Having lots of fun!

Well, we are well into the new school year and everything is going great!! We are having tons of fun and already learning lots! All of my friends are doing a great job remembering all of their tasks when they first arrive....get their folder, move their picture, choose snack drink, hang up backpack, write name, soapy soap on hands, then go to table toys...whew! Lots to do, but they are doing great!

PRETEND CENTER
The first few weeks we had the pretend kitchen set up and everyone loved it. After that we transformed our kitchen into a grocery store...boy was that fun shopping for empty cereal and drink containers! Last week we closed up the kitchen and store and set up the bus station with our pop up bus. We visited many places in our bus and took turns being the driver...watch out...wild drivers in here! This week in our pretend center we are doing office. Today was lots of fun pretending to type on the keyboards and write letters to our friends. A few parents are getting lots of beautiful sticker filled envelopes today :)

ART CENTER
At the art table we have been very busy learning all about all the different things we can use at the art table...glue, scissors, paper, stickers, crayons, markers...and the list goes on! We completed our first official art project...a school bus last week. We worked with our scissors on cutting out a big rectangle, smaller square and two circle wheels. That proved to be a challenge for some, but that's okay...those scissors can be tricky little things, but we will figure it out! We are proudly displaying our busses on our art wall in our classroom. This week we are making apple trees...but not just any ordinary apple trees. You might have noticed your child came home with some extra coloring on their little feet today :) That's because we painted the bottom on one of our feet brown and stomped on paper to make a tree trunk. Then we painted our hands green to make the tops of our tree. Tomorrow we will add apple stickers! Next week we will construct our own apple shakers to play during circle time!

FINE MOTOR
Each morning we have the chance to work on some fine motor tasks....things we do with our little fingers. So far our favorite has been lacing and stacking small pegs to make a tall tower. We have also started working on our Handwriting With Out Tears workbooks. Each week we will do 1-2 pages and work our way through the book. So far we have just been practicing coloring in small circles. This week and next we will start working on tracing lines down and across.

CIRCLE TIME
Circle time is definitely one of our favorites! Each day we come to circle when the clean up music comes on (after we clean up of course). We have to find our names on our chair and hold our name card until all our friends make it over. First we sing our "where oh where oh" song to find out who is at school today. Next we sing our hello song then talk about our star helper jobs. We have talked about that we have to share our jobs and sometimes we dont get the job we wanted, but maybe next week will get that job. Waiting is so hard sometimes! Next in circle we talk about the weather and do calendar. If we have time we sing a few songs or do a movement activity. We listened to the Goldfish song last week...its pretty darn fun!

I will continue to update on our various activities in the classroom. Be sure to click on the Lesson Plans tab above to see the plans for each week. This would be a great way to ask your child about what they did at school each day! :)