Community Jobs and Helpers

We had a great week in Pirate Pete Preschool!  Our focus this week was on community jobs and helpers.  We were so excited to welcome a Palatine Police Officer into the preschool!  She was very enthusiastic and taught the children important rules about being safe. In the picture on the right, the Police Officer was telling the preschoolers the "special" number you call when you need help. The number 911 was spoken with an arm movement; when saying 9, you stand still; each time a 1 is spoken, you put up an arm. 

In this picture, the police officer is showing the preschoolers pictures of police cars. She asked if they had ever seen one on the streets when they were outside. She wanted them to be able to easily recognize a police car, just in case they ever need help!  We talked about her uniform verses our school police officer's uniform when he comes to our school each day and what they have in common and what parts are different. It's a great day to remind the children we have an "in house officer" each day and he is always with us to protect us and be there if we need help while at school. 

The matching activity the children did this Monday was on the job of firemen.  The worksheet presented pictures of things like a Dalmatian, a fire hydrant, and a hose, which the children then drew a line across the page to the corresponding word.  We will have a visit from the fire department this spring when we revisit our safety unit.

This writing activity was about recognizing the difference between tall letters and short letters.  They had to choose which word best fit in each of the chains of boxes based on their shape and size.  This activity is done often in kindergarten so it was a great way to expose the children to this activity to get them understanding the difference between tall and short letters in the writing process.  We need to be taught to recognize that some letters stand above others in order to write words correctly.

Story time this week taught us about the steps to take when there is a fire.  We went over safe behaviors when there is fire near us, like candles on our birthday cakes!  We discussed how important it is to remember we are all people who can prevent fire in our homes and when we see fire, we should stay away and get an adult.  Common household flames from a stove, candles, etc. are important to talk about in order to help children understand they are hot and should not be touched.

We ended our exciting Monday by singing "My Mother is a Baker" by Dr. Jean!  This song is one of the preschoolers' favorites because of the fun motions that go along to the song.  Ask your children about this song and you just might get a special performance!  We sing this song along with a few others often throughout the year.  By repeating a few select songs we are able to build confidence in the children as they build their vocabulary.  You will see some of these tunes performed at graduation too.

Tracing words is a great way to improve our writing skills.  As the children do their worksheets, the teachers ask questions about the letters to further enhance the purpose of the activity.   While we focus on one Letter of the Day we will often do other activities that encourage children to practice writing letters in appropriate sizes or spaces to strengthen this kindergarten skill.

Not only do we want the children to recognize the helpers in our community, we also want them to know what kinds of tools they use.  First the children cut out the helpers and then cut out their tools.  After this they matched the objects to each helper and glued them next to each other on a separate piece of paper.  This built skills in cutting, language and gluing as they discussed the correct tools with their teachers to match them with the appropriate careers; like scissors for a hair dresser and a stethoscope for the doctor. 

We also did an activity where the kids needed to cut out squares that had different numbers in them. Then they put the numbers in the correct order from one to ten with the fire fighters.

After that we drew firemen in the windows of fire trucks. The kids were able to pick how many firemen that they wanted to draw and then had to write the number of firemen on the line underneath.

As our safety unit with careers and community helpers comes to a close, we hope that the children have learned a lot of valuable skills! There are many ways to make such an important, serious topic fun!  

***Thanks as always to the Pirate Pete Preschool interns, Rachel, Emily & Shannon for helping on this week's blog!

What's Coming Up?

• This week we will be focusing on Halloween and all the fun that goes with it!
  
• Thursday, October 29th Palatine High School is hosting the 30th annual Trick-Or-Treat with Pirate Pete which is a FREE event to the community to come inside where it's warm and trick or treat throughout the school.  It runs from 5:00 - 6:30 PM and is open to children 10 and under.
  
• The Pirate Pete Preschool Halloween Party will be on Friday, October 30th from 9:30 - 10:45 AM in the preschool room and we will be trick or treating around PHS before heading back to the classroom for treats.  Parents and siblings are welcome to attend.  Invitations went home last week and if you plan on bringing other trick or treaters please RSVP so we are sure to have enough treats.

Staying Clean and Healthy

Our Safety and Hygiene week is one of the most important ones!  The children learn about keeping their bodies healthy and clean, as well as about our various community helpers who work to keep us all safe each day.  

For this dental health project, each child was given a picture of a tooth and a pile of cotton balls.  The cotton balls represented the bubbles and foam we create when we brush our teeth.  They glued the cotton balls around the tooth's smiling face to show that clean teeth are happy teeth!  

