Story:  The story for today was Owen by Kevin Henkes.  Owen has a blanket that he has had since he was a baby.  He takes it everywhere.  His mother and father wonder if he should give up the blanket.  The neighbor next door gives them advice on how to get rid of the blanket.  This makes Owen sad and a little anxious.  With school starting soon, will Owen be able to attend school without his blanket?  Mother has an idea.  Ask your child to tell you what she does to help Owen take his blanket to school. 

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed below.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Yellow Group
Activity #2 Green Group
Activity #3 Red Group

Large Group:  The children got into groups of four children each.  Each group was given a large stretch band.  As I showed the children a picture of a shape, they had figure out a way to make the stretch band into that same shape.  They made a circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and rhombus. 

Snacks:  The morning class had football shaped pretzels, carrots, ranch dip, and juice brought by Cael.  The afternoon class had Veggie straws and milk brought by Holden.  Thank you!

Screws are Simple Machines

Group Meeting:  This week we will be learning about screws as simple machines as well as bolts and nails.  We will also learn about the tools that you use with screws and nails.

Story:  Our story for today was Drew the Screw by Mattia Cerato.   Drew is a screw that lives in the workshop.  His friends are tools.  A boy is in the workshop using the tools to build a tree house.  What job will Drew the Screw have?  Ask your child to tell you.

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed below as well as the schedule for today.
Activity #1  (Red Group)The children played a board game in which they had to roll the dice and count the number of squares to move around the board.  If there was a star on the square that they landed on, the picked a dinosaur counter from the box.  When the box was empty, the children counted how many dinosaurs that they had to determine the winner.  
Activity #2 (Yellow Group)  The children cut out monster pictures to place on a picture of a jar using the correct positional words such as above, in and beside.
Activity #3 (Green Group)  The children played the game "Jelly Bean Jump Up".  They took turns pulling lower case alphabet cards out of a box to identify.  If they pulled out a card with a picture of jelly beans on it, they had to shake the jar of jelly beans and say "Jelly Bean Jump Up".  After the game, everyone enjoyed a jelly bean. 

Large Group:  I had screws, bolts, and nails for the children to observe and manipulate.  We learned different ways that screws can be simple machines.  For example, a jar lid and the bottom of a light bulb are screws.

Snacks:  The morning class had waffles, peanut butter, and milk brought by Brogan.  The afternoon class had Goldfish and juice brought by Ellie.  Thank you!

Story:  For our story today, I did a re-read of Dinosaur Woods by George McClements.  We first read this book on Jan. 17th.  The children really liked it, so we read it again.  Perhaps you've found that your children like to read the same books over and over again.  This is good for beginning reading skills.  I hope you find time to read to your child every day.

Small Groups:  The children learned about animals that live in the Arctic with our "Let's Find Out" magazines.  Scholastic provides videos to enrich this learning activity.  We watched a few of them to learn about polar bears and walrus. 

Large Group:  The children completed the workbook page for the letter J.  The Green Group brought items for show and tell.

Snacks:  The morning class had cheese sticks, crackers, and juice brought by Ben.  The afternoon class had Bagel Bites and milk brought by Ella.  Thank you!

Next week, we will be learning about screws, bolts, nuts, and nails as our study of simple machines continues. 

Story:  The story I selected for today was The Night Worker by Georg Hallensleben.  Alex's dad works at night.  He is an engineer for a construction company.  One night, Alex's dad surprises him by taking him to work with him.  Alex gets to see all of the equipment on the job site.  He helps drive a loader and work the levers that move the bucket up and down. 

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed in Monday's post.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Green Group
Activity #2 Red Group
Activity #3 Yellow Group
I was very impressed with the cutting skills that I observed this week.  While several children told me that they couldn't do it, they all persisted and did very well!

Large Group:  The children made lemonade using lemon presses (levers).  The children squeezed the lemon juice into a bowl.  We added the juice to a pitcher of water and added sugar.  After tasting it, we added more sugar until it was just about right.  I wanted to take pictures to share, but we were a little short staffed today, so I didn't have an empty hand.

Snacks:  The morning class had grapes, muffins, and juice brought by Angel.  The afternoon class had apples and milk brought by Charlie.  Thank you!

Group Meeting: We're looking at levers this week and have been trying to demonstrate as many as possible.

Story:  Our story for today was Whose Tool are These? by Sharon Katz Cooper.  In this book, the children look at the tools on the page to determine what kind of worker would use those tools.  For example, we saw a stethoscope for a doctor and a scissors and blow dryer for a hairdresser.

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed in yesterday's post.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Yellow Group
Activity #2 Green Group
Activity #3 Red Group

Large Group:  The children were given various examples of levers to experiment with.  They used tongs, clothes pins, a balance scale, and the Stomp Boards.  I've posted a few pictures below.

