A Week Full of Friends

This week was all about friendships old and new. We talked about what makes a good friend, who are friends are and how to be a good friend. On Tuesday we started out our week talking about friends by reading A Rainbow of Friends. Then we worked together to make a friendship rainbow with our hand prints. Most of the

children loved getting their hand painted and getting messy, however we do have a few holdouts in the messy department. ;-)

On Wednesday, we read The Rainbow Fish which talks about being a good friend by sharing. We then made our own rainbow fish, using water colors, tissue paper and they even got to add a shiny scale or two. Ask them about the shiny scale, rainbow fish had all the shiny scales but wasn't happy until he shared them with his friends. They did such a good job sharing the scales and making beautiful fish!!

We also used fish in the math center to fish for numbers. The children used magnet fishing poles to fish for numbers in the "ocean". They really enjoyed catching fish and also a friend or two when the magnets connected.

Thursday was our Friendship Day. We enjoyed sharing out furry friends during show and tell and also snuggling with them as we read the book Corduroy.

We had a lot of different furry friends come to school with us on Thursday! Teddy Bears, Puppies, Dora, a Panda Bear and even a jellyfish!

Thanks to everyone who brought in fruit for our friendship fruit salad, we had a yummy variety and a very colorful salad. We took turns mixing the fruit and serving the salad during our snacktime. It was delicious!

A House for Me

This week we talked about houses and the different types of houses that people and animals live in. We even had a visit from a box turtle, which tied in great with our story Who's House is this? a book we read about animal houses.

After reading the 3 Little Pigs the children had a chance to build houses out of straw, sticks or bricks. I think they liked the "huff, puff and blowing the house down" the best.

We worked together to build houses out of Trio blocks that we would like to live in one day. They have some great imaginations and expectations of what their houses will look like in the future.

We added water and rocks to our sensory table. The children enjoyed playing in the table during our center time. We even took it outside our classroom and shared centers with Ms. Courtney and Ms. Sally's class.

We used shaving cream to draw houses, faces and letters on the table. The children loved how cold and smooth the shaving felt on their hands. Most of them really got in to the activity and were covered in shaving cream. Our room smelled great when we were finished!!

All About Me

Our All About Me week was great fun. We learned all about ourselves and what makes us speical. The children had a great time telling about themselves, drawing themselves during art and singing about how unique and special they are.

We sang a song during the week called "Special Me" It is sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Special special special me

How I wonder what I'll be

in this big world I can be

anything I want to be

Special special special me

How I wonder what I'll be.

Puzzles were made using the children's faces, and they had to try to find the two parts of their faces and also their friends. We made some fun combinations that sure made us laugh.

During our center time we made self portraits of ourselves while looking in a mirror. It was interesting to see what parts everyone chose to include on their body.

Our Me Bags were a huge hit. Thanks for helping your

child fill their bag with things that make them happy. They were very creative! We had a great variety of things that you could tell made them so excited as their faces lit up as each thing was taken out of the bag to share. I was so bummed that I did not get pictures of them sharing their bags. Some of the things that were shared were crayons that showed our favorite color, pictures of family members far away, of course there were favorite lovies or snugglies that make us feel safe and even a food that makes us feel happy tucked inside the bag to share with our friends.

During our circle time we used body parts made out of construction paper as well as blocks to build a person, then played what part is missing and the children had to figure out what body part had been taken away. Everyone got a chance to guess and take away a part.

Our First Day was Great!

We had a wonderful first day of preschool! Everyone enjoyed exploring the classroom, singing and listening to a story during circle time and playing with our new friends and teachers during centers. Ms. Amy even stopped by to sing with us and give us a small taste of what we will be doing with her in Music and Movement this year.

Checking out the frogs in the Science center was a favorite of everyone. Especially when you get up and close and personal with the magnifying glass. Lucky for us they are plastic and won't hop away so everyone can enjoy them.

Our art activity for the day was painting with dot paints. For those children who gave it a try they seemed to really enjoy all the bright color circles and splashes the paints helped them make.

Finally it was lunch time and the children could not wait to see what yummy surprises they had waiting for them inside their lunchboxes. After a long summer, their tummies had a hard time waiting until 12:30 to eat their lunch.

Tomorrow will be filled with more fun and learning as we continue to explore all the exciting things 3 year old preschool has to offer.

The Start of a New Year

Ms. Terri & Ms. Maria are hard at work getting the classroom ready for school to start

on September 6th. Getting the classroom cleaned and ready, and all the supplies gathered for our 'Wild' year of learning is a lot of fun as we anticipate all the exciting things we will do throughout the year. Can't wait to meet all our new 3 year olds.

Don't forget if you have pictures of your child and all their favorite people and things, please bring those to us as soon as possible. We want to make sure every child has something to look at and bring them comfort as they begin this new school year.