This app on the iPads helped teach the children about the police and firemen.  After they assembled the correct emergency vehicle, they drove it down the street, aiming to collect the buckets of water to help the fire fighters put out the fire.  The children really enjoyed this app!  If you have an iPad or iPhone at home make sure you download Fireman Hero-Animal Rescue & Fire House Kids Games!  

Each semester during our safety unit, we always talk about dangerous items we should not touch when we see them at home.  Many of the examples that we discuss are hot.  For this small motor activity, the children had to cut out the items and sort them according to whether they are hot or cold to the touch; then they glued each one in the proper box.

We listened to a story this week about fire fighters and police officers and what they do each day to help our community.  We had many great discussions about these careers as well as those of doctors and dentists this week as we learned about how all of these people work to keep us safe and healthy.

All day on Friday we talked about the importance of brushing our teeth.  We played a game on the iPad (Sago Mini Monsters) that helped us understand how and when to brush our teeth.  After feeding the monsters, their teeth turned gray which told it us it was time to brush their teeth!  

We also reviewed the different circular and up-and-down movements we use when brushing our teeth.  To practice this and work on fine motor writing skills, the children were given a worksheet and had to trace the looped and zig-zag dotted lines from the toothbrush to the teeth.  

A happy tooth is a clean, white tooth!  Each child glued eyes and drew a mouth on their cut-out tooth.  Some of them colored their teeth so that it appeared to be dirty and then drew a frowning face on it instead! 

We had a very nice 'germ' activity done this week with glitter germs as we placed a little glitter on the hands of the children then asked them to shake hands or give high fives to one another and 'pass around' the 'germs.'  

We talked about how many of these germs we could see by using glitter spread quickly while we then the germs we can't see spread just as quickly.  We then talked about the power of soapy water and washed the 'glitter germs' away. 

Using everyday household items for art projects can be a lot of fun!  So to end our week we took an old tooth brush and a little bit of tooth paste and used them as great painting tools.  The children scrubbed their paper teeth making sure to cover the entire thing with tooth paste.  Brushing every single one of our teeth is very important and this activity helped our room to smell minty fresh for the weekend!  

What's Coming Up?

• This week we will be discussing various jobs and continuing our community helper discussions to extend past just the fire and safety patrols.  
  
  
• The District 211 College Night is this Wednesday, October 21 and Palatine High School hosts this event.  Therefore we have a shortened schedule at the high school and will be canceling preschool for this day.  The good news is this will be our last crazy week for a while!  Woo hoo!  So preschool will be on Monday and Friday this week.
  
  
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  The annual Pirate Pete Preschool Halloween Party will be on Friday, October 30th from 9:30AM to 10:45AM.  Invitations will come home this coming Friday.  Parents and younger siblings are encouraged to attend and help us Trick or Treat around the school.
  
  
• Be on the look out for a flyer about the annual Palatine High School Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete night which will be on Thursday, October 29th at 5:00PM.  It is FREE and open to the community.

Let's Get Moving! Sports and Actvities

This short week of preschool was all about sports and different physical activities!  We learned about all of the different kinds balls that we play with for a variety of sports.  The children colored paper plates to look like any ball of their choice.  Baseballs, soccer balls, and basketballs were some of their favorites!  

For this math activity, the children took turns rolling a die.  Then they had to count out beads to match the number on the dice.  This activity not only tested their math skills, but also their fine motor skills.  Pinching the beads with their fingers helped to strengthen their dexterity.  

The children were so excited when they had the opportunity to actually play the different sports we discussed in class.  Kicking soccer balls, throwing tennis balls, and catching large bouncy balls really engaged the children.  Actually playing each sport deepened the children's understanding of some of the rules of each game. Enjoy this Fall and get the kids moving by playing different games and sports outside!

We enjoyed building fine motor skills by threading string through a football we 'laced up the ball' so we could be ready to play ball!

Our tracing activity this week incorporated the theme very nicely!  Each monster on the worksheet corresponded with a piece of sports equipment.  The children traced the different shaped lines toward the monster's object.  Even though the children were not writing specific letters, exercises like this will help them improve their writing skills!  

Before heading home the children made their own first place medals by coloring, cutting out, and gluing a number one onto some tin foil.  They loved wearing these medals around their necks and proudly posed for their pictures!  

What's Coming Up?

• We have Columbus Day off on Monday, October 12th.  We will see you for safety and hygiene week on Wednesday.
  
• Please send empty water bottles and paper towel/toilet paper tubes with your child any time you find extras around the house.  We use them for various science experiments and art projects throughout the year so are always happy to collect them.