Snacks:  The morning class had french toast sticks, syrup and juice brought by Andon.  The afternoon class had oyster crackers, cheese sticks, and juice brought by Beckett.  Thank you!

Levers

Group Meeting:  We reviewed what we had learned about inclined planes last week.  This week at the art table, the children may choose to participate in an art project using an inclined plane.   The children will put paper into a cardboard box.  They will squirt small puddles on paint on the paper.  Then, they will add marbles.  The children will tip the box making an inclined plane.  This will cause the marbles to roll through the paint making a beautiful abstract painting.

Painting with inclined planes

Story:  Our story for today was Chicken Chickens by Valeri Gorbachev.  Two little chickens are visiting the park for the first time.  They wander around looking at all of the play equipment.  The other animal children invite them to join them, but they answer "we're just little chickens".  At the slide, two frogs invited them to go down the slide.  One frog says, "don't be chicken chickens".  A kind beaver tells them that it is okay to be frightened.  He helps them by sliding down the slide with them.  After the story, the children discussed that it was not polite to call people names such as "chicken".  They did think that the beaver was a very nice friend in offering to help them slide.  Ask your child to name the inclined plane in the story.  We also found a lever.  Can you guess what it was?

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed below along with the schedule for today.
Activity #1 (Red Group) The children used scissors to cut a circle.  Then, they followed the spiral on the circle to make a snake.   This is a good fine motor exercise.
Activity #2  (Yellow Group)  The children used primary colors of paint to explore mixing colors.  After they had mixed them, they added white and black to see what would happen.
Activity #3  (Green Group)  The children played a game with rhyming words.  They were given cards with four pictures.  Three of the four pictures rhymed, one did not.   They had to identify the picture that did not rhyme.

Large Group:  We are learning about levers.  I gave them a description of a lever along with a demonstration of a few levers.   We will explore levers all week.  The children used our Stomp Boards as levers to launch bean bags into the air.

Stomp Boards as levers

Snacks:  The morning class had graham crackers, frosting, and juice brought by Adde.  The afternoon class had cheese sticks, carrots, ranch dip, and juice brought by Ashlyn.  Thank you!

Group Meeting: We have had finger painting at the art table this week.  During group meeting time, we displayed some of the pictures and encouraged those who have not tried it to do so today.  Next week, we will try marble painting.

Story:  Our story for today was Roll, Slope and Slide by Michael Dahl.  This book describes the different kinds, uses, and benefits of inclined planes and ramps such as skateboard ramps, slides, ramps on animal trailers, ramps on the sidewalks, etc.  Ask your child to look in the bathroom for an inclined plane that helps the water run down the drain.

Small Groups:  Our small group activities are listed in Tuesday's post.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Green Group
Activity #2 Red Group
Activity #3 Yellow Group

Large Group:  The children completed the workbook page for the letter S.  The Yellow Group brought items for Show and Tell.

Snacks:  The morning class had blueberry muffins and juice brought by Topher.  The afternoon class had Goldfish and juice brought by Addison.  Thank you!

Next week, we will be learning about levers!

Finding Inclined Planes

Story:  Our story for today was Building A House by Byron Barton.  Simple pictures and text take the children through the process of building a house from digging the footings and pouring the foundation to painting the interior and moving in.  After reading the book the first time, we did a re-read and looked for inclined planes in the pictures.  We saw the ramp on the cement mixer, the slanted roof on the house, a ladder, and a ramp from the moving truck.

Small Groups:  The activities for small groups are listed in Tuesday's post.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Yellow Group
Activity #2 Green Group
Activity #3 Red Group

Large Group:  The children and I went for a walk through the building and outdoors to find inclined planes.  I took pictures as we found inclined planes and have posted them below. 

The ramp from the preschool to the church.

The ramp that leads to the front door.

The steps by the Outdoor Classroom.

The driveway to the parking lot.

The sidewalk in front of the church.

The steps to the basement.

The roof.

Snacks:  The morning class had Ritz crackers, cheese, and juice brought by Taylor.  Taylor is on vacation, but brought her snack ahead of time.  The afternoon class had Cheez-its and milk brought by Wesley.  Thank you!

Inclined Planes

Group Meeting:  During Group Meeting today, we had several new things to discuss.  There were \ some small adjustments to the classroom furniture, we added a Discovery Table for our simple machines, and made some changes to the helper's chart.  Your child might be able to explain some of the changes.

Story:  The story for today was Dinosaur Woods by George McClements.  Rojo, the fox,  and his animal pals have a problem: The forest where they live is about to be torn down and replaced with a Plas-Tic Trees factory. The animals are at a loss, until they come up with a plan to scare away the builders using sticks, burlap, and tools.  What did they create?  Did their plan work?  Ask your child to tell you what happened.

