1st Day of School!

What an exciting first day of school! Today our focus was on becoming comfortable in our new preschool setting, and getting to know our friends. We played some getting to know you games where we learned a bit about each other, and some name games to help learn our friends names. 

We also worked on recognizing our own names by sight with these name puzzles below. We worked on putting them in order in class, and brought them home to practice at home as well. They did a great job!! It is helpful to note to them that their first letter in their name is an uppercase letter, and that the rest of the letters are lowercase.

We also talked about teamwork today, and how when we work as a team, things get done quicker everyone is happy. We used these team walkers, and they had a hard time doing them at first, until they figured out how to work together and use some good communication skills.

We also had some interactive block and magnet centers, not only just for fun, but to help the kids learn how we rotate from center to center and transition in the classroom. 

And, we had to discuss the rules of course. They are short and simple. One of the big problems that I have with the kids at this age is sharing, and hitting if they don't share. If you would just talk with your kids about what sharing means, that would be greatly helpful to me!! :) 

We celebrated two birthdays this week! A big birthday hoorah to both Bridger and Rocky!

Happy Birthday Bridger!

Happy Birthday Rocky!

First Day of School is coming!!

School is here! Can't wait to see everyone! The first day of school for my Monday-Wednesday class is Wednesday, September 4th. The first day for my Tuesday-Thursday class is Thursday, September 5th! Call me if you have any questions. We will see you then!!

Safari animals

It's a zebra, it's a giraffe, it's a 

tiger, oh my! 

We could tell you what it is....by its pattern! We talked about all different safari animals this past week, and we talked about the different printed skin that each one has too.

We even made some of our own prints with our animal print stencils!

For our writing center, we had an animal alphabet book. We brought it home for extra practice, so help us remember to write in it! 

We put our uppercase and lowercase alphabet in order with these animal alphabet puzzles. 

We practiced spelling 3-letter words with our bananagrams. I found these sheets on pinterest here. 

Can you tell an animal by its sound? We practiced with our safari themed animal scramble game. The animal would make a sound, and we would have to cover that animal with the giraffe topper. It timed us as we went through a certain amount of animals, and we tried to improve on our time each round.

We talked about crocodiles and alligators this week too. Do you know the difference? We learned some differences. Some differences are that crocodiles have a longer head while an alligators is shorter and more U-shaped. Crocodiles have a fourth tooth that sticks out when its mouth is closed. And, alligators often appear darker skinned than crocodiles.

We also played this crocodile dentist game below. All of his teeth need pulled, but if you wiggle the wrong one, he will bite you! Oh snap!

And, we had this crocodile game I also found on pinterest here. Our version that we played was where we each took a card from the crocodile's mouth, and if it was a letter we were safe, But, if we grabbed a card that said "snap" on it, we had to give our cards to another player. The person with the most cards after all the cards were gone from the crocodile wins.

We used our math links for our math center, and called it monkey math. We worked on our addition skills this week. We took a monkey and added the amount of links written on its belly. We then did this with a sencond monkey, and then put the links together to see what the two numbers together added up to be.Check it out below.

We read a book this week called "Handa's Surprise". In this book, Handa carries some fruit in a basket on her head, and while she is carrying it to a friend, certain safari animals steal pieces of it on her way. At this center we practiced balancing baskets of fruit on our head, just like Handa!

Monkeying Around!

Our stars of the week this week are:

The incredible Ian

and the Magnificent Madison