The Bloossom (Preschool/Pre-K)
Latest news from the classroom…
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January Newsletter
Language Arts
Happy New Year! We have started off 2010 with a letter project that we enjoyed very much! We used a variety of materials to paint and decorate the first initial of our names! We have been expanding our imaginations and using our five W’s (who, what, where, when, why) to participate in an activity called partial picture preview. We have really enjoyed this activity and our ideas are very interesting! We plan to work on writing our first names in the month of February. We will continue to work on our pencil grip and practice lowercase letters: We will be using pencils from the program “Handwriting without Tears”. These pencils are shorter and easier for the children to grip properly and write with. In the month of February we will continue to work on projects that will be displayed on Family Day at the end of the school year! We will also learn how to work with puppets and put on our own puppet shows. This is a great way for us to expand/explore our communication and language skills.
Science
Happy New Year, everyone! Our scientists this month have been having fun exploring exciting winter themes: Discovering cold places on our planet, animals in winter (penguins, seals, and polar bears), and animals underground or in caves hibernating. These themes were, as always, supported by lots of wonderful children’s literature which incorporates the many new reading readiness skills.
After the children looked at photos of places covered with mountains of snow, checked out the pictures in several books, watched the DVD entitled Arctic and Antarctic, and learned new words like igloo, iceberg, Arctic Ocean, Antarctic, and huskies (special dogs that live in the Arctic), they decided to turn their classroom into the Arctic. They built an igloo in the center and, to add more excitement, pretended there was a blizzard. They enjoyed playing with pretend snowballs (made out of crumpled paper), and of course imagined that a polar bear tried to enter their igloo. It was so much fun! To add more excitement to their winter scientific discoveries, our scientists built big icebergs with blocks of Styrofoam inside big containers filled with water, and made igloos out of milk containers.
During our routine calendar check, the children learned that Groundhog Day is February 2nd. With this information, our scientists were introduced to their next theme: hibernation. Once they found out that bears, groundhogs, woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks, and other animals hibernate during the winter, our scientists helped to turn their classroom into caves and underground tunnels where they, as scientists, could experience the thrill of being cute little hibernating cubs. Everyone had such a great time that they went home saying, “Guess what I did today? I hibernated!”
Enrichment activities for the hibernation theme included watching the DVDs Groundhog Day, Groundhogs, Bears Hibernating, and singing the following song:
HERE’S A LITTLE GROUNDHOG
Here’s a little groundhog, furry and brown,
He’s coming up to look around.
If he sees his shadow, down he’ll go,
Then six more weeks of winter—Oh, no!
(Repeat entire song)
Have a wonderful wintertime and Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!
Art
Welcome to the New Year in the Art Room! We have kicked off 2010 by creating some wonderful mixed-media snowmen. This snowy project exemplified the concept of layering. This was a two-day project in which the children incorporated a variety of materials, including tissue paper, paint, fabric, and twigs. “We know that snowmen are made of snowballs, and snowballs are round like circles.” The construction of a snowman was a simple concept for the kids because they could familiarize the structure with circles, which that made a complex layering project simple for their young minds to grasp. The more that they recognize and understand, the further they can allow their creativity to flourish comfortably to create new ideas.
Along with our seasonal art, we are also starting some side projects for The Seed’s annual Family Day, which takes place in June. The projects are group cooperatives, and will be incorporated into the fantastic displays that will show off all that the children have learned, built, and created throughout the entire 2009-2010 school year.
As always, your child has daily access to a “free art” session. This is when they get independent time to utilize the room’s tools and materials to create what they wish. We also have the painting easel available for free art use, every day, in the art room.
Math
Happy New Year, everyone! In the month of January, we reviewed different shapes in detail and focused on triangles and circles. The children were asked to search for these shapes around the classroom, and describe them. They found familiar shapes in windows, doors, clocks on the wall, and other objects. Children had an opportunity to form a unique shape or design using triangles and circles. Related to the shape theme, we baked different-shaped cookies and enjoyed eating them.
