Wednesday, September 11

As we've gotten more comfortable coming to school, there's been a lot more playing and interaction at our Morning Work tables!

At our rug center today we continued to play with our dollhouse and the colored wooden blocks.  At Miss Paula's center we worked our hand and finger muscles by rolling and cutting playdoh--with some glitter in there too!  At Miss Kathleen's center, we practiced our scissor skills and started learning to use tape!  (Pulling out a piece of tape and using the edge to tear it off is a fairly complex fine motor skill.  You might have found a mess of paper and balls of tape in your child's backpack today, but this is definitely an exercise where the process is more important than the product!)

After we cleaned up our centers, we went out to the playground.  After we came in and washed our hands, we sang Happy Birthday to one of our friends and had a special birthday snack!

Monday, September 9

We've settled into our morning routine very quickly!  We come in and play at our Morning Work at the tables and on the rug; come up to the rug for our Morning Circle Time; take a bathroom break; and then start our centers.

We've been practicing the Pledge of Allegiance and our Salute the Flag song at Morning Circle since our first day.  Today we added Days of the Week and counting off the days in September on the calendar.

  

Days of the Week 

(Tune: "The Addams Family") 

Days of the week. (clap, clap)

Days of the week. (clap, clap)

Days of the week. Days of the week. 

Days of the week. (clap, clap)

There's Sunday and there's Monday, 

There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday, 

There's Thursday and there's Friday, 

And then there's Saturday.

At Miss Paula's center today we used geoboards!  These help us with our fine motor skills when we stretch the rubberbands over the little pegs.  There's also a lot of verbal learning as we discuss colors, shapes, and design ideas.  As we finished our with our geoboards and waited for our friends to finish in their centers, some of us made sticker pictures.

At our rug center, we continued to build with our colored wood blocks, and we also added the dollhouse.  Everyone did a great job of sharing! 

At Miss Kathleen's center, we learned to use glue pots independently and then put glitter on some gingerbread men!  As we finished we worked at some coloring papers and talked about keeping our crayon marks inside the lines on coloring sheets.

After cleaning up our centers we went out on the playground where we always have fun!

Friday, September 6

We've enjoyed having our Potato Heads at the rug for our Morning Work this week.  Today we made some silly potatoes!

At Miss Kathleen's center today, we used a big kid pencil to draw a face, some crayons to color it in, and then peeled off some stickers to decorate our paper.  (While the boys and girls were working on this, it gave me a chance to start my evaluations.  I watched to see which hand was used in drawing/coloring; whether or not each child was gripping the writing utensil correctly; and how developed their fine motor skills were in peeling the stickers off of the sticker sheet.  This gives us a baseline to work with in planning centers and activities.)

At Miss Paula's center, we used scissors to cut shapes from some long strips of paper and then we drew and wrote on our chalkboards.  (This gave another opportunity to observe handedness and to see which children could cut independently.  We'll work on using scissors and building our grip throughout the year.)

At our rug center, we continued with imaginary play in our kitchen and introduced some of our wooden blocks.  (Often on the first day of play with a new activity, there's a lot of exploration.  Children often play alone, investigating and trying things out.  By day two and three, there's more interaction and some teamwork starting.  Often we'll leave centers out for a week to develop this.  A little later in the year, we'll ask for parent volunteers to come in and guide/mentor some of our rug centers.  Having an adult model block building/planning or puppet play can help kids view materials in new ways.)

After we cleaned up our centers, we went out on the playground where we had a blast!

When we came back in we had a bathroom break and made sure we washed our hands--because even if our hands didn't look dirty, they had invisible germs on them!  Then we sang Happy Birthday and had a special snack!

We had a great day!  Enjoy the weekend!

Wednesday, September 4

When we come into the classroom each morning we have choices of things to do on our tables and on the rug.  We often have coloring, puzzles, small blocks, or other manipulative materials to keep us busy until all of our friends arrive.

Next we help clean up and come up to the rug where we talk about the calendar, say the Pledge of Allegiance, hear a story and/or sing a song, and hear a little about our day before we all line up to take a bathroom break.  Today we read a book about The Gingerbread Man and learned our Classroom Rules song.  

To the tune of Frere Jacques: Looking eyes, listening ears, quiet voices, quiet voices...Helping, helping hands; walking, walking feet; classroom rules, classroom rules.

The next part of our day is centers.  We take turns going to three different centers with our friends.  Today at Miss Kathleen's center we painted with bubble wrap.  Our paintings turned out so great--and we had fun!  At Miss Paula's center we worked on our September placemats.  We'll use those at snack time to help us find our seats and keep neat!  At our rug center we played independently with our kitchen center and our Little People farm set.  We did a great job of sharing and working together.

Then it was time to go out on the playground!  

We learned our three playground rules: 

• No fence!  
• Slide DOWN the slide on your BOTTOM!
• Don't pick up the mulch!

Then we had fun!  We loved the fire truck, the sliding board, and playing with our friends.

We came back inside and took a bathroom break and washed up for snack.  We had a special snack today with a sweet gingerbread man cookie and some salty tortilla chips.  After snack we returned our class library books and chose new ones, did a little more singing and dancing, and talked about our favorite part of the day.  We were all tired by the time our families came!

Run, run, as fast as you can

You can't catch me--I'm the Gingerbread Man!