Welcome to the Palatine Pirate Circus 2019! The children were amazing on our first day back this week and jumped right back into our routines of the Welcome Song, Days of the Week song and the Today Board. They have been terrific about taking turns and volunteering to help with the board and we are very proud of them!
This week we thought it would be fun to talk about the circus since every day in preschool can feel like one. We started off using our creative minds making silly clown faces. Some the children used feathers, others pom pons, cotton balls and googly eyes. It was wonderful to see what they came up with as we asked them to make the silliest faces they could think of on the small paper plates we passed out.
Once we finished our clown faces we took on the roles of lion tamers and tight rope walkers. The children took turns throwing lion and tiger stuffed animals through our 'hoop of fire' while working on their hand eye coordination. Then, they took turns walking across two rows of tape (one in a straight line and the other zig zag) to practice their balance. Many of our preschoolers upped their game as they tried to do this tight rope walk with their eyes closed and even some going backwards. What amazing tricksters we have!
All those tricks made us hungry for some ice cream cone math so we sat down and read numbers on ice cream cones then glued that amount of scoops onto the page to make taller and shorter ice cream cones.
After some free play activities we did some writing with pompons and clothes pins (inspired by our trip to the Chicago Children's museum if you saw that on Instagram). The teacher would show pictures of animals found in the circus and we would decide what letter that animal started with then tried to draw that letter in paint on our trays. 
All that spelling got our tummies rumbling again so we did some scientific art with shaving cream and glue and created cotton candy paint. Yum!
Our silly time meshed with creativity this week when we did some team building art as the children created giant clown posters to hang in the room. Each time was given the same amount of art supplies yet we got three very different clowns at the end of the day. We currently have them hanging in our classroom to enjoy for a while.
Next up was small motor with a reading based 'twist'. The children were given a variety of cards with circus tents on them and upper and lower case letters. Then, they were given pipe cleaners to use to twist and bend in order to make the letters on the circus tent cards. Pipe cleaners not only worked their little finger muscles but they were also working on letter recognition and phonics as they worked to recreate the letters in front of them.
Our circus themed fun didn't stop of Friday as the children gathered again to hear what was in store for them that day. We looked at pictures of various circus acts and talked about the cannons often used in a circus to shoot people from one side of the tent to another. 
Then the teachers showed the children the materials they would be given to make their own circus 'cannons' or catapults as they would get to try to shoot toy animals and pompon balls across the room. 
Using popsicle sticks, rubber bands and plastic spoons the children told the teachers how to construct their 'catapult cannons'. This STEM activity helped get their little minds going on where to place the spoon on the sticks and how many popsicle sticks they would need to stack to make the spoon bend back enough to shoot the toys across the room.
We sang "the Circus Song," this week from Pink Fong and learned patterns within the circus to work on math at the same time as music.We read books about the circus and all the acts a person might see there and then learned the word acrobat. The children used a little science to add paperclips to their own paper acrobats then balanced them on their fingers. Some children even tried to balance their acrobats on their noses!
Once we go the acrobats into our cubbies we listened for the beginning sound of various circus animals and looked for the upper and lower case of that letter. The children were given clues to find the match of the upper or lower case by using pictures of parent animals and baby animals since some letters like L and l or E and e do not look alike.
We sorted numbers this week by numbers in the teens and numbers in the twenties by looking at pictures of popcorn and sorting them into the teens bucket or the twenties bucket. The teacher would ask the preschooler what number was in front (a one or a two) and then the child would read the number with the teacher and decide what bucket to put that piece of 'popcorn' into.
We are back to doing letter of the day again this semester. We hope you have some of the sheets from last semester somewhere at home and can compare the writing on this semester's letter sheets to those from last semester and see improvement. Some of our preschoolers are still working on letter recognition while others are able to read the letters and are working on writing. The rest are gearing up for kindergarten and are writing machines! 
Please don't forget to reference the kindergarten readiness sheet we sent home again at orientation or feel free to check out this link as well to know how to help your child get ready for kindergarten. According to the newest state data in Illinois, only about 1/4 of kindergarteners are where they should be prior to starting school. Help us help your child get ready!
With all the work on letters and numbers and writing we needed to get up and moving again. We increased the challenge from Wednesday's tightrope walking to adding a bean bag toss into the challenge. The children had to carry a bean bag across the 'tightrope' and toss it into a bucket on the other side. Then, walk on the 'tightrope' back to the start.
We ended the week by making batches of popcorn to take home and hang up in the classroom. The children assembled their popcorn boxes and added in as many cotton balls as they wanted to fill up their buckets then added 'butter' (yellow food coloring) to the cotton balls with pipets to work on more fine motor skills gluing and painting. What a deliciously fun week!What's Coming Up?
Due to the extreme cold temperatures we are going to continue to do our assembly line at drop off and pick up. Please do not get out of the car until you are able to pull up in the line closer to the doors. We will run out to bring your child in and will do the same for pick up. As soon as the first three cars get their children and pull off then everyone in the line can move up. We are hoping the more we do this the easier it will get for us all but we are trying to keep everyone out of the cold as much as possible.
Speaking of cold weather: please don't forget to check the Palatine High School or District 211 websites each morning you want to know if school is cancelled. I will text you as soon as I know but this will make your life easier too if you know where to look. In fact, this is the same procedure for me on these days, just refreshing and checking until I know and then I will text you.
With Super Bowl Sunday being around the corner we plan to talk about all kinds of sports this coming week.
Don't forget to start getting those Valentines ready for our exchange on Feb. 13th. Remember you will need 20 and please do not address them. If you feel so inclined to have your child write his/her name on them, the sooner you start that the better as most children can't handle doing that more than 3 or 4 at a time.
