We had a big ending to our music study.  A big thank you goes to Dr. Benjamin, who took time from his busy schedule to come and play the guitar and sing with us.  He also brought a ukulele that the children passed around to examine and play.

The children were also excited that Mrs. Tipton let them play the big drums in music class.  Activities like this help children learn to appreciate different musical instruments. Music can affect children’s literacy development and academic performance.

We worked on our one-to-one correspondence by counting flowers, cutting out the appropriate number, and glueing the number beside the correct ten frame.  They did an amazing job with this activity. They will be on display for Grandparents Day.

We are on the exercise study.  Why are we studying exercise in PreK?  Our bodies are made to move. Young children are in nearly constant motion when they are awake.  A study of exercise not only offers opportunities for children to explore a topic that interests them, but also enables them to gather information, become more aware of the world around them, and solve problems.  The children will explore many types of exercise and also learn about nutrition and jobs related to exercise.

Our home living center has been turned into a gym!!  This has been the most popular center, and thank you to those that have sent equipment for us to use during this study.

The boys and girls played a fun roll the dice, look at your key, and draw a snowman game.  They rolled a number, and had to look at their key to determine what part of the snowman they had to draw.  What a great activity to help sharpen our counting skills!

We reviewed letters that we have had so far this year.  I taped butcher paper to the floor, called out the letter, and the children had to write that letter in their section of the paper.  They loved this activity!! Young children’s alphabet knowledge, especially their ability to rapidly name letters and numerals in random order, is a strong predictor of later reading, writing, and spelling ability.

The children explored dance and movement concepts in P.E.  One of the first ways that children express themselves is through movement.  Each new movement gives children more information about the capabilities of their bodies. Preschool children demonstrate knowledge of dance and movement in many ways when they use scarves and streamers as they respond to music.   

We are learning about symmetry in Pre-K.  For this activity the children were told to make the pictures match, copy the lines to make the picture symmetric.  I explained that symmetry means for both sides to look exactly the same. They had to make their drawing match the picture.  With this activity the children were introduced to a topic that will be discussed in their math classes from now until college; and depending on which career they choose, even longer.  Symmetry is found everywhere in nature and is also one of the most prevalent themes in art, architecture, and design. It seems to be such a small aspect of the study of Geometry, however it is an integral component connecting mathematics to the real world.  Children have a natural interest in finding balance. What better way to feed that curiosity then by teaching a basic understanding of symmetry?

We turned home living into our music store and filled it with all different kinds of musical instruments!  So far, it’s a favorite center for everyone!!

The children worked on spatial relationships and shapes by working with geoboards.  Children do not develop their ideas about shapes by simply looking at them. They need to manipulate, draw, compare, describe, sort, and represent the shapes in a variety of ways.

We had a Christmas Show and Tell this week.  Show and Tell for preschoolers is so important because it teaches the appropriate uses of conversation and other communication skills.  Conversations involve back-and-forth exchanges. Conversations are important to children’s cognitive and social-emotional learning. Children also must learn the social rules of communicating.  This involves being polite, speaking so the listener understands, and turn-taking.

It is easy to get caught up in the rush of the Christmas holiday and lose focus on what is the true meaning of Christmas. We are so blessed to be able to teach our students about Jesus’ birth and talk openly about God at St. James. The Pre K classes joined together and performed the Nativity story. The children were very dedicated to learning the songs, and movements for the program. How impressive these children are! They memorized songs, lines, moving parts and all of this requires a tremendous amount of focus and commitment. They are such a courageous group of children, it isn’t easy to perform in front of a large audience especially when it is full of your loved ones.

One of the many things I love about St. James is that the students are taught, not only to be caring people, but to be good citizens.  To help instill these characteristics, every grade level is responsible for taking on community service projects. Not just one, but several a semester. Some classes go to retirement homes and sing, bring and participate in interactive projects, and/or donate items that will lift the residents hearts. Other classes volunteer to serve at the local homeless shelter, pick up litter, and gather supplies for the needs of local community centers/shelters/projects.  Students are encouraged to be an active participant in their community and go beyond a monetary donation. We teach the children to give their time and themselves.

Both Pre-K classes participated in our first community service project of the year.  On Halloween, the children dressed up in their costumes and visited Opportunities, Inc.  While at Opportunities, Inc., they sang fun Halloween songs to the students. The classes looked forward to singing to the students and hoped that they made them laugh and made their day a little brighter.  We had our Halloween party at the Ashby farm following singing. The children enjoyed playing, having a hayride, playing games, and eating lunch.

Pumpkin math and science was a big hit with the children this week.  Skills such as estimating (estimating a quantity weaves in mental computations that require problem solving and critical thinking), tallying (a quick way of keeping track of numbers in groups of 5), classifying (everyday activities that involve sorting are the beginning concepts of children developing math skills), and measuring circumference (we used yarn to measure our pumpkin, a great introduction to different forms of measurement).

First, the boys and girls used their yarn to measure the circumference around the largest pumpkin.  Next, they estimated the number of lines on the pumpkin. Various answers were given, and Drew was our winner with an estimation of 11.  After that, estimations were recorded in regard to the pumpkins weight, Ben came closest with his estimation of 20 lbs. Finally, we tallied the number of people who thought the pumpkin would float in water, and those