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.