12/21 Classroom Update

Thank you all for such a wonderful first semester and all of your generosity this holiday season. It is such a gift to be able to teach your children each day, and I am so very thankful that you share them all with me each day. Thank you as well to all of the parents who donated their time and resources to our winter party - our preschoolers had a blast!

This week, we read the classic story The Mitten by Jan Brett and practiced retelling the story through song and play in the snow table. We worked on using adjectives/describing words to describe things, and described our own mittens that we designed and stitched. We also read our The Mitten mini-books that follow a pattern. Your preschooler can practice reading it at home too! We also began working on simple addition! I apologize for my lack of pictures this week with being out due to illness on Monday and Tuesday, but here a couple of pictures from our mitten exploration:

We wrote our own class book of The Mitten where each preschooler picked a different animal to climb into their mitten.

After coloring and describing our mittens, we stitched the outside of our mittens with yarn. 

Important Dates/Reminders:

Winter Break: School will be closed from December 21st - January 4th. Classes resume Monday, January 7th!

No School 1/21: There is no preschool on Monday 1/21 in observance of Martin Luther King Day.

Mid-Winter Break: There will be no preschool on Monday 2/18 and Tuesday 2/19 for a mid-winter break. School will resume on Wednesday 2/20.

Happy holidays from my family to yours! Wishing you all a relaxing, wonderful winter break full of holiday magic and blessings!

See you in 2019!

12/14 Classroom Update

Thank you to all the parents who came to Parent Teacher Conferences on Tuesday night. I really enjoyed meeting with you all and sharing your child's progress so far this year. I can't wait to see how they continue to grow over the course of the year!

This week, we read several versions of the classic story The Gingerbread Man. We continued to practice sequencing story events, focusing on the beginning, middle, and end. We sequenced the steps to making gingerbread cookies, then worked together to bake real gingerbread cookies! Luckily ours did not run away :) Here is peek at our week in preschool:

After reading The Gingerbread Baby, we made our own gingerbread houses for our gingerbread babies.

We reenacted the story of the Gingerbread Baby in the snow table. 

In our classroom bakery, preschoolers could take each other's cookie orders, bake cookies, and decorate cakes!

We practiced recognizing quantities by playing Gingerbread Roll & Cover.

We identified and wrote the beginning sound of different holiday words. 

At the writing center, we wrote several gingerbread words using many different tools!

 

We "ice skated" around the classroom on paper plates!

On Thursday, we worked together to bake gingerbread cookies!

We all got to help by adding in the different ingredients.

Cutting out our own cookies!

At the playdough center, we rolled and cut out playdough cookies.

After baking our gingerbread cookies, we decorated and ate them at snack time! They were a big hit! If anyone is interested in making quick and easy gingerbread cookies at home, this is the recipe we used to make ours at school: https://www.lilaloa.com/2013/12/no-chill-gingerbread-roll-out-cookies.html. 

Important Dates/Reminders:

Pajama Day: WECC will be having pajama day on Thursday 12/20 next week! Students are invited to wear their pajamas and slippers (make sure to bring shoes/boots for outside) to class!

Winter Party: Please join us for a fun winter party from 2:15-3:00 pm in our classroom this coming Thursday, December 20th! We are looking for volunteers to help make our party special for our preschoolers. To sign up to help, please go here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0F4DACA62AA2FE3-pm5s1.

Winter Break: The last day of preschool classes before Winter Break is Thursday, December 20th. School resumes Monday, January 7th!

No School 1/21: There is no preschool on Monday 1/21 in observance of Martin Luther King Day.

Mid-Winter Break: There will be no preschool on Monday 2/18 and Tuesday 2/19 for a mid-winter break. School will resume on Wednesday 2/20.

Have a great weekend!

12/7 Classroom Update

This week, we began learning about winter and discussing fun things to do in the wintertime! We read lots of great stories about snow and snowmen, including Snowmen at Night. After reading Snowmen at Night, we practiced retelling the story with a beginning, middle and end. Here is a glimpse of more winter fun from this week in preschool:

We made dalmatian doggies for our letter books!

After reading Sneezy the Snowman, we painted melted snowmen and wrote about how our snowmen melted!

At the playdough center, we built snowmen out of snow playdough!

We added buttons, eyes and other decorations to our snowmen!

We built snowflakes with pattern blocks!

We practiced writing our letters and quizzing our neighbors on etch-a-sketches before working on the letters D and B in our Handwriting Without Tears books!

After reading The Snowy Day, we used special snow paint to paint our own snowy day scenes. 

In the sensory table, we played with polar animals in the "snow"!

Important Dates/Reminders:

Parent Teacher Conferences:  I'm looking forward to meeting with you all on this coming Tuesday, December 11th in the Woodcliff Board Room. This week, I sent home a pre-conference form in your child's folder. Please take a few minutes to fill it out and return it on Monday. To sign up, change or check your conference time, please visit the following link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0F4DACA62AA2FE3-pm5s.

Winter Party: Please join us for a fun winter party from 2:15-3:00 pm in our classroom on Thursday, December 20th! We are looking for volunteers to help make our party special for our preschoolers. To sign up to help, please go here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0F4DACA62AA2FE3-pm5s1.

Winter Break: The last day of preschool classes before Winter Break is Thursday, December 20th. School resumes Monday, January 7th!

Have a great weekend!