Welcome to our ZOO!

This week was an exciting one for many of our preschoolers.  We learned about all sorts of animals and their habitats!  

We enjoyed  talking about animals from the sea and the farm and we built various habitats as we talked about them.  Check out one of our Haiku Decks to see what we show the children for letter of the day and to introduce our activities and topics for the week.

 As we spoke about pets, we made dogs out of letter D's (to coordinate with the letter of the day) and then we made habitats for the various types of animals we spoke about using sand, water, ice, grass, sticks, etc.  

Elephants, zebras, frogs and more were created this week as we learned songs, acted like other animals, reviewed animal sounds and read books on wild animals as well as pets.  

We had our first Star of the Week and a birthday as well.  The topic of the week went wonderfully for this birthday boy! 

More Animal Fun Photos: 

Creating our fun frog puppets

  

Deciding which animals live in water

Placing animals in the "forrest"

Creating zebras and elephants (children's choice)

Placing tissue paper and foil for scales on Rainbow Fish

Discussing which animals live where

 What's going on Next Week?

It's Homecoming Week at PHS, which means your child is free to dress up with us for Pajama Day on Monday, (come to school wearing PJ's) and dress as wild and wacky as you wish for Wacky Wednesday (anything that looks out of the ordinary) and then Friday is Pirate Pride day (anything Red or representing PHS or Pirates).

We will be talking about various kinds of sports in honor of the, "Big Game" on Friday.  

What a Busy Week!

We have gotten off to a terrific start to the year at 

Pirate Pete Preschool!

On Monday we had one set of tears, on Wednesday we had three, but by Friday we were really getting into the groove of things. Our teachers had terrific lessons to help the preschoolers share all about themselves and their families and we also learned about the wonderful things our school has to offer.

Each day we started with the Welcome Board and our "Good Morning Song" then we sing about the "Days of the Week."  We talk about the date, season, weather and what the children think Pirate Pete should wear to school each day.  Then, we talk about all the fun and exciting things we are going to do in school! The children are given clues on the screen behind the teacher and get to guess what we might be talking about each day and or week.

By the time all of this is done there are no more tears happening in the room. Each child is excited about what we will be learning and is eager to get started with the day.  This week, we drew pictures of our  family as well as painted what we like to do or some of our favorite things. 

We played with an obstacle course and practiced our balance and were able to crawl through tunnels!  We made books all about ourselves and practiced our addition with blocks by counting them out on our very own math plans.  

We also did some awesome science experiments to see what happens when we mix too much carbonation and sugar in our bellies and after we completed an obstacle course to stretch our muscles, we took our fingerprints to show how unique each one of us is by placing each finger on a hand to take home and show our families. 

 We were also lucky enough to have birthday treats the first day of school!  

 Happy Birthday!

 It's been terrific to get to know more about each other this fall and catch up with old friends as well.  We are truly off to a terrific year at PiratePete Preschool and can't wait to see what is happening next!  I know we have eager children ready to talk about ANIMALS next week.  Look for some great projects and fun games and images of animals from all over the world!

Dates to Save:

Our Halloween Party will be Wednesday, October 30 this year so get ready to trick or treat around school and enjoy some early snacks and storytime in our Media Center.

The Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete Extravaganza (Sponosred by Palatine High School) will be held at 5:00PM here at PHS and it is FREE!  More information will follow be be sure to reserve this night of family fun in your calendar as well.

It's Our First Day of School!

Last night, some people might have gone to bed extra early, some couldn't fall asleep and some may have beed out of bed this morning eaxtra early.  No matter the case, we all are looking forward to a exciting year ahead. Orientation is the day when preschoolers and their families get to know our Pirate Pete Preschool family.  The teachers look forward (with butterfly filled bellies) to meet the young faces of the year and meet the parents of those young children.

We have been planning steadily for the past few weeks and learning how to incorporate our new iPads this fall as we go paperless. This doesn't mean our preschoolers will be without paper, it is too much a staple in the life of a young child. But, the high schoolers have worked to compose their lessons, self evaluations and other creative ideas for the children all using various apps and websites. 

To see what we have been researching, follow me on Pinterest.  We have boards set up for bulletinboard design ideas, math, science, language arts, music and crafts for the children as well as fun ideas that will coordinate with our themes of the semester. Check it out and try to create some at home with your children!  

Our communication with parents will be green this year and done via text and emails with only a few special requests for paper forms.  This is such a huge change in our structure at the high school level we have taken the extra week in our preparation, hence the week later start to our fall semester. I know it will be worth it for us all. 

Communication will bigger and better then ever before with this blog as well as tweets and select images being released for parents to see into our program more frequently.  With this new technology parents can rest easy knowing at NO TIME will your child's name and photo be released online simultaneously. 

I am excited to document Our First Day for you and share the growth and development we help bloom this year and am so thankful for your support on our journey!

A New Beginning for Pirate Pete Preschool

Two weeks until we begin yet another year of Pirate Pete Preschool.  I can't help but smile to myself as I get the order of teaching dates, bulletin board schedules, and themes for the weeks ahead lined up for lesson planning.  Even though this will be my eleventh start to preschool here at Palatine High School it's still exciting and I know how blessed I am to be able to enjoy another year with fabulous high school students and adorable youngsters.  I think that's how you know teaching is in a person's blood, by how excited she is about all the work ahead!

Last week the high school students chose preschoolers to work with one on one with as the year goes on. Whew!  What a fun time that is for everyone as the excitement and enthusiasm is hard to contain while they work to choose a child to get to know and help shape this year.  (More posts on how we do Case Studies later.)

We chose the themes for the semester and started planning bulletin boards all while learning how to work with our newest change: the iPad. By going green we can't wait to see how much more we can learn when materials are at our fingertips to give us more ideas and help us organize our thoughts and observations as the year goes on.  We are using Twitter, Pinterest, Schoology, Haiku Deck, Notability, and more to help us  grow as life long learners and to encourage our new Pirates to have a love of learning as well.

This is such an exciting time and I look forward to using this blog to be able to provide a better window into the fabulous Pirate Pete Preschool Program here at Palatine High School.