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!