This month the children were also introduced to the guessing jar. The guessing jar was filled with different objects every other week. The children were asked to estimate how many objects were in the jar. Finally, we counted the objects and the children compared their estimations with the actual numbers. This helps the children develop the concept of estimation.
In the graph corner, we read two books, If You Give a Mouse Cookie and If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff. We created a graph called “Our Favorite Book” and we put a sticker under our favorite book. Our results showed that the book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake was the more popular of the two.
The children are continuing to progress in recognizing and writing numbers. As a daily routine, we continue to use puzzles, matching games, and building blocks.
In the coming month, we will work with non-standard and standard measurements.
Spanish
Happy New Year, everybody. Since it has been so cold and rainy out, I decided that we should start learning Spanish vocabulary for the winter. We learned words related to clothes, snow, and a lot more. I use pictures to help the children remember the new words more easily. We play games and repeat the words to help fix them in the children’s memories. Hopefully, when I ask in a month what “snowman” is, they will know! For the next month we will continue learning new vocabulary and put it into practice. My goal is for them to be able to use Spanish words without any prompting from me.
If there is anything that you, as a parent, would like your child to be learning in Spanish, let me know and I will gladly include it in the curriculum.
Yoga and Movement
Happy New Year, everyone! In yoga we have started the New Year off by going on a “zoo adventure”. We used our imaginations by pretending to go to the zoo and look for different animals. After a child would call out an animal they pretended to see, everyone in the group would form that particular animal with their bodies. They turned themselves into snakes, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, bears, tigers, seals and many more! The children really enjoyed being creative and using their own ideas to develop this imaginative game. “Yoga Freeze Dance”, was also introduced in yoga class. During this particular game, all the children dance to music on the CD player. When the music stops, the children are asked to freeze into a zoo animal pose. The first time we did this, the children were not able to predict which animal would come next, which made the game even more exciting and fun! This game encourages children to recognize, form, and recall the different animal yoga postures they had previously been introduced to.
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February Newsletter
Happy Birthday!
Corina
Ashley
Mei
Language Arts
The month of February was filled with a variety of holidays, such as Groundhog’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Chinese (or Lunar) New Year, and President’s Day. In language arts class we tried to read as many books and poems on these holidays that we could find! We learned two great poems for Valentine’s Day; Five Pretty Valentines (anonymous author) and Hug O’ War by Shel Silverstein. For Chinese New Year we read many books about this event and we even created a red envelope project in which we made red envelopes and put paper coins inside. Then our teachers wrote Chinese symbols for good luck on our envelopes. The color red in the Chinese culture stands for good luck!
Our teachers have printed pictures of the authors whose books we have been reading this month. We have pictures of Tomie dePaola, Eric Carle, Shel Silverstein, Frank Asch, Karma Wilson, and Jan Brett so far. It’s amazing how when our teacher points to one of the author’s pictures, we can tell her which author it is! We have read many books by these authors. We have done projects using Tomie dePaola’s book, The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, Frank Asch’s books, Happy Birthday, Moon, and Moondance, and Karma Wilson’s book Bear Feels Sick.
On Thursday, February 25th, we had a Teddy Bear Picnic! We put a big blanket down in the Butterfly Room, held our teddies and ate crackers and milk/water, told our friends about our teddies, and listened to the story Bear Wants More, by Karma Wilson. We have been spending most of the month reading books with bears as the main characters so we thought it would be fun to bring in our own bears! Some of us made the suggestion of bringing in a bear from the zoo for a day but Ms. Ali and Ms. Allison didn’t think that would be such a great idea… J
March is here! We are having a lot of fun learning about the authors of the books we are reading. Every time we read a book we ask our teacher to find a picture of the author so we can see the face of the person who wrote the story! We might get together in the month of March with the help of our teachers and write a letter to one of the authors of our favorite books!
Science
Greetings everyone! This month in science, our very busy scientists explored two themes that they found to be fascinating: “The Heart” (a topic related to the celebration of Valentine’s Day) and “Healthy Teeth” (linked to February, which is “Dental Health Month.” We found lots of books and pictures related to both these themes, and placed them around the classroom to stimulate questions and conversation..
