Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Happy Tuesday Everyone!
Here is what we did today:
Calendar: In calendar today, like everyday, we checked the weather.  We came to the conclusion that it was snowy out, as snow covered the ground. We then clapped out the syllables for the word penguin.  We came the conclusion that the penguin had 2 syllables in it.  In our shape search today we searched for circles.  For alphabet matching, we had to match capital E,F,G,H with little, e,f,g,h.
Reading: In reading today, I introduced our new sight word: me.  We worked on our sight word poke page, which has a heavy emphasis on fine motor skills as the children are encouraged to make purposeful pokes and keep them tight and neat.  We then worked on tracing letter K, as this week letter K is our reading letter.  We worked on coloring our letter Kk book, while we focused on our letter Kk words, we also worked on coloring realistically.  The children independently read for 3 minutes straight today.  By independent I mean sitting with their reading rug with their book bin, reading their books using the voice in their heads.  Once their independent reading was done, the children either played their 20 grid game which helped them practice counting to 20, syllable counting, or pattern making.
Word Study: In word study we focused consonant Bb's sound.  Our worksheet had a variety of pictures, that we talked about together.  For each picture we determined it's starting letter, and if it started with letter Bb we colored it in.  I also introduced the idea of a consonant and what our five vowels are: A,E,I,O,U.
Writing: We finished up letter A in our interactive alphabet notebook today.  To continue our practice with letter A, we practiced writing capital A and lowercase a.  The children then colored a variety of pictures, and we sorted through the ones that start with a and the ones that do not.  The pictures that started with A were glued into our notebooks.
Gym: For gym today we got to go outside! Pictures below:

We even got to have a snowball fight, and Abby managed to peg me right in the face! We all fell in the snow laughing!

Math: We continued to work with the song that we learned about the sheep yesterday to play our math game today.  Our objective today was to count one to one up to 10 as well as develop beginning addition and subtraction skills.  We played a sheep shearing game (we did talk about what sheering was, and many of the children said "Like when dad cuts his hair?").  Each child had a sheep cut out with ten circles drawn on it.  We spun a spinner with numbers up to four and would put that many cotton balls on our sheep.  Once our sheep was full, we then began to take the cotton balls off.  Whoever filled up and then cleared off their sheep first won! The children had a lot of fun, and it was a really great time for me to see their counting abilities.

Geography Jumpers: Another day in Egypt today! The children completed their selfies!  We drew ourselves with the camels of Egypt, on the Nile River, next to a mummy, and us in the desert.  I think the selfies are adorable!  We then talked more about Africa, and what it means to be a continent.

Spanish: The children started their Spanish curriculum today.  This curriculum will help your child to communicate in Spanish.  Here are the phrases we learned today.  The children made posters to be used for practice at home:

Hola: Hello

Adios: Good Bye

Como estas?: How are you?

Bien: good

mal: bad

Asi Asi: So So

Come te llamas?: What is your name"

Me llamo____: My name is _________

We will continue with basic conversation and greetings on Thursday!

Art: Our art project today was to make Egyptian Headdresses.  The children used crayons, sequins, and gold paint to make beautiful headdresses!

Homework: Color by Sight Word due Wednesday February 1st.

A New Week a New Schedule!

Welcome to a brand new week!
Last week we took time to complete assessments necessary for conferences.  We looked at what was working and what we felt needed to be improved as a result we have made many changes, and I am VERY excited to share them with you.  The preschoolers have gone to a full day curriculum.
Here is what we did today:
Calendar Skills: During calendar time today, the Dragonflies worked on identifying the weather, which we concluded today was Sunny.  They then traced the month of January and we talked about it being the 30th day of January already!  The children then had to clap out the word tree and decide how many syllables it had.  The children concluded that tree has one syllable, so one snowflake was colored in.  We then reviewed our shapes, and the children colored in all of the triangles.  We talked about what makes a triangle a triangle: three sides and three vertices (edges) and that all of the sides use straight lines.  The children then worked on matching letters A-D with their little letter.  This part of their calendar was done independently and then assessed by me.
Scholastic Magazine: Our scholastic magazine today taught us all about Groundhog's day, which will be this week on Thursday February 2nd.  We talked about the legend of the Groundhog, that if the Groundhog comes out of his burrow and does not see his shadow and run back in that we will have a short winter, but that if he does see his shadow and return to his burrow that we will have six more weeks of winter.  This was a perfect time to introduce the concept of a legend to the children.  Our focus words for this scholastic magazine were burrow and hibernation.  The children then took their learning from their magazine and applied and practiced taking a survey.  They were instructed to walk through the daycare and ask five teachers if they thought that the groundhog would or would not see their shadow.  This was an independent activity, they asked the questions and picked the teachers themselves.  It was definitly a proud teacher moment to watch them walk up to the teachers and ask them "Ms. ____ do you think that the Groundhog will see his shadow? Can you write your name and put an X for yes or no?"  The teachers were very impressed with the Dragonflies ability to give clear directions and speak with confidence.  Below are the surveys that each child took, they will come home after we learn what the groundhog did on Thursday, this way we are able to see who guessed correctly:

Owen

Ms. Jordin's Class

Kendall

Megan

Harrison

Abigail

Word Study: In word study today, the children worked in their interactive notebooks.  We revisited a sight word we know, which is: for.  The children cut out their pieces, colored in the word and then used letters to build the word themselves.

