is from 12:30pm - 3pm. Students are allowed to sit in the library
quietly to look at books after 2pm if they wake up on their own.
It's great to see how much they enjoy looking at the stories. Some students are
starting to imitate reading using the pictures as a guide - which is awesome!

 
 
We did not let rain get us down this week! We explored the indoor recess toys in the Gym. The kids loved running and jumping on the mats.
 


 
Free paint can be a creative way to focus energy on something calming.
We were impressed with how much time the students spent on their artwork.
 
 
Q-Tip painting the letter D. The students are starting to get the hang of this activity.
 
 
We love to shake our sillies out!
 
 
Painting is such a fun way to work on pre-writing skills!
Students painted the letter D.

Oh no! Ms. Tremmel hid letters around the room!
The students had to help find them and say their name.
 
This week we have continued to talk about prayer.
 In the bible, God answered Hannah's prayer to have a baby.
We learned how Hannah was so happy for her blessing that she
had her baby, Samuel, grow up in the church as a sign of her gratitude.
We thank God for our many blessings that he has given us each day.
We are thankful for all of our preschool families, and pray that God
continues to shine his blessings upon you.

 
See you next week!