Spirit Day!

Hard at work

Dressed in team colors!

Love the smile

Being Silly

So cute-Riley "Shhhh"ing the baby to sleep

Today was Spirit Day and the entire class dressed in their favorite team colors.  Those dressed in Bama gear was in the majority, but Bishop looked awfully cute in his Auburn jersey.  Go SEC!

We continued on with our unit on senses.  Next week we'll take a break since it's a short week (Labor Day and I'll be out Tuesday for my husbands 40th birthday!!!!) and talk about homes.  The following week we'll finish up on senses (smell, hearing, and tasting). 

One funny I wanted to share-the book, "My Five Senses" by Aliki is the one I've read every day this week.  It's a big book and it's great for word recognition.  The kids are helping each other to find the sight words in it: "I" and "is."  One part of the book talks about how we use more than one sense at times but also how many times, we only use one sense.  Like when we looking at the moon.

So I asked the class if they could see the moon.  Of course, they all said yes.  I asked if they could taste the moon, feel the moon, hear the moon.  The answers were of course, "no."  I asked if they could smell the moon.  I heard a LOT of "no"s, but one "yes" (from Roxanna).  I asked her if she really smell the moon.  She said replied, "Yes!"  When I asked her what it smelled like, she said, "barbeque."  We just stopped right then and had a good laugh. 

Our texture collages, displayed

Whole language learning

  

Glue can be messy, but using it is a great fine motor activity!

  Instead of having a "letter of the week," this year, I'm trying to take more of what we call a "whole language approach" where the children are being exposed to letters in words in many ways.  Many items in the room are labeled.  We spell a lot of words.  When we do calendar during group time, we almost always spell the month (while looking

at the name of the month).  We do something called "Daily News" almost every day where I write
"Daily News," what day of the week it is, who the leader is for the day, and what the leader's

Proud of a job well done!

news is. After that we spell "Daily News" together and occasionally, other words as well (primarily, the day of the week).  The objective in this is that each child will recognize almost all letters this year, at their own pace.  Some children will even begin to recognize and read the words used in our daily news in other environments.

I went to a workshop several months ago about integrating "writing" into the classroom in a natural way and I've really attempted to 'beef up' my writing center.  Having different types of writing instruments readily available as well

Walt and Cadham were so proud of this

as LOTS of letter exposure.  I make an effort to sit down with the kids as they are "playing" (today, it was lacing together letter beads) and we search for certain letters.  The last couple of days it was  "I" and "T."    Guess what next week's new word will be-"it"!

As stated n my last post, we are talking about sight and feeling this week.  The kids are making texture collages and we are exploring words such as "itchy," "scratchy," "smooth," "bumpy," and "soft." 

Blind Faith

Walt being silly!

As previously stated, we're talking about our five senses, focusing on sight and touch this week.  The kids are getting to put on inexpensive (dollar tree) reading glasses to see how they actually do make you see differently. 

To show how our senses work together, I blindfolded the kids and let them fingerpaint, not being able to see the colors.  This was a challenge.  I loved watching them trying to feel around the easel searching for the paper.

At our second group time, we expanded this and talked about people who are blind.  We all closed our eyes and imagined trying to read without being able to see.  They agreed it would be impossible. I have a couple of Braille alphabet cards and they passed them around as I explained how many blind people actually learn how to read with how fingers.  My hope in this is that they are astonished and amazed at how God provides for this group of the population by providing Braille as a method of communication. 

This makes me smile.

Where's the paper?????

Chapel!

This makes me smile

In Chapel

Learning a song in Chapel

Viewing the world through rose, and purple, colored glasses

Cutting practice

Today was our first Chapel of the year!  If any of you don't know Mr. Chris Ammen, you should.  He's our Administrative Pastor at Trinity (and up until recently, he was our Children's pastor).  He's an incredible man who loves Jesus and loves children.  Chris' passion is for any child that walks into our church building to know Christ as their savior. 

Plus, he's fun.

Almost every Monday morning, he leads a short Chapel service.  The kids learn songs (many of them are scripture put to music-they'll never forget these!) and well walk the kids through a bible story or biblical concept.  The kids are also learning the children's catechism.We did the first two today:
1.  Who made you?  God
2.  What else did God make?  God made all things.

I learned all 145 of these as a child (like 6th grade) and am so grateful these truths are in my heart!  Don't worry though-we only got through about 20 of them last year. 

Today, we began learning about our 5 senses-specifically, sight.  We played "I spy" and talked some about colors.  They get to play with color paddles in the science center where they make everything look different colors-and they also get to experiment with color mixing.  The "big" book we're reading is called, "My Five Senses" by Aliki.  We'll read it every day this week-in the book, they will be picking out our two sight words, "I" and "is."  If you see these words in environmental print around your home, you may want to point it out to them. 

I'm also trying to evaluate the kids so that I better know what type of activities to plan for them.  Today, I attempted to figure out handedness on each child.  I don't think we have any lefties this year!  I also did a cutting activity and was actually surprised at well some did.  It comes so naturally to us, but is actually a fairly complicated skill.  If you don't have any children's scissors at home, you kids would probably love to snip up an old newspaper or magazine, or his or her own art, to get extra practice. 

First Days

We can learn a lot about how a person is feeling by looking at their eyes and mouth

Our first 5 days of TPP have been wonderful!  Really-they have.  I was just telling a colleague that I think that, for me at least, this has been the easiest first week that I've had.

The verse we are talking about during this unit on "God made me special" is from Isaiah 43:1, "I have called you by name, you are mine."  This week, your children have been getting to know each other-personalities, strengths, and names.  I am really trying to stress to your children that they are the Lord's-and He loves them. 

This week has been an orientation of following general classroom rules, management, etc.  They have done remarkably well at listening and learning the "drill." 

Amelia and Ryley reading

Olivia and Bishop are learning that paint won't soak through wax from crayons

Learning properties of our world through art!

These kids love to read!

First Post!

Hi Parents!  In the past, we have attempted a preschool blog but have recently decided that it might be easier to do a blog (or whatever)  for individual classes so that parents have a better idea of what's going on in our classrooms on a daily basis.  If you would NOT like to have your child's picture posted, please let me know.  No last names will be written.  No negative behaviors will be noted.  Our location will not be noted.  Also, in order for anyone to see the blog, they must receive an invitation.  My intent is to update the blog a couple of times a week. 

Thank you for your support and for allowing us to be part of your child's life!