Small Groups:  The activities for this week and schedule for today are listed below.
Activity #1 (Red Group) The children listened to the story Silly Sally by Audrey Wood.  Following the story, the children had to think of a describing word that starts with the same beginning sound as their name to make a new name like Silly Sally.  An example would be Funny Fred or Smiley Susie.
Activity #2 (Yellow Group)  The children tested several items to see if they would go down a ramp.  They documented their findings by drawing the items on paper.
Activity #3 (Green Group)  The children made a book using the Let's Find Out magazine. The topic was friends and being kind to everyone.  This was to coincide with Martin Luther King Day.

Large Group:  The simple machine that we will learn about his week is the inclined plane.  My example was using a ramp to load a semi truck with boxes.  I used a toy truck, blocks to resemble boxes, and a wooden board to be the ramp.   The children are bringing home a paper today to describe an inclined plane.

Snacks:  The morning class had Annie's Cocoa Bunnies cereal and milk brought by Scarlett.  The afternoon class had Ritz crackers, peanut butter, and juice brought by Vivian.  Thank you!

Group Meeting:  Today was birthday day.  We will make our snack and celebrate the January birthdays with brownies at snack time.

Story:  Our story for today was How Do You Lift a Lion? by Robert E. Wells.  This story describes how we can use levers, wheels, and pulleys to do work.   The children in the story use a lever to lift a lion, wheels to pull a panda on a pallet, and pulleys to lift a basket of bananas to a baboon birthday party.  The text uses scientific terms such as gravity, friction, and force.  While the children might not be able to understand all of these words right now, they are becoming familiar with the vocabulary of simple machines.

Small Groups:  The children made pizza for a snack.  They used English muffins, pizza sauce, pepperoni, and mozzarella cheese.  We baked them in the oven for 14 minutes. 

Large Group:  The children completed the G page in their workbooks.  The red group brought items for show and tell.

Snacks:  The children had pizza, juice, and birthday brownies. 

We will not have preschool classes on Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. 

Group Meeting:  Since the first day of school, we have been adding a sticker to a 10 frame chart to help us count how many days we have been in school.  We count by ones and by tens.  Today, we reached day 64.  The year is flying by!

Story:  Our story for today was The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza retold by Philomen Sturges.  In this variation of the story we had yesterday, the Little Red Hen is making a pizza.  Again, she asks her friends for help in buying the ingredients and assembling the pizza, but no one will help her.  When the pizza is finished, everyone wants a slice.  Will the Little Red Hen share?  What did the friends do for the Little Red Hen at the end of the story?  Ask your child to tell you.

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed in Monday's post.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Green Group
Activity #2 Red Group
Activity #3 Yellow Group

Large Group:  The children played "Jump the River".  We placed two jump ropes on the floor parallel to each other.  We pretended that in between the ropes was a raging river.  The children had to run and jump over the river and not get their feet wet.  We started with a small stream and moved up to a wide river.  When the river got too wide, we added stepping stones and a bridge.  We had lots of running, leaping, and balancing going on!

Snacks:  The morning class had cottage cheese and juice brought by Owen.  The afternoon class had pumpkin bread and milk brought by Simon.  Thank you!

Group Meeting:  We reviewed the simple machines that we discussed yesterday.  The children have a note in their backpacks about this study.

Story:  Today, I read the Little Red Hen, retold by Bonnie Dobkin.   This is the classic story about a little red hen that lives with a cat, a dog, and a goose.  The red hen finds a bag of wheat seeds.  Will her friends help her plant the wheat so that they can make bread?  Will they help her cut the wheat, take it to the miller, and use the flour to make bread?  Will they want to eat the bread?  Ask your child to tell you how it ends.  Also, ask your child to tell you what reasons each animal gives for not wanting to help her.

Small Groups:  The activities for small groups are listed in yesterday's post.  The schedule for today was:
Activity #1 Yellow Group
Activity #2 Green Group
Activity #3 Red Group

Large Group:  After reading the story, the children used masks to retell the story.  The masks will be placed in the story area tomorrow so that they can retell it again, if they'd like.

Snacks:  The morning class had yogurt and juice brought by Mason.  The afternoon class had strawberries and juice brought by Elliott.  Thank you!

A New Study

Group Meeting:  We are going to be starting a new study this week.  We will be learning about simple machines.  A note will be going home with the children tomorrow explaining what the study will be about and how you can help.

Story:  Our story for today was Tap, Tap, Bang, Bang by Emma Garcia.  This is a picture book of tools and the sounds that they make.  The tools were working together to make something.  Ask your child to tell you what it was.

