Pre K Parent News May 3, 2013

Hi Everyone,

What a beautiful week!  Now we can see so many more signs of Spring!  The children are noticing more flowers blooming and new plants growing in all of the garden beds.  We brought our natural colored and painted stones out to our planted Pussy Willow tree and zooming passed us was a robin with something in its beak, perhaps a worm or a piece of grass for its’ nest.  The air is chilly, not freezing, in the morning and warm by the time we go out to play. We have also noticed ants, butterflies, ladybugs, beetles, bees, wasps, worms and spiders exploring the land.

This is a perfect time for us to begin our unit on Insects.  This week we have read a number of books about insects.  We know that an insect has three body parts, a head, a thorax and an abdomen.  They also  have six legs.  Some have antennae, stingers, and/or wings.  Some insects make noise and some are quiet.  Some insects drink nectar, some eat seeds, some eat leaves and some eat other insects.  We did a lot of reading about ants and their nests or colonies, which have many rooms or chambers.  Ants also hold many different jobs within each colony.  There are ants who hunt for food, ants who guard the opening of the colony, ants who organize and clean the food, ants who tend to the eggs and larva and ants who mate with the Queen.  The Queen has the most important job, which is to lay the eggs.  We also wanted to know what kind of food some of the ants at our school like to eat, so next week, we are going to lay out a number of plates with a variety of foods on them.  We will hypothesize which food they think the ants will like the most.  We will bring out our clip boards so that we can record what we observe.

The children have also re-potted their bean plants.  They have already grown their second set of leaves.  We are sending them home for planting outdoors.  Our radish sprouts were becoming very tall, we just might taste them and plant some more!  Mrs. Maloy has offered us some space in the BCD Garden.  We may also plant some lettuce and sunflowers.

This week we finally met Zig Zag Zebra from Letterland.  “Ziggy,” as her close friends like to call her, likes to zoom about the zoo.  As she zips by, one might get dizzy, watching all of the black and white stripes go by.  Ziggy has won zillions of prizes, as she is the fastest runner in Letterland.  After a good zip around the zoo, she often becomes tired and settles down for a snooze.  In the coming weeks, we will talk about the “Vowel Men,”  from Letterland.  Without these characters, we would not be able to make words.

Some of this week’s work was preparing for our Mommies’ Day Breakfast.  The children are really looking forward to it.  They have decided that they want to make sure the classroom is very neat and tidy for your visit.  We are looking forward to seeing you between 8am and 9am on Thursday, May 9th.  We also have another surprise for you.  The children will be singing some songs for you with Mrs. Hilliard!  Please let me know if you will not be able to make it.  In order to make sure that parents can get to work on time, please arrive as close to 8am as possible, so that you can have a bite to eat.  Our little concert will begin as soon as everyone has arrived.