Hands and Feet

This week we started on the alphabet with the letter A. I hope all the pre-k parents have had a chance to read through the story that came home about Andy with your child! They had a lot of fun sneezing along with him in class.

Along with the letter A, we also started talking about circles and played a few games to see how solid the kids are on their colors. 

During science time this week we talked about things we can do with our hands and feet. We played a fun game where the kids had to see how many cotton balls they could pick up with their hands and then how many they could pick up with their feet. Using their toes to pick things up wasn't as easy as they were expecting!

In Pre-k on Wednesday we talked about left and right. We had a good time with the hokey pokey and twister to help us practice right and left!

Thursday I introduced the face and we talked about what makes up our faces. The kids got to make their own faces out of some funny things. Most of them started out as faces and then quickly became monsters or aliens. These will come home Tuesday!

SEEL

This post applies to Pre-K only.

This week will be our first of many weeks learning about the alphabet! During this time, we will be doing a lot of activities from the SEEL (Systematic Engaging Early Literacy) program. This is an amazing program that gives the kids great opportunities to learn about the alphabet in a fun and meaningful way. Please take some time to read a little bit about it here.

Almost every time we do a SEEL lesson in class, your child will bring home a 'SEEL at Home' page. These will give you an activity to do at home that is an extension of our lesson. Some of them are super fun and some do sound super cheesy. Please do as many of them as you can with your child to help reinforce what we are learning in class! It is so good for kids to take the knowledge they have gained in one setting and be able to use it again somewhere else. 

First Week of School

It has been a great week this week, getting into the swing of things, learning all about each other and learning how preschool works.

So, let's start out this week by talking about centers. Every day, the kids rotate around 3-6 centers where they learn and play independently, with a partner or with me! Centers change every day, but I'll tell you about some that we've done this week.

We have a listening center where the kids get to watch Sesame Street podcasts about the alphabet, listen to songs and hear stories. (If you haven't read the pigeon books by Moe Willems, check them out, your kids loved 'Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus'.)

Every day, one of our centers is writing in our journals. I start the kids out with something like a letter, shape or simple picture and then they get to write or draw whatever they want. It's been fun to see their creativity!

We've also been starting out with some basic skills this week like tracing, cutting and gluing, 

Of course there are also centers that are more sneaky and teach kids things while they play. Some that we've tried out this week are lacing cards, puzzles and blocks.

We've also started learning about our bodies this week. The kids helped me label this guy with all the parts they knew. Please note that the addition of the beard was all them.

They then got to practice drawing all these things on their own bodies, after I traced them!

Another fun body activity we did this week was making faces with playdough. This was one of my favorites.

It has been a blast and I am loving getting to know you're kids! They have amazed me every day with their knowledge and their kindness.