Snow

There may not be snow outside, but we have been celebrating winter for the past couple weeks in our classroom!

The 4s class made some adorable snowmen:

 We played in "snow" (shaving cream):

 Everyone made a snowflake for our bulletin board. 

(Come on, snow, we're ready for you!)

In the 3 year old class, we talked about what clothes you should wear in the snow (or cold), and what clothes are warm weather clothes.  

We sorted pictures of the clothes in the pocket chart:

We read this great book that talks about all the clothes one might wear to play outside when it's cold.

On another note, Mr. Schuman has been teaching all the students the dragon dance in preparation for the Chinese New Year! 

He has taught us a special song to sing as we carry the dragon and dance around.  

So much fun!

Preschool Daily News

One of my favorite ways to incorporate important literacy skills is through our Preschool Daily News.  

 As you might guess, this is a daily occurrence in our classroom; it's part of our circle time routine.  Each day, I pull two names from a cup and I ask those children to think of something they would like to share with the class.  It can be whatever they are thinking about at the time. 

I write their thought on the "newspaper".   As I am writing, I am sounding out the words, and asking for help with the initial sounds.  Later in the year, I will talk about punctuation and the difference between letters and symbols.  

After everything is written, I have another child come up and point to the words with a pointer as the class "reads" the messages together.  

We do this in both the three and four year old classes.  Even though these children are still in the pre-reading stage, this activity provides many benefits, including:

*print tracking skills

*one-to-one correspondence

*showing students that their words have importance and they can be written down

*seeing how letters are formed (discuss some of the letters as you write them)

*initial sound practice

*name recognition practice

*helps students get to know each other

*demonstrates value of each individual's thoughts

Ask your child what was in the daily news today!

December Rewind

Well, it looks like December just got away from me! I barely posted anything at all.  So, please enjoy this December rewind.