Writing: In writing today, we actually revisited letter A, as we will be reviewing the first part of our alphabet as we have made it a little past the middle.  We worked on any parts of big and little A that may have been tricky.  We talked a lot about the concept of a diagonal line, and noticing where letter A reaches, and the differences in height of big and little A.  We then started our new alphabet interactive notebook.  In their notebook today, the children made an apple out of the letter A.

Gym: In Gym today, we worked on team work.  Each group of two had a bucket with bean bags in it, each bucket having the same amount of bean bags.  One partner then started with a bean bag on the end of a ruler, and when I said Go! the children had to run across the room and drop their bean bag in the bucket without spilling it!  They then had to keep going, switching off with their partner until all of the bean bags were transferred from the starting bucket to the bucket across the room!  They had so much  fun and thought it was hilarious!  We called this game: Don't Spill the Beans.  I will post videos either on here tonight or on the Facebook page :) 

Math: In math today, the children's new nursery rhyme was introduced, below is the nursery rhyme:

(sung to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It")

Oh, a little flock of sheep is having lunch. (Munch! Munch!)

They are chewing with a loud and noisy crunch! (Crunch! Crunch!)

When you open up the gate,

In come more- they're running late!

Now how many sheep are eating in this bunch? (Munch! Munch!)

I then used sheep cutouts to lay out a certain number of sheep ranging from one to ten.  I invited one of the children to come up and then count how many sheep are in this bunch. 

Science: In science today we introduced our fourth unit: Earth and Sky.  We talked about some of the things that we might see in the night sky, in the day sky, and in both in preparation for our science exploration activity on Wednesday.  We drew a picture in our science journals of the day sky, adding the sun and the blue of the morning sky.  We then colored in the picture of the Earth in our journal to show us what we would be studying this unit.

Geography Jumpers: مرحبا بكم في مصر الجغرافيا صداري! Welcome to Egypt Geography Jumpers! We traveled to Egypt today where we will be for the next three weeks. We decorated our flag and decorated our Egyptian people. Feel free to stop in and take a look! We introduced the continent of Africa, and we learned that we would need to cross the Atlantic Ocean in order to get to Egypt. We talked about many aspects of Egypt that make it unique, for example: sarcophagus, mask, mummy, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphinx of Giza, camels, deserts, the Nile River, hieroglyphs, and much more! We will be doing many fun activities on our trip through Egypt, and I cannot wait for you to see!

Computer Skills: Today in computer skills, we worked on our scholastic game.  Reminder, the scholastic games can be accessed from home with the password I gave out at the beginning of the year.  We worked through the Groundhog magazine, and we matched pictures to the description we were given.  Our main computer skill, was clicking and making the mouse go where we direct it.  

Life Skills: We continued to work on tying our shoes and today we went step by step for tying the loops.  I am hoping to get a descriptive video up by the end of the year!

Happy Monday!

- Ms. Jordin

The third pizza party will be next week Tuesday, February 7th! It will be Abby's turn to bring in a movie.  Please refer to the note home for rating policy of the movie and information on class treats for the pizza party.

NO HOMEWORK TONIGHT!

Happy Wednesday!

Sorry for the delayed post! We have been knee deep in assessments here at daycare.  This week the dragonflies are working on getting their screens updated and their assessments, such as writing, reading, alphabet recognition, and more completed. 
This is for conferences in a few weeks, to make sure that their skills are as updated as possible before we meet with you for conferences!
I will not be on the blog much more this week, however next week we will be starting new units across the board in all subjects.  We will be Geography Jumping to Egypt, we will begin our science unit all about the Earth, and we will be starting our interactive alphabet notebooks, and much much more!
I hope you have an amazing rest of your week, and if you have any questions at all please do not hesitate to ask!
Jordin

What did the Dragonflies do on Thursday January 19th...

