Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

This week the children loved learning all about the Chinese New Year!   They enjoyed all the different crafts and activities and parading through the halls.  They loved showing off their dragon masks and lanterns!  At the beginning of the week Christina (Amelia’s mom) came in and read them about the history of Chinese New Year and why it is celebrated.  She then played a game with the children where they were divided into two teams in a straight line holding hands.  Each child got a turn to run and try to break through the opposite teams line.  The game was very similar to red rover.  When they were done with the game they moved on to making dragon masks.  The children had to color the dragon face, cut out the mask, and glue streamers to it.  The multi step directions could have been confusing for the children but they all followed the steps in the correct order.  They really enjoyed this craft and all worked very hard to make their masks perfect. 

A couple days later Jessica (olivia’s mom) came in to talk about the zodiac.  She gave the children a brief summary of the origin and story of how each of the animals got their position in the zodiac.  The children loved finding out if they were a pig, dog, or rat.  The children also each got to try out the clothing the children wear during the Chinese New Year.   When they were done with that they worked on making paper lanterns.  Each child was given a piece of paper that they had to decorate and cut slits in.  When all stapled together they turned out really neat! 

On Wednesday we took all the crafts we made and had a parade with the Half-notes at the end of the day.  The children loved wearing their dragon masks and carrying their lanterns up and down the halls yelling out “Gong Xi Fa Cai" to all the parents.  After the parade the children came in and ate dumplings while receiving gift envelops called lai see.  Inside the lai see was special money (a quarter) for each child.  Thank you to all the parents who helped out!  The children learned so much and had a great time.

This week we started reading the Magic Tree House series book Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osbourne.  The children have enjoyed all the Magic Tree House books but seem to really be excited about this one in particular.  Following their interest, we got Egypt books from the library for the children to look at and will be slowly transforming our classroom into Ancient Egypt.  We also found where Egypt was on the map and placed a picture of Jack and Annie (the characters of the book) in that spot.  In the next week we will be doing a lot more crafts and have-to jobs with a Egyptian theme.  Keep an eye out!

Here are some other jobs that the children have been hard at work with:

*Handwriting Without Tears letters

*Making flowers with Tissue paper and pipe wire

*Train tracks and trains

*Pictures at the easels 

*Letter/Shape stamps
*Lincoln Logs

Reminders:

* We are having a Scholastic Book Fair in the hall next week 1/31-2/4.  It will be running from 9am-5pm.  Check it out!

* February vacation is just around the corner.  Sign up now to save a spot for your child!

Busy, Busy, Busy...

The children have been busy as we continue on our Leo Lionni author study.  This week we read the book Pezzetino and did an activity based on that story.  Pezzetino is a story about a small square (Pezzentino) that is trying to figure out where he belongs and who he is a part of.  His friends who are made of many squares reassure him that he is just as special and he is a square made of smaller parts.  The story shows that everyone is unique in their own special way.  The children were then asked to make their own animal or object using glue sticks and different colored squares.  The pictures were very creative and unique.  Check out what your children created on the have-to job board.












The children have also really enjoyed making mini books at the art table and then sharing them with the class.  Most of you have probably seen your child's book that he/she created.  They have really enjoyed drawing pictures on each of the pages and then asking us to write their words for them or working hard on writing their own words.  The children have been really proud of these books.  Since they are about their interests or who they like to play with they were eager to share them.  During story time instead of one of us reading a story to them, we let the children share their books to the class.  All the children did a really nice job listening and shared a genuine interest in one another's books.

A couple other things that the children really enjoyed this week were the cooking project and the NEW lincoln logs.  The cooking project for the week was a big hit!  They each got to make their own mini pizza for snack and one for someone in the half notes class.  They were really sweet about making one for someone else and were all very eager to give them to the other class.  They had to make it all by themselves and were really excited to do so.  The lincoln logs were something that the children really enjoyed as well.  They worked hard to build houses using the logs and the sticks.  At first some of the children were getting frustrated because they could not build what they wanted.  As the week went on and they got more exposure and practice the buildings were getting bigger and more detailed.

We had a special guest come in this week.  Michelle's Menagerie brought some really neat animals to show to the kids.  She brought a chicken, a duck, a guinea pig, a rabbit, a fox, a toad, and a snake to school!  The children were really excited to see all the animals and thought the fox was really cool.  They did such a nice job of being quiet so that they wouldn't scare any of the animals.  Check out the picture below to see if you can spot the orange snake!

Reminders:
* Hinata's Last day of school party is on Tuesday January 24th at 11:30.  The children will be having pizza and cupcakes.  All is welcome!