Our young scientists developed the theme “The Heart” by:
- Using tubes to fill up small transparent bottles with water that the children colored with red tempera in imitation of the blood pumped by the heart
- Having fun being chemists and preparing medicine with colored snow
- Enjoying the use of doctors’ and nurses’ instruments
- Turning their classroom into hospitals, clinics, operating rooms, and doctor’s offices
Everyone was excited about making cell phones with wooden blocks so they could call 911 in case of emergency; pretending to drive an ambulance; being paramedics; and taking dolls and different cute plastic toy people to the hospital. All these interesting classroom activities were a great opportunity of the children to become “real” doctors, nurses, chemists, and paramedics for a month
During this month, the children also extended their knowledge about Dental Care by:
- Pretending to be dentists
- Practicing proper toothbrush use on egg-carton “teeth”
- Practicing proper flossing techniques on those egg-carton teeth, using lengths of yarn as “floss”
- Pretending to find cavities on the “teeth” with the help of magnifying glasses
- Playing the board game, Eating Healthy Food, at the same time learning which foods help us avoid getting cavities
The following materials were also used to extend this theme:
- Our tall dentist puppet
- A dental bib and dental mirror
- Three large photo cards with discussion questions
- An X-ray of teeth
We are looking forward to having a professional from a real dentist’s office visit the Blossom on March 11. The children have lots of questions to ask.
For Chinese, or Lunar, New Year, the children were fascinated by the story of the dragon. We couldn’t pass up that idea, so we made and decorated a dragon during class, and used it during get-together along with our other Chinese New Year activities.
Here is a list of some books that your child loved to “read” in class and songs with catchy tunes that the children learned this month.
Books read:
“Going to the Dentist” by Anne Civardi
“Visiting the Dentist” by Althea
“Jobs People Do” by Christopher Maynard
“Going to the Doctor” by Anne Civardi
“Go to the Doctor” by Stan and Jan Berenstain
“A Visit to the Hospital” by Deborah Hautzig
“Why Am I Going to the Hospital?” by Claire Ciliotta and Carole Livingston
“A Drop of Blood” by Paul Showers
“The Human Body” by Gallimard Jeunesse
Songs
Lion Dance Song
(tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)
See the lion dance and prance
Dance and prance, dance and prance
See the lion dance and prance
On Chinese New Year’s Day
Hear the firecrackers pop pop pop
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop
Hear the firecrackers pop pop pop
On Chinese New Year’s Day
Hear the drums go boom, boom, boom
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom
Hear the drums boom, boom, boom
On Chinese New Year’s Day
Hear the cymbals clang, clang, clang
clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang
Hear the cymbals clang, clang, clang
On Chinese New Year’s Day
See the children laugh and clap
Laugh and clap laugh and clap
See the children laugh and clap
On Chinese New Year’s Day
Dragon Dance Song
(sung to: Mary Had A Little Lamb)
See the dragons dance and prance, dance and prance, dance and prance
See the dragons dance and prance
On Chinese New Year’s Day.
See the dragon hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop
See the dragon hop, hop, hop
On Chinese New Year’s Day.
See the dragon shake his tail, shake his tail, shake his tail
See the dragon shake his tail
On Chinese New Year’s Day.
See the dragon walk around, walk around, walk around
See the dragon walk around
On Chinese New Year’s Day.
See the dragon go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep
See the dragon go to sleep
On Chinese New Year’s Day.
Lacy Hearts
(sung to: Jingle Bells)
Lacy hearts, candy hearts,
Flowery hearts, too.
Hearts of pink, hearts of yellow,
Hearts of red and blue.
Lacy hearts, candy hearts,
Flowery hearts, too.
Oh, what fun it is to share
Lots of hearts with you!
