Jan 22 - Feb 1 Eagle Class

 

The last few weeks with the Eagle class was spent learning about animals that we would see on a safari.  We learned about elephants, giraffes, rhinos, lions, and zebras.  The children worked on their journals, practicing the letters e, z, and s.  We studied the numbers 9 & 10 and the shape oval as well.  We practiced math as we pretended to enter a natural preserve and count out admission fees.  The children made a lion puppet, an elephant mask, and a zebra picture.  We practiced –it words and read the book “Can It Fit” daily.  We searched for items in a jungle picture and pretended to act like animals.  We talked about observing in nature and picked flowers during a nature walk to press in a flower press.

I’m looking forward to our February themes.  We will be covering food and fitness.  The letters of the month are j, l, and g, the numbers are 11 & 12, colors are red and pink and the shape is heart.  We will be learning a lot about healthy eating and getting up and moving!!

These pictures are from when I brought in corn snakes.  I was surprised as we shattered sex stereotypes with each girl fighting to hold the snakes and the boys screaming or dropping them.  They all enjoyed the experience and learned a lot!

Hawk Class Week of 1-14

The Hawks had a blast showing off their stuffed animal friends to their school friends, and hearing about Christopher Robin and his friends. We also learned about new ZooPhonics friends--the Hawks can now do the signals for letters A-N--and got to know Bubba Bear better this week. "Friend" is a new and very important concept to the young preschooler, and so everyone is very excited about the new friends who are joining our class. Center time has changed a bit since we got back from winter break, we are working more as a group and playing a lot of "games". The Hawks are really enjoying it and learning a lot. We will not be doing journals any more but I wanted to assure you that the same concepts are still being covered, there is just less paper work now.

January 7-11

The Hawks were getting to know Allie the Alligator this week, along with some of the words she says (apple, ant, astronaut). During circle times we counted to 9, identified ovals, and found green things in the classroom. The book of the week was "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina; a classic preschool tale of a peddler and some silly monkeys. Also, this week the Hawks embarked on our Backyard Safari. We had a discussion about all the amazing creatures in nature, and that nature is all around us. We made a backpack to take some of these creatures home in. On Thursday we used scissors to cut-up green paper and used the pieces to make a "grass collage".  Encourage our child to investigate the grass around your home or the park.


In the Eagle class the children began to learn about travel and visiting other countries.  We are learning about the colors green and yellow, the number 9, the letter e, the shape of an oval and the concept of travel and safaris.  The children worked in their journals, made the letter e in play doh, goldfish, and on paper, created green art, and made and looked for the number 9.  Be sure to ask your little ones about "naughty nine"!  I brought snakes into class to share with the children on Friday.  We learned about the difference between mammals and non-mammals and created a chart to remember the differences.  We discussed how snakes are cold blooded and talked about what that means.  The children made safari hats and we discussed the animals that might be seen on a safari, next week we will make some of those animals.  The children made pretend passports and learned about why we need passports to travel.  They get a stamp with each country that we talk about.

I took some really great pictures of both classes and they are not loading at the moment.  I'll try later in the week.

Hope you have a wonderful week, and remember, there will be no school on Martin Luther King Jr. day- 1/25.

Ms. Jen