Monday, September 25, 2017

Our Class was a Zoo!

What a fun week we had learning about zoo animals! Without a doubt, the biggest hits this week were simply standing at the sensory bin pouring rice over toy animals and having free play with puppets. As their teacher this year, I am realizing sometimes it is the simplest things that bring the most joy and the most fun! Miss Nicole and I are truly blessed to be their teachers. 

We enjoyed reading about fun at the zoo this week with the books Goodnight Gorilla!, Walking Through the Jungle, Giraffes Can't Dance, and My Class is a Zoo! We also sang fun animal songs, including "Let's Go to the Zoo!" (for anyone who wants to pull it up on their computer at home for a few minutes). Our letter of the week was the letter Zz. You can check out our class bulletin board in the hall to see the Z is for Zebra posters we made. All of the friends in our class are doing very well identifying the letters, tracing them, sorting them, and remembering the sounds. For those of you wanting to review what we have learned so far at home, the letters we have done to this point are as follows: M, P, F, A, Z, and E. Some fun activities to practice these letters include laying out or writing letters on a mat or tray and having them find the letter you say or the sound you say, letting them trace letters in shaving cream, building letters with small pieces of food (such as cereal or raisins), and looking for these letters in books. 

To go along with our zoo theme, we also worked on patterns using colored bears, matched written numbers with a picture of that many animals, sorted animals, and played giraffe dice games. Everyone is enjoying our end of the day table trading time! You might enjoy trying pattern and sorting activities at home as well (even as simple as putting Fruit Loops in patterns or separating them into color piles). 

We continued to practice our verse of the month (Deuteronomy 31:6). Ask your child if they can say their bible verse with the motions! We also focused on how God is so powerful through reading about Daniel in the Lion's Den. They made fun lion masks (that we forgot to send home Friday). Some of us got a picture with our masks, and some of us did not want to! To review what they learned, remind them that strong lions remind us that our God is more powerful and mighty than anything in the world! He protects us and is always with us. 

Thank you for giving me the joy and privilege of being your child's teacher. I look forward to seeing them Thursday! Give them a hug from Miss Rachel. 


Matthew was careful to make the
perfect zebra!







Roar!


Who knew rice could be so much fun!





Jayden is doing great with his letters!


Animal puppets are so much fun!




Kate was our pattern expert!


Tristan found all the Zs in a flash!

Phoenix was a great helper cleaning
up this week!


Buddies!




Katelyn was giving everyone a
performance on Friday!




Phoenix might have gone home with lots
of chalk on her, but she sure had
fun painting with chalk!

Jace making a masterpiece outside!



Sunday, September 17, 2017

Fun with Apples

Apple week in our room was quite a success! We are truly learning so much and making great progress every week! Being this crew's teacher is such a joy. 

Our apple week brought with it lots of hands-on fun! We used apples to do paint printing and also painted apple cores to discuss the parts of an apple. We had a blast with "apple bobbing" with tongs, all the while practicing turns nicely, following directions, sorting colors, comparing, and counting. We also got to taste test different types of apples and create a graph of our favorites. And one of our very favorite activities was trying out apple pie!

To go along with this week, we also read several apples books, including Up! Up! Up! It's Apple Picking Time and Apple Countdown. We focused on the letter A, sorting uppercase and lowercase letters, tracing the letter, and finding the letter in books. We continued to do our table trading, focusing on counting to four, writing the numbers, matching pictures, and tracing patterns. 

We are becoming great friends in our room! We look forward to being back together this coming week!

Printing with apples is messier
than it looks!



Matthew was hard at work to make
the perfect letter A!




Jace embraced the challenge of
sorting as fast as he could!




We are letter A experts!





Katelyn was very focused on picking
the right apple!







Jace had a blast with the water table!

1, 2, 3! How many apples on your
play dough tree?


Jayden found all the matches quickly!




We are quite creative in our class!





Noah was a great construction
worker this week!



Deciding on a favorite color apple
for our apple graph proved rather difficult!




Peek!


We are learning to play together so nicely!


Yay for reading! Our library was much more popular this week!