Getting to know our new Pirates!

This week we learned about some very special people, our Pirate Pete Preschoolers!  The children heard a variety of stories at various times this week that focused on children, their families and our feelings.  Sometimes we read books in class and other times we we heard drawing stories and puppet shows.  The children are all practicing their listening skills at the circle and are doing a great job participating during question time.

We also had some time on i-Pads this week as we played games that involved dressing for the day and taking care of virtual baby sisters and learned how to help care for them by feeding, bathing and helping take naps.  The children talked about what each character in the games needed and worked on providing those skills to care for the family members in their games.  We talked about how good it feels to take care of others and what all people need to do each day.

We played some dice games using a home made dice a teacher made that held images to 'read' that would ask the 'thrower'  to answer a question about themselves like their favorite toy, game, food, animal, etc.  This way as people took turns throwing the die we were able to learn more about one another.

We are still working on our letters of the day as we do each day of the year and the children are doing a great job adjusting to the procedures we hold with guessing the letter by watching images and then watching the teacher demonstrate how to draw the letters then allowing children who have that letter in the beginning of their name come up and draw it at the front of the room as well.  Don't be surprised if your younger child is bringing home paper with more scribbles than letters.  That is age appropriate and it will improve with time.  Right now they are working on the fine motor muscle development needed to write later on.

We are learned more songs now as well, My Mother is a Baker, The Cool Bear Hunt, 5 Little Monkeys and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  We will be singing these songs as well as others throughout the year.  Many of these listed are the class favorites and this is why we start the year with them. 

Each day when the children walk in they are expected to find their name three times; on the attendance wall to mark themselves at school, in their cubby to put away their belongings and then their name tags to wear.  Many of the children are doing wonderfully with this and to help reinforce this we worked on writing and reading their names this week.  The children had to find their names on the paper at the tables and then trace the letters below to write it and then sort the pre-cut-out letters and glue them down in order of their name.  We will do this throughout the year at times to help chart the progress.

As we talked about emotions and the various feelings we all feel sometimes, we used the Disney movie Inside Out to help the children identify the various emotions by matching the image of the emotion with the word that was written in the color of the emotion in a puzzle.  This helps with phonics for future reading skills and allows the children success but matching puzzle pieces instead of the words.

 This week we also reinforced the ideas from the movie Inside Out with some Skittle science; each colored piece of candy represents a different feeling and the children were asked to place the candy around the edge of a plate in whatever order they wanted, then teachers poured warm water over them and we were able to watch the colors bleed together to show the beauty of feeling lots of emotions.

Next we reinforced this concept by placing the colors of the emotions on the table and giving each child a silhouette of a human head.  We listened to a variety of Disney songs and decided what emotion the characters singing were feeling and then chose the appropriate color to use to color to the beat of the music with the crayon.

 We played some of the teachers favorite preschool games to learn what options we will have during free play time.  We have sequencing cards to practice concepts of first, second and third.  We also built objects out of geometric shapes, magnetic tiles and then looked with magnify glasses at animal x-rays and various plants and insects.

Our teachers checked for understanding of the various emotions and linked the facial expressions to the emotions, we were given situations and asked how we would feel if our brother took our favorite toy and broke it, if it was raining outside and we wanted to play and if we were given a brand new puppy.  The children showed various facial expressions and then were shown more and asked to identify the expression in images shown.

Next we went to the tables and used our small motor muscles to shape pipe cleaners into smiles, frowns, angry and scary mouths as teachers would ask them to show various expressions.

We did some relaxing activities this week too as we made it rain in the classroom by using the rhythm sticks to make the sounds of wind rolling in a storm.  The faster we beat our sticks on the floor the harder the rain would fall and then we made wind again to blow the storm away.

We worked with our teachers on a variety of drawings and paintings of our families this week.  We enjoyed counting the members of our families and then looked around the room for the number that coordinated with then headed over to that number and taped it under that number so we could learn what amount each numeral represents.

The children were able to work on their cutting skills for the first time this year.  Many teachers are helping hold the paper while the children learn to use scissors.  Some of the children are able to hold the paper on their own while cutting but if they do not practice at home we are working on it at school.  

 We had a great spirit week with Pajama Day, Yellow Day and Pirate Pride day!  While every Friday we wear something PHS or red we enjoyed dressing up to show our school spirit.

What's Coming Up?

 This coming week we will be talking about careers.  We are going to be asking what the children want to be when they grow up as well as teach them about the various community helpers in our area as well.