Alligator Pie

Every Monday afternoon, the we integrate two of Mrs. Webster's favorite things into our day...cooking and reading! This past week, we focused on this book...

...and we mixed up some alligator pie!

 How do you make alligator pie? Click here to find out the secret recipe. 

We always do a fun literacy activity while we're waiting for our food to cook (or in this case, cool). On Monday, we made the letter A into an alligator!

On Tuesday, the three year olds used sand and glue in a craft that promotes fine motor skills. 

 This poking activity also strengthens small muscles. 

 The fours are in the process of making "God's Colorful World" books.  They have colored nine different small pictures that they will cut out and glue in a book about colors.  They will be able to read this book to you at home!

 We also worked a lot on names this week. Each child wrote his/her first and last name to the best of their ability, and then spelled it out using magnetic letters. (The threes spelled their first names only.) I have to say that they all worked really hard at this!

{I have blurred out last names in this picture.}

We are looking forward to a fun week learning about colors!

The First Days of Preschool

What have we been up to so far this year in preschool? 

Take a peek...

 We read this book in school, and hopefully you also read it at home.  It's great for introducing expectations at school. 

Everyone got a copy of the book to color and take home. 

 Our playground is glad to have some use after a long summer break!

 We found Spike, our American Dagger Moth Caterpillar on the playground one day. We made him a home in a plastic box. 

 He promptly decided to make himself a cocoon and hole up for the winter. You can see him right next to the stick on top of the leaf. Now we have to wait until spring to see him again!

 Every Friday, the 4 year olds work on journals.  They draw a picture and then dictate a sentence or two about it.  This helps promote concepts of print, such as the proper way to open a book and turn to the correct page as well as understanding that pictures help tell the story. It also allows the students an outlet for completely free creative expression, so that they can see that their thoughts and words can be transferred onto paper and understood by others.  They are learning to value writing, even without doing most of the writing themselves.

 We have been meeting in small groups on Wednesdays and Fridays.  The 3 year olds will start their small groups tomorrow.  Small groups allow for more one-on-one attention and more focused academic activities. 

 We made Brown Bear counting books...

 ...and played Brown Bear letter matching.

 We are also doing a daily graphing question during large group time. There are so many benefits to being able to read a graph correctly.  The question changes each day, and the children get to answer the question with their own name card, which makes the graph relatable and fun to use. 

This week, we started learning about how God created the world. These felt board pictures are a fun way to make the lesson interactive.