Monday, September 27

We celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday today by reading Johnny Appleseed by Stephen Kellog, singing Happy Birthday, watching a video about Johnny Appleseed, and making a special apple snack!  Just before we went home we sang this song and acted it out.  It was a great day!

HERE COMES JOHNNY APPLESEED

Tune: “Mary Had a Little Lamb”    Liz Ryerson

Here comes Johnny Appleseed,

Appleseed, Appleseed,

Here comes Johnny Appleseed,

Walking all around.

See him plant his apple seeds,

Apple seeds, apple seeds,

See him plant his apple seeds

Deep down in the ground.

When his seeds grow into trees,

Into trees, into trees,

When his seeds grow into trees,

Standing oh, so high,

Watch him pick some apples red,

Apples red, apples red,

Watch him pick some apples red

As he goes walking by.

         
We also had some exciting centers today!  We played with our cardboard blocks and the Noah's Ark set; we worked on our October calendar; and we started putting together some harder puzzles.

Wednesday, September 22

We had some new activities during our morning work today.  Some of us linked unifix cubes and compared sizes of our stacks and talked about the colors we used.  Some of us cut our new brightly colored paper, and some of us spent time working on our good old puzzles!

We had another busy day at centers.  We played with our Little People tubs again--we were so good at sharing!  Mrs. Hennessey helped us string beads into different patterns and Miss Kathleen helped us start practicing our names on paper and on our doodle-pads.

We also started checking books out of our classroom library today.  These are books that we take home, read and share, and then return to the classroom.  Right now we're looking at farm books, next week we'll have some more to pick from.

Monday, September 20

Our room was so quiet today!  We were so busy working on our centers that we were hardly making a sound!  It was the first time we had played with our collection of Little People toys and we loved it!  We're going to play with these again this week--and maybe next week too!

We also used geoboards for the first time.  In addition to working our hand and finger muscles, we talked about the different sizes and colors of the rubber bands.  We made a lot of different shapes and pictures with our bands and boards.  The only thing that we didn't like was that we couldn't take our designs home with us!

Last but not least we painted with watercolors!  This was another first for our classroom and we worked really hard at learning how to use our paints, cleaning off our brushes, and being artists!

 

Friday, September 17

What a busy day!  In centers today we made apple trees, played in housekeeping and worked on some games--including matching up our pictures!

Monday, September 13

As we work our way through some of our farm themed projects this month and next, we're talking about farm animals, farm machines, and what farmers grow.  Today we spent some time at one of our centers tasting and then making peas! 

opening and tasting sugar snap peas

ro

rolling our paper peas

counting our peas in a pod

We also used our housekeeping center for the first time today.  We had our kitchen and our dishes and our chef's apron.  One group even served their food at their own restaurant!  Mrs.  Hennessey worked with us at the playdoh table.  We used cutters and rollers and sea creature shapes to make all kinds of cool things.  It was fun!  Maybe we'll get to do playdoh again soon!

setting the table

creating with playdoh

Friday, September 10

As we finish up the week, I just wanted to give our families a glimpse into our day with some of the developmental reasons behind a couple of our early morning activities.  I'll do this periodically throughout the year.  If you ever have a question about any of the activities we're doing, feel free to ask!




8:50-9:10 Table work: As we wait for everyone to arrive, we work on our fine motor skills. After hanging up their backpacks, the children choose a table to work at. This week we've had out puzzles (These will often be a morning choice because they help with so many pre-school skills!), coloring, and scissors. Learning to use scissors correctly is a big deal for this age! At this time we're not worrying about what our cut-outs look like, we're just working on holding scissors and paper correctly and being able to cut.

9:15-9:30 Rug Time:  We check our calendar each day to practice counting and our days of the week. This also give me the opportunity to talk a little about holidays and birthdays.  This week we've been looking at the little 3X5 photos that I took of the children to practice the names of our classmates. Depending on time and interest, we might have a story to start the day—or we might just get ready for our centers.

Thank you for all you've done to get the year off to a great start!

Wednesday, September 8

Today it seemed as if we had been in school for two months instead of just two days! We followed directions, shared with our friends, finished our center work, and walked in a line to and from the playground! (It really was a wonderful thing to see how smoothly today went in our room!)




When we first came into the room we picked from coloring pig pictures, cutting with scissors, or working puzzles. Everyone got busy really quickly. Soon it was time to come up on the rug where we practiced learning each other's names, counting on our calendar, and singing our Days of the Week song. Then we went to centers.
(Here's a link to the song lyrics.  It's sung to the tune of the old Addam's Family theme song.  We clap instead of snap and haven't done any of the other motions yet.) http://www.songsforteaching.com/drjean/daysofweek.htm



Some of us started out playing in our block center with mega-blocks and giant blocks, while others worked with Miss Kathleen using chalkboards. Mrs. Hennessy helped the rest of us of us make our September calendars to bring home for our refrigerators. By the time we finished centers, everyone had been to every center AND learned how to clean up at each one!

Our other big excitement was going out onto the playground. As you can tell from our pictures, we had a great time!

Friday, September 3

Even though it was a short day, we got a lot accomplished! We started out by practicing our fine motor skills with puzzles and crayons, then we came up on the rug so Miss Kathleen and Mrs. Hennessy could finish learning our names!

Next it was time for centers. While some of us built with mega-blocks on the front rug, Mrs. Hennessey helped us make apple trees for our September placemats, and Miss Kathleen helped us tear paper and glue it onto apple shapes. After we cleaned up, we all walked down the hallway for our first official bathroom break! We did a great job!

It was almost time for us to go home, but first we had to have our snack. We helped our teachers count out five teddy grahams on each of our napkins (and then three more if we ate the first ones!) Then we came up to the rug to hear the story of Henny Penny, a silly chicken who thought the sky was falling! We were so busy clucking, crowing, and quacking that we ran out of time and didn't get to finish the book! Oh well, we'll try again Wednesday!