The Dragonflies had such a busy day! 
In:
Calendar Time: we worked on our ability to identify the weather, beginning letter sounds, counting one to one correspondence to 6, and then identifying capital letter A.
Reading: the children focused their great reading abilities for three minutes! That is the highest that the children have gone in reading independently.  After they completed their independent reading, they worked in groups on counting syllables, creating patterns, and counting 1-20 on their 20 Grid game boards. 
Literacy: the children colored more of their Letter Hh book.  I was very proud to hear them read their book to me as a group without my help! It was definitely oud teacher moment :) While the children worked on coloring their letter Hh books, I read to them another chapter in our 6th Jack and Annie book Afternoon on the Amazon. We then completed our print awareness page, where the children colored a picture of a man wearing a hat, and then created a sentence beneath it.  In this time, the children are working on not only identifying the sight words that they know, but recognizing the words I say by the letters they see and the letter sounds they hear.  To finish our literacy time, the children worked on their tracing page, which allows them to work on their fine motor skills.
Word Family: our word family today was -ock.  I have noticed that when we move into the word families with three letters, it proves more difficult for the children.  I feel that this is a great time to give them a challenge.  Continued practice is in adding together the beginning sounds of the words with the word family we are learning: i.e. -bl with -ock to make block.
Nap: Definitely a fan favorite!
Science: We had quite a bit today in science today!  The children worked through their last three lessons in our living and nonliving things unit.  We talked a lot about what makes animals the same and different, and what makes plants the same and different.  We talked a lot about color, shape, movement, needs, and more!  The children then had their science test today, doing fairly well! I noticed the most struggle was in providing me two different plants and describing their similarities! This will be strengthened further in the fourth chapter of our science unit.  This can be practiced at home through identifying living and nonliving things in their own environment, and then talking about what makes them the same and then what makes them different.  To practice our knowledge of living plants and animals, the children made collages of animals and plants from magazines that we have. They cut and pasted them all on their own, and moments like these are what I live for as a teacher.  To see their knowledge created completely independent of me! Their collages will be hung in the basement for the next science unit we do, but I will post pictures below.  Feel free to stop down and see them!

Jack

 

Zachary

 

Megan

 

Abigail

 

Harrison

 

Owen

 

Kendall

There is homework tonight: The children should complete their helicopter sight word coloring sheet and return it tomorrow, if your child is not scheduled for tomorrow then please return it on Monday with their sight word worksheet and sight word find for the sight word and.
If you have any questions on homework, please feel free to comment on here and I will answer as soon as the email appears in my email.

What did we do on Tuesday January 17th...?

Happy Tuesday Everyone! Here is what we did today:
We started our curriculum by completing our calendar sheet for today.
Reading: In reading today, the children worked on independently and silently reading for two minutes straight.  When the reading was done, I conducted a sight word assessment of unit 1 and unit 2's sight words.  While I was assessing the children, the children not being assessed worked on syllable counting in words, patterning and matching upper and lower case letters together.
You can expect to find the assessment in your folders tonight.
Literacy: In literacy today, the children worked on their new sight word "and".  We introduced the sight word song and spent some time learning how and is spelled and the letters we use to spell it.  We then worked on our letter Hh books while continuing through our Jack and Annie book titled: Afternoon on the Amazon.
Geography Jumpers: In Geography Jumpers we completed our research page for Brazil, which helped us to talk about some of our favorite things from our jump to Brazil.
Word Study: In word study we worked on writing our sight word find, by tracing it and rainbow writing it. We also looked at the differing heights of each letter.  For example, f and i have very different heights.
Math: In Math today we learned a new nursery rhyme that you will find below.  With our nursery rhyme we practiced counting sheep using one to one correspondence up to 10. 

(sung to the tune of "If your Happy and You Know It")
Oh, a little flock of sheep is having lunch. (Munch! Munch!)
They are chewing with a loud and noisy crunch! (Crunch! Crunch!)
When you open up the gate,
In come more- they're running late!
Now how many sheep are eating in this bunch? (Munch! Munch!)

No Homework tonight, keep reading and make sure to check off that you read your child's take home book with them!

Ms. Jordin

What we did on Monday January 16th!

What a very busy Monday!

Scholastic Magazine: Today we started with a Scholastic Magazine.  Our magazine was on snow!  We learned about the snowman, and how he melts.  We also learned about animal tracks and who makes them.  The children were surprised to learn that they can make tracks in the snow.  We played our scholastic magazine game today, which was us creating our very own snowman!

Remember, you are able to access the scholastic magazines from home, you just need to login as a parent with a password that was given out at the beginning of the school year.  If you need it again, just let me know!

We then did a worksheet that focused on tracing lines, and a worksheet that introduced us to addition.  We talked about what the plus sign is and what the equal sign is.  We used dots to symbolize the numbers that we were adding, and then totaled them up.

Writing: Today in writing we worked on the number 10.  Our focus was making sure that our 1 and 0 were nice and squished together, while our number 10's had a nice space between them.

Word Study: In word study today, the children worked in their interactive notebook on the word find.  They cut out their pieces and then glued them in their notebook.  They worked hard on creating the word find with the correct letters.

Life Skills: Life skills is a time where we work on different skills that are in real life, in this case tying our shoes.  The children worked on tying the knot of their shoes.  Harrison below demonstrates for the camera how to tie a successful knot!

There is homework tonight, it is due tomorrow Tuesday, January 17th.  It is a worksheet that works on identifying beginning sounds in words for letters F, G, H.

Make sure to read your take home book with the kids and mark off for the reading! :)

Welcome!

I have decided that this is the best way to communicate with the parents of my dragonflies, and to show you all the amazing things that they are doing.  Here I have the ability to post videos, images, and more!  I will be creating my first post today.  This will serve as a mode of communication, please feel free to post comments on the page.  I will write what we have done for the day, our objectives, when you can be expecting assessments for certain things, and homework and their due dates. 

I will be trying very hard to post everyday, I recommend checking the page daily or weekly :)

I am excited to see where this page goes!

If you get a chance tonight, please comment on this post, so that I am aware that you are able to access the blog.

Thank you!

Ms. Jordin