Small Groups:  The groups are back!  These are the activities and the schedule for this week.
Activity #1 (red group)  The children were introduced to 3 dimensional shapes.  They passed around a sphere, cube, cylinder, pyramid, and cone.  After they identified them all, we used a game on the Promethean board to sort items according to their 3 dimensional shape.
Activity #2 (yellow group) The children took a scoop of buttons, guessed how many were in the scoop, and counted how many after dumping them on a tray.  They compared how many were in each scoop.
Activity #3  (green group)  The children played a game called "Oh No!".   The children took turns reaching into a surprise box to pull out a capital letter card.  They were asked to identify the letter and it's sound.  They kept the card until they pulled out a card that said "oh no!"  Then they had to return all of their letter cards.

Large Group:  I introduced the new study of Simple Machines.  We defined a machine as something that does work.  A simple machine needs a person to provide the power.  We looked a various items that I had that are considered simple machines such as a scissors, tongs, screwdriver, pizza cutter, nutcracker, pliers, etc.

Snacks:  The morning class had cheese, crackers, pepperoni, and juice brought by Kolsyn.  The afternoon class had blueberries, granola cereal, and milk brought by Paxton.  Thank you!

Group Meeting:  During group meeting, I read the story The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  It is the story of Peter who discovers that while he was sleeping it has been snowing.  He puts on his snow suit and heads outside to play.  Following the story, we looked at the pictures that Keats created for this story.  During small group, the children took blue paper and chalk to create their own snow pictures.

Story:  At story time, I read Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Bruhner.  A boy notices that the snowman  he built yesterday looks a little different today.  His hat is slipping and his arms are drooping.  He wonders what has happened.  He imagines that the snowman comes alive at night and ventures to the park to play with other snowmen.  Ask your child to tell you some of the things that the snow people do in the park.

Small Groups:  See Group Meeting

Large Group:  The children experimented with ice.  At the beginning of school, I filled little paper cups with water.  We placed the cups outside.  At the end of the day, we brought them in to discover that the water had turned to ice.  We tore off the paper cups so that we could experiment with the ice.  First, we dropped two colors of liquid watercolor on the ice.  Then we sprinkled the ice with salt.  We watched to see what would happen.  Ask your child to tell you about the colors and textures of the ice.

Snacks: Because I was gone for two days, I'm going to list the snack people and their snacks for the whole week.
Tuesday-AM Jaxson brought grapes, crackers, and juice,  PM Libby brought Nutrigrain bars and milk
Wednesday- AM Jocelyn brought Goldfish and juice,  PM Mia brought crackers, peanut butter, raisins, and milk
Thursday-AM Kai brought granola bars and juice, PM Nora brought Scooby snacks and juice
Thank you, all!

Snowmen

While my daughter's surgery went very well yesterday, she ended up staying in the hospital overnight for observation. So, Mrs. Hoogheem will be leading the class for one more day. I'm glad that I could take these days off for Renee, I really miss the kids and am anxious to get back. I'm posting the plans for today.

Group Meeting: The children are starting new journals today. You may have noticed in December that the directions were getting a little more complex on some of the pages. I will be giving a few more "helps" this month for anyone who needs a little more direction.

Story: The story for today is Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.  In this story, a family is making snow people in the yard and are decorating them with items from around the house. It is fun to look at the pictures to see all of the different items that they use.

Small Groups:  The children will be learning about how animals adapt to the winter weather using the Lets Find Out magazine.

Large Group:  Following the story, the children will glue 3 paper snowballs onto a blue piece of paper. They will take it home to decorate with help from their family.

Snacks: I'll have to update the snacks tomorrow.

Back to school!

I am writing this blog a day ahead of time.  I will be absent from school on the first day back from Christmas vacation, Jan. 3rd.  My daughter is having neck surgery tomorrow in Iowa City.  If all goes as expected, I will be back on Wednesday, Jan. 4th.  So, I am posting the plans for tomorrow.  Mrs. Hoogheem will be in charge, so I'm sure everything will go just as planned.

Group Meeting:  The children will be given a chance to share stories from the holidays.  This will lead to our small group activity for the day.

Story:  The story for today was Sadie and the Snowman, by Allen Morgan.  For a whole winter, Sadie builds and rebuilds a snowman who becomes her very special friend, but it always melts. At the end of the winter, she manages to save just a little bit of her snowman for next year.

Small Groups:  This week, we will be doing small groups together.  Today, the children will draw pictures of what they remember about Christmas in their journals.  The teachers will help them print words if they would like to add narration.

Large Group:  In today's story, Sadie's snowman's face is made from various food items; crackers for eyes, a banana for the mouth, an apple for the nose, etc.  Animals come along and steal these items to eat.  Because we know that animals have a hard time finding food during the winter, the children will be making bird feeders using pipe cleaners and Cheerios.  

Snacks:  I'll have to add the snacks on Tuesday.  The snack children are Jaxson and Libby.