Is everyone loving this New England weather? Freezing cold one day and warm in the 40's the next! Thank you for dressing your children appropriately. If you would like to leave a pair of extra mittens & a hat at school, sometimes it is easier that way, as we never know what mother nature is going to throw at us! : )
This weeks curriculum:
We started off talking about Martin Luther King Jr. We read the book, We March (By: Shane Evans). We talked about Martin Luther King Jr's I have a dream speech. The children made paper dolls to resemble themselves and then dictated what they wanted to do when they grew up. We also talked about what we can do to better our world. They made hand prints and did a writing assignment about what they could do with their two hands.
Towards the middle of the week we started talking about the Winter season and what animals do in the winter. We learned that some animals migrate, some hibernate and some stay active during the winter months. We made a small chart, sorting the animals that do migrate, hibernate and stay active. We will be adding to this chart, as we learn about other animals. Listed below are some of the Winter books that we read this week:
*The Mitten (Jan Brett)
*Bugs and Bugsicles: Insects in the Winter (Amy Hansen)
*Sleep Tight Little Bear (Britta Teckentrup)
*A to Z Winter (Tracy Nelson Maurer)
*Animals in Winter (Ron Fisher)
*Animals in Winter (Henrietta Bancroft)
*The Jacket I Wear In The Snow (Shirley Neitzel)
During the last few days in the week, we started playing Alphabet Bingo. The children have been earning prizes (from the classroom prize box) with the more games they play. We will be having this game out during free play as well after rest time. It is a fun way to learn our upper and lower case letters as well as the sounds the alphabet letters make. Listed below are 2 alphabet books that we read:
* The ABC Mystery (Doug Cushman)
*Alphabet Rescue (Audrey Wood/Bruce Wood)
We would like to thank Chloe for donating the "book calendar" to our classroom. We have hung the calendar next to our circle area. For the month of January, the author that is highlighted is Michael Bond. As a class, we went to the Laurel School Library and took out the book Paddington's Things I Feel book. It is by Michael Bond.
Book Share: I am excited to report that the children are really enjoying the "book share" books. We have been seeing different types of books coming in (which I love). We have had catalogs, encyclopedia's, story books and a dictionary this week.
S.T.E.A.M Science Fair: We have chosen our topic of study. We will be talking about Penguins over the next few months. I have made a separate section on our classroom blog site for this.
Science w/ Preschool 3: This week we talked about animal tracks. The children looked at pictures of different tracks that animals make in the snow. They then tried to guess which animal had made them.
Learn To Play: This week we went outside with our Buddies. We used the swings, played tag and just explored the playground (woodsy area).
Just a reminder...we will be closed on Monday to observe the holiday!
Pictures Below: L-R (top row): Creating our Martin Luther King Jr..."I have a dream" pictures. (middle row): Science with Preschool 3: animal tracks. Squirrel sitting in our classroom bird feeder outside our classroom window. (bottom row): squirrel shaking his tail, as if saying "thank you" for the bird seed!