* February vacation is just around the corner.  If you would like to sign up for the February vacation camp please contact Marlene ASAP.  Space is limited and is filling up quickly!

Hip Hip Hooray to ANOTHER great week of Prek!

In the next few weeks we will be studying the children's author Leo Lionni and using his books to make fun activities.  This week we focused a lot on measurement, particularly inches.  We read the book Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni, which was about an inch worm who went around measuring different parts of a variety of birds.  The children looked at how small an inch on a ruler was and recognized that one unifix cube equals one inch.  We then traced their foot and had them estimate their foot size in inches and then actually measure it.  The kids had a lot of fun with that have-to job and did a great job at guessing reasonable numbers for their foot sizes.  When they were all done measuring we then lined up the feet from smallest to biggest.  The kids loved figuring out who had the biggest and smallest feet in the class.  In order to continue with the measurement theme we then put out items from around the class on the round table and had the children measure them.  They were given a choice to use a ruler or the cubes to measure the items.  They all did such a nice job figuring out and writing the measurements they came up with.  Check out the have-to job board to see those!

This week we also discussed who Martin Luther King Jr. was and why we celebrate his birthday.  We read a book about him and talked about his famous "I have a dream" speech.  Although when asked what we are celebrating on Monday all the kids screamed "Alex's birthday!" we still think they understood his role in history.  After talking about his dream, we then asked the children what their dreams are.  We asked them if they could change anything in the world what would it be.  They each got a piece of paper with a thought bubble in it that they had to cut out.  Cutting out the bubble was a bit tricky and allowed them to practice having scissor control and strengthen their small motor.  When they were done cutting it out they had to tell us what they would want to change.  Their answers were pretty interesting!

The children were also busy doing a lot of other jobs this week.  They really enjoyed making snowflakes at the art table.  They were asked to color in coffee filters with markers and then use water to make the colors on the coffee filter run.  When those were dry they folded them up and the children cut out little shapes in them.  They were so proud of the way they turned out that they hung them in our windows.  The children also worked on sequencing and putting stories in the proper order.  We took out cards with pictures on them and the children had to put the cards in the correct order so that the story would make sense.  The white boards also continue to be one of the children's favorite activities.  They have really been into making their own calendars on them and writing numbers 1-20.  It is fun watching them because they all help each other figure out what number goes next if they get stuck or go over to the number line together.

We have a new friend that joined our class this week!  Hadia started on Monday and seems to be adjusting very nicely.  Everyone is being very helpful, as always, and helping her get used to our class and the daily routines.

 

Back Together Again!

The children were all thrilled to be back at school and were eager to share stories about what they did over their break.  They were also excited to see one another and all be able to play together again.  On the first day back we had a lengthy morning meeting where we talked about what everyone did.  Each child got to come to the front of the meeting and share where and what they did over the two week vacation.  Since many of the children went out of town or had relatives in town we took the opportunity to label our map.  We took out both the United States map and the World map and labeled the different places people went or came from.  We then talked about how one would travel to each of the places judging by its distance.  When labeling New Hampshire and closer areas the children said a car, with farther places they said a plane.  We got a few postcards and mementos and will continue to keep labeling as we receive more.

Now that we got to change the season on our calendar board to winter, everyone is patiently awaiting the first big snow fall.  The children always talk about what they enjoy doing in the snow so we decided to turn that into an art/math project.  The children were asked to think about what they like to do in the snow and use cotton balls and oil pastels to illustrate it.  Before starting the project the children first had to count out 20 cotton balls to use on their picture.  Some of them decided to use all 20 of them while others counted out all 20 but did not need that many.  It was really neat to watch the children count out their 20 cotton balls by using the number line on the wall.  Some children brought a handful of cotton balls over to the number line and set them down by each hand.  Others would get stumped in the teens and went to look to see what number came next and how many more cotton balls they needed.  Check those snow scenes out above the children's cubbies. 

Along with the have-to jobs the children were also excited to get back to work on their favorite choice jobs and just be with one another again.  They spent a lot of the time playing family in the dramatic play area, building castles in the block area, and doing puzzles at the round table or playing their new favorite game, crazy eights.  We also played shape/color bingo at the bean table.  The children took turns being the person to call out the cards.

I am sure most of you already know that we welcomed a new friend to our class this week.  Asher started on Tuesday and we are all very excited to have him.  The children have done a nice job of showing him around our class and helping him with the daily routines.  It seems like he has been here since September!

Many of you probably have heard us joke around that our class is just like the cast of Glee.  Some of the  children will break out into song and dance at random times of the day and the rest of the class will join them.  It generally happens during snack time but could happen at anytime.  Below I attached a little video of some of the children practicing the violin to the Suzuki violin CD.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!