Friday, January 10, 2020

Happy New Year!

We are all about Penguins in 2020!







Math & Science:
We are discovering all sorts of facts about penguins, like their black and white coloring to camouflage  themselves, Emperor Penguins are the largest, penguins are birds but cannot fly, the males take care of the egg for 2 months while the females are hunting at sea, and then take over when the chicks hatch, and many more fun facts.  Ask them to tell you all about penguins!

We are playing with penguins on icebergs in the sensory ben, as the children keep the penguins safe from their predators!  We have frozen icebergs and ocean water.  :) .

We wrote on penguins tummies to add numbers and then built towers to represent the sum of the numbers.  It was fun for them to make up their own equations and then count them as a group with their friends!  We all need to practice our number formation/writing.

The children used connecting blocks to measure themselves as they counted and recorded the number and then compared their height to the Emperor Penguin.  I love activities where they work in pairs and groups to help each other.



















Literacy:
We are concentrating on the vowel sounds and the different beginning and ending sounds in words, as we begin to fill in the vowel sounds.  These basics are important for our pre-literacy as well as those children who are already reading as the stronger their understanding the better they are at decoding which increases their fluidity which increases their level of comprehension...it's all building blocks.

We are playing a "Word Shark" game by adding letters to make words.  The shark teeth fill in their cards and the first full card wins!  This makes recognition and word creation fun and more meaningful as they are actively building words as they place the shark teeth.

Fine Motor:
We created January calendars by painting with tubes we cut and squished into paint!  They added confetti and glitter to finish their 2020 fireworks pictures!

The children made penguins by tearing construction paper and gluing the pieces together to make a penguin.  They added a beak and flippers too.  The tearing of paper is a great way to build fine motor skills!

We are playing multiple Penguin games.  Happy Feet Mumbles Tumbles, requires balancing the birds on an iceberg to practice balance and spatial awareness.  Pengaloo is another favorite.

Social Emotional:
The children are learning many movements from our Penguin movement songs, as they waddled and flipped their flippers in sequence.  We discussed the rookeries and how they could help out if they were living in a colony with hundreds or thousands of other penguins.

We watched the Disney movie about Steve the Penguin.  It is an incredible movie/documentary following a penguin through his life in Antarctica.  The children loved rooting for him through all of his adversities and triumphs, including becoming a daddy-WITH TWO EGGS to care for and then two chicks!

We had a great PJ party filled with lots of hugs for Ms. Yonan.  She's forever in our hearts!  What an amazing time to have her in their/our lives.  We will miss her so much.

Have a great weekend!

Ms. Massey


Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Hi JK Parents!

Literacy:
We are preparing for our party this week and have been learning the correct way to write the letter "Kk".  We made a list of everything we could think of that begins with the letter K, and talked about the letter C having the same sound.  We also put the letter G in letter jail, as we have learned it makes the "G" sound as in Gorilla, but in Gingerbread it makes the "J" sound!  This English language thing is tricky!  Just as they have learned the sounds, the rules change and there are many exceptions.  We stamped, traced, and wrote our "Kk" letters, as well as filling capital and lower case K's writing as many letters that would fit!  K's are tricky as the place to begin the second stroke of the letter is at the very top again, and not from the first line drawn that seems more natural.

We had the pleasure of meeting a visiting author and learning about her plan to get a selfie with Santa in her story.  We love that Ms. Hilda schedules interesting events for Early Childhood!  They loved
it!


Math & Science:
We completed an experiment with Gingerbread paper people, submerging them in water for different periods of time and making predictions about what would happen!  They were excited to check on the "one day" gingerbread person.  The poor thing was a sad looking, missing all of the decorations, eyes, smile, and legs beginning to tear.  We recorded our observations and talked about new words like submerged, dissolve, and saturated.

Fine Motor:
The children made winter scenes by cutting snowflakes and painting them onto a background using reverse print.  We had play dough time as we all work to strengthen those fine muscles and improve our writing and dexterity in many activities.



We chased those Gingerbread cookies all over the school and finally found them back in our classroom!  Those sneaky little cookies left us clues and the children were amazing at figuring out where to look next.  Thank you to you all for helping us put together such a wonderful party for the kids.

Please consider taking some time to go out and have dinner while your children are having fun and being cared for at Roycemore!  Here's the link!  The middle school is fundraising for the NYC trip and would love your support!

https://forms.gle/YuZULHpjPD42MzTKA










I hope you all have a wonderful winter break and a joyful holiday.  I will follow up in the new year with pics of our amazing Gingerbread Party!  I will be missing all of your sweet children as I play with my puppy Charlie and enjoy some Chicago fun with Lila and friends!  I am so happy to be doing what I love each day and am so blessed with this class of great kiddos.

Stay warm!

Ms. Massey