Our PreSchool Blog

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in words. We know that a student’s skill in phonemic awareness is a good predictor of later reading success or difficulty.  We have continued our study of phonemic awareness through the exploration of word families.  Our first word family of focus was the -at family.  After becoming familiar with our at family reader, the students enjoyed buddy reading throughout the classroom.  Reading and rereading text allows students to become more proficient in fluency and and have more practice with the reading strategies they have learned so far!

Last week we learned all about the letter M.  We practiced writing it, finding it, and sorting them by upper and lowercase.    It was good practice for cutting, gluing, and sorting as well.  They worked so hard on this activity and there were lots of proud moments!!  Their little serious and proud faces say it all!

We enjoyed an art exploration activity last week where we got to sponge paint some snowmen with marshmallows!  It was a very fun and messy activity!

The preschool class is in the middle of their Antarctic Habitat Study and we have learned a lot!  The Antarctic is a very cold habitat and that has lots of water.  We learned about various animals that live in this habitat and about  whether they live on the land, in the water, or in the air, and some, a combination of them.  We stuck our hands in freezing, icy, cold water and discovered it would be very hard to swim in water that cold.

So how do these animals do it?  We learned that they have lots of blubber that keeps them warm!  So we tried to stick our hands in the water again, this time with them “covered in blubber” and discovered that it was not cold at all this way!

We also learned about the icebergs that are found in the Antarctic.  We added a little math study into our lesson and got to play a “Melt the Iceberg” game!

We got to have a little fun with some sensory play and made Antarctic animal tracks in some sparkly playdough snow!

There is nothing better on a cold day than some warm and comforting soup! We read the book, “Chicken Soup with Rice” by Maurice Sendak, and then our friends helped make some chicken soup…with rice! They each took a turn adding in a different ingredient.

Our friends got to try chicken soup with rice, along with rectangle crackers at snack time!

Our art project was also focused on chicken soup with rice, so our friends used different colored rice and glue to make a bowl of pretty colored chicken soup with rice! They had fun using their fine motor skills to scoop the rice, pour it on the paper, and then shake it until it stuck to the glue.

Snow is falling and the temperature is dropping…What a perfect time to make hot chocolate! The Preschool Prep Students took turns stirring and adding ingredients into our mix. They were able to enjoy their hot chocolate at snack time!

It sure doesn’t feel like it is winter but we are still celebrating it in the classroom!  This week we practiced number recognition and counting with a snowman game.  First we rolled a koosh and whatever number it landed on or closest to is how many snowflakes we counted!  We had so much fun with this activity and everyone already asked when they will get to do it again!

Exploring classroom centers is some of our students favorite time of day!  We change the centers once a month, and the children are so excited to explore all the new activities and experiences each month.  Learning centers are an important part of preschool.  Learning centers are defined areas with activities, within a classroom, where children can explore and learn with hands-on materials. Learning centers allow for independently guided play with peers, social interactions and problem solving practice.  Research shows that young children learn best through active, hands-on play; learning centers engage children and make learning fun. Children manipulate materials, explore ideas, discover consequences, build, create and express themselves through art. To parents it may look like children are “just playing,” but this is play with a purpose. Through carefully planned learning centers, children learn important concepts and life skills in ways that are meaningful to them.

Notice the “snow” that’s EVERYWHERE?  It’s the favorite new center for January…the Antarctic habitat in the sensory table.  It may be everywhere…messy is the most fun!

School is back in swing and the Preschool Prep class is working hard and having fun! Today we practiced counting buttons onto snowmen and sorting our shapes!