Getting reading for the big race!

We love having the kids help get ready for the 5k on Saturday.  Come join us that morning for a ton of fun!

Last week

Sometimes, I have to get creative on the fly.

Last weekend, I took my daughters to Kentuck (the art festival in Northport) and they participated in a very very cool art activity where the paint floats on water, is stirred around gently, and then you lay a piece of paper on top and get the most fantastically cool print.  I was so excited to bring this into the classroom.

It was a dismal failure. The paint sank:(

So, instead, I dumped the water out and let the kids do a similar activity WITHOUT the water.  The results weren't what I had anticipated, but so beautiful in a different way.  Nope-you may not have seen them yet.  They're hanging in the hallway!

Singing praises to Jesus in chapel!!

Good Friends

Fall!

We worked together and put pumpkins in order from smallest to largest

We're in our second week talking about fall. It's so tempting for me to do this unit at the end of September, when it technically is fall.  Unfortunately it FEELS like summer then and we need a few more weeks so that it looks, feel, and even smells more like fall.  Last week we talked a lot about leaves and how they change color and fall this time of the year.  We talked about how leaves are different sizes and different shapes-based on the tree the come from (much like people!).  

We were able to expand on that this morning as we walked upstairs to play.  Unfortunately, the playground was wet, but we stopped by the doors to admire the beautiful changing leaves on by the church!

Today, we started talking about pumpkins-and plan on cutting one open and emptying out the inside of it on Wednesday before the Fall Festival!  As you can see here, the kids

worked together to put the mini-pumpkins in order from smallest to largest and then later decorated them. 

Treasure trove of beautiful nature your kids found!

Save your shoeboxes

In November, our class will be participating in Operation Christmas Child.  to help provide Christmas gifts to 3rd world kids through Samaritan's Purse.  More details on that to come, but  between now and November, if you purchase a new pair of shoes, will you please send the shoebox to school with your child?  We will need about 15.

Learning about police!

I always hum the MASH theme when I see a helicopter

watching the landing

This doesn't capture Ryley's demonstration of the propellers.

Police Day is one of my favorite preschool days.  Watching the kids watch the helicopter land brings such joy to my heart:)

The city police have been so gracious the last three years for giving us their time to come in and give the kids a hand-on police experience.  They learn that police aren't mean-they are there help us.  

As I stated in an email, the primary question the kids wanted answered was why lights on police vehicles blink.  This was asked at least 4 or 5 times! 

During our last group time of the day, we read a wonderful Caldecott Award winning book called, "Officer Buckley and Gloria."  It's about a police officer who goes to different schools making safety presentations. 

Hopefully the only time they'll be in a police car

The kids and K-9 "Champ."

The kids with PoLisa:)

Come and RUN! (or walk...)

I'm sure you are all very aware of this, but TPP is holding its first ever 5K on November 2.  Mrs. Curri is doing a stellar job of organizing all of this.  The proceeds from this will go into purchasing much needed shade for our playground. 

How can you help?  Get your family out to run!    If you know of anyone who owns/manages a business in the area, ask them if they will sponsor the event or help provide food and/or prizes.  Any of this would be a huge help for us. 

Click here for the forms!  This is going to be a super-fun day!

Look at us learn!

Sight word fun

Brooklyn spent a long time playing with these Tinker Tubes

Roxy!

So much of what we do in my classroom is themed based, but the kids frequently gravitate toward the more "classic" activities.  The really love looking at/playing with letters.  You would not believe the excitement the whole room feels/hears when someone finds a letter that is in their name:)

They also love to write and draw.  Sometimes they scribble.  Sometimes they are more purposeful in what they produce.  But in it all, they are learning like crazy.

I learned that Bishop loves cantaloupes.

Tranportation math

I discovered that Mrs. Vicki has some really awesome transportation counters with accompanying graphing charts.  The kids were able to chart different color cars, trucks, etc.  

Graphs are such a neat way to build mathematical reasoning skills in the kids.  We did this with the cars today, but we've also done it when discussing different modes of transportation (this chart is not pictured).  We'll do activities periodically this year where we graph our own favorite food, color, book, etc. so that they can apply their own lives to the concepts that they are learning!

Firemen visit!

For the third year in a row, we've had the local police department visit us at TPP.  The kids LOVE it!  The new thing this year is that your children got to walk through the fire truck to see where the firemen sit.  A few were apprehensive at first, but every single one of them gave into their God given curiosity.   They learned that the hats are to protect the firefighters heads from falling debris and also to keep sparks from falling down their jackets.  The kids learned that smoke is very very dark and the yellow stripes are to make the firefighters visible while fighting fires. 

The wheels on the bus

Loved Cadham's shirt

Our sight words this week were "on" and "the."  I chose these because they are repeated often in the song, "The Wheels on the Bus."  I underlined these words in a book with the same name so that the kids could see them, and hopefully start recognizing them, as they flip through the book.  I also used tape on the carpet (with black lines to make it look more like a road...I know, I know.  You've never seen a blue road) so that they could drive cars over their sight words-to make it more interactive.  When that became old, we used blocks to trace the words. 

We also adapted the song based on the mode of transportation that we were focussing on that day.  Today we sang, "The wings on the plane fly fly fly."  Good times!

Coloring airplanes!

Planes, trains, and automobiles

Learning about ferries

We finished up our "transportation" unit today-here are some pictures I took earlier this week. 

Hallie discovering buoyancy

These two boys worked together for a long time building this structure

Brooklyn has taken to the small blocks this week.

This may be the hardest puzzle known to man.

I worked on this puzzle for 15 minutes by myself, and couldn't do it.  I'm proud of these girls' teamwork!

Let's Go!

We started our unit on transportation last week-this will flow nicely into the community helpers unit later this week and next week.  A classic transportation activity is to let children drive small cars through pain onto the paper.  Watching their different approaches to this was interesting.  Some covered the entire paper with paint and what you saw in the final product was the indentions where cars rolled.  Others used less paint (like Amelia, to the left), and what you saw was paint that was actually applied through the tires. 

We pulled out the Thomas the Train game and the kids LOVED it!  This was donated last year, and I finally sat down to learn the rules.  It was obviously very simple, but taught such good social skills-primarily waiting for your and being excited for others when they do well.  I was shocked at how well they did.  I expected the kids to argue over who got to be what color, but instead, they calmly decided who would be what color train. 

For a couple of years, I've wanted to make sandpaper letters-and finally did!  The activity in the writing center the last few days has been the sandpaper letters.  The kids can find letters in their names or sight words and then trace them with their finger.  The texture adds a bit of variety to the writing center which helps to draw the kids in to participate.

Sandpaper letters

Playing the Thomas the Train game!

This makes me smile