working on our bird skeletons

What is the anatomy of a bird? Your children also traced the shape of a (generic) bird. Some even created the skeletal system inside the outline. For fun they used sticker eyes. While we worked on the skills of following directions, eye/hand coordination and small motor, we learned some important concepts about living things, especially that their skeletons support them and give their bodies shape.

listening to a story

Thank you Chris for coming in to read this week! The children enjoyed listening to the stories you read to us.

Sophie shares a toy with us for Star of the Week

Sophie was our Star of the Week! She shared a photo, and various toys including a tent! The children loved playing inside and it was a nice way to spend our indoor time since it was too cold to go outside in the mornings. The children continued to practice asking good question and making connections and comments about Sophie’s share. Here are a few of the questions that were asked:

Why do you love your tent so much?

Because Mommy bought it.

What is your favorite book?

Princess books.

What is your favorite character?

Minnie.

the snow makes it easier to climb up onto the tire swing

Wednesday was our first day outside in a week. On bitter cold days we need to stay inside, so we especially love it when we have the “All clear!” signal! We loved being “leaders,” too. The kindergarten class saw us from their window and asked if they could go out. Then the 1/2 class! We are proud to be community leaders, especially when we elevate everyone’s mood and health by being outside in nature! On Wednesday we began exploring base ten blocks to help us continue to learn and understand number sense. The children are very excited for the 100^th day of school. They even figured out how many days we have until the 100^th day (weather permitting of course)!

exploration with base ten blocks

Thursday we continued exploring our base ten blocks. We sorted the tens and ones, practicing counting, and doing a grouping by tens activity. Each child had a chance to group ten items, working together to count by tens up to 100.

In the coming week we will begin a new study. On Friday the children helped to brainstorm different ideas about what we should study next. What the children came up with was the overarching theme of things that “transform.” Within this theme, the children thought of thinks like trees, butterflies, bears, and frogs! There are so many different topics that fall into this theme and we the teachers are thrilled to embark on this next phase of investigation with the children!

One more item of note this week; Ms. S will now be uploading photos directly to the flickr site throughout the day. We urge you to visit the flickr album titled Preschool Dailies 2015 using this link during the day (if you are able) to see photos of your children in action! We have also started a new album for 2015, link below!

making new friends

Each time your child waits his/her turn, shares or soothes an upset classmate, s/he is developing this essential character trait. This is one of the reasons we do not compete at the preschool level, for that would be helping children to base their worth on another’s failure. We are so fortunate to have the time to allow the development of empathy to unfold, because we know that opportunity and patience are essential to its growth.

playing with “Connecticut” sand

This week we welcomed Christopher, our new student. We are very pleased to have him in our classroom, and also very pleased with the welcoming and empathetic gestures of the class to him. Morning circle greetings were friendly and inclusive. Your young 3 and 4-year olds were helpful and encouraging – showing him where things are, inviting him to play, sharing toys and materials, listening when he spoke – all the while allowing him to be independent and make his own choices when he wanted.

ice skating on the pond!

How exciting it was to go to the pond on Monday for ice skating!!! Your children are hearty New Englanders, and they took to the ice with ease. We had so much fun! The bitter cold kept us indoors the rest of this week, so we brought some of the outdoors in and filled our sand table with snow! This added a whole new dimension to our sensory table explorations. Did you know that snow is very cold on bare hands!? That it gets more easy to mold after it has been inside!? That it melts quickly and turns to water!?

graphing

Our snow day on Tuesday gave us more graphing opportunities on Wednesday, as we graphed numbers of children who went outside and who stayed inside; who drank hot chocolate and who didn’t; and who watched TV and/or a movie and who didn’t. Our community discussions are opportunities for us to reflect on and to reframe our experiences using listening, speaking and math skills.

Christopher chose a hawk as his bird, and we all added to the “What we want to know” section of our bird chart.

What do we want to “Know” about birds?

Our other very special person was Sonya, our Star of the Week. She brought in and shared her doll, some books, a photo of herself, a pillow pet, and much more. As with all our stars it is wonderful to see confidence grow as they share special parts of their lives. It is equally nice to see their classmates’ interest and pleasure at learning more about one another. What an important way to create a climate of empathy.

our “Star”

For those of you viewing this blog on your iphone or ipad, you can view the pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcdtech/sets/72157647254977052/