Art
February was painted red in the Art Room… along with many other colors! We focused this month on the joys of friendship, love, giving and sharing. Along with the many activities… of drawing, painting, cutting and pasting… your child built a 3-dimensional mobile. They began by painting and decorating a variety of 2-D hearts and a center ring. This was a process that every child was very familiar with. Their own personal creativity was open and flowing to give a special someone something to embrace and enjoy. With the assembly of the much adorned 2-D parts, a beautiful wind-operated valentine mobile was born. It is very sweet to witness a young child discover that their art work is capable of moving on its own. It is experiences like this, I think we forget, that have such a huge impact on the dynamics of their thought and experiences.
As always, the children’s art time includes free time. This is the time that they can have free range of the materials and tools of the Art Room to navigate their own interests and creations. As March arrives I have a funny feeling the Art Room will begin to look a bit greener….hint…hint… ST. Patrick’s Day!
Math
During the month of February, the children were introduced to non-standard measurement. We measured different items such as: stuffed bear, books, dolls and the table using a non-standard form such as Unfix cubes, identical blocks, popsicle sticks, and other objects. The children also measured the math corner and each other by using the double unit and quad wooden blocks. The children were excited to discover how tall they were by using the blocks, cubes, and sticks as measurements for their own height. Next month, the children will measure their long jump with a piece of string or yarn.
For Valentine’s Day, the children had fun creating a beautiful picture using cutout hearts that were different sizes and colors. This project enabled the children to learn the concept of largest-to-smallest. The Curious Caterpillars and Playful Puppies were asked to create an individual graph using different colored hearts to discover the least, greatest, and same number of hearts. They measured the different-sized printout bears using identical hearts as another example of non-standard measurement. Parents, if your child has not done this yet, they will be doing it soon!
In math we also read the following books related to measurement: How Big Is a Foot?, written and illustrated by Rolf Myller, and Twelve Snails to One Lizard, written by Susan Hightower and illustrated by Matt Novak.
The children will continue to play different board games, build different structures using blocks, continue to practice writing numbers, and other math-related activities.
In the coming months, we will work on standard measurement using a ruler: learn about the concepts of time and money; and we will continue to work on non-standard measurement to keep the concept fresh in their minds.
Spanish
This month in Spanish we did a lot about Valentine’s Day. I thought that the kids might want to learn how to say “heart, red, pink, and “Happy Valentine’s Day.” They like to draw and color, so in Spanish class we used a lot of crayons and arts and crafts. The children also learned the Spanish names for Groundhog Day and Chinese New Year. Now in the month of March, we are going to focus on our open house project which means we need to learn foods, animals, family characters, and colors in Spanish. The kids will be divided into their groups and do a theme on these subjects and understand all there is about it. Since they know almost all of the vocabulary relating to these themes, and almost all the concepts, it will be a breeze for them!
Yoga and Movement
We have done a variety of fun activities this month. An “Ocean Animal Adventure” was introduced to the children. This particular adventure involved pretending to swim in the ocean and then using their bodies to form different ocean animals. The animal poses that the children were able to create were: the seal, crab, lobster, fish, seahorse, whale, shark, clam, turtle and starfish. The children were so excited to think of the animals they wanted to be and create these new poses with their bodies.
We incorporated “Yoga Freeze Dance” into the mix. While the children danced, the music would suddenly freeze, and the children were encouraged to form an ocean animal yoga pose. The children had fun with this because they never knew which animal might come next. Some other yoga poses that were introduced to the children were: the tree, mountain and downward dog.
This month we have also focused on “Balloon Breathing”, a breathing awareness activity. This breathing activity requires the children to sit as a group and think of a colored balloon. After the children have shared the color they picked, everyone is instructed to inhale through their noses while raising their arms up. We pop our balloons by clapping our hands to make a popping sound. Then slowly we raise or arms back down exhaling through our mouth. This particular activity relaxes the children while enabling them to become more aware of their breathing.
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March Newsletter
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April Newsletter
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May Newsletter
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June Newsletter
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July Newsletter
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August Newsletter
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September Newsletter
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October Newsletter
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November Newsletter
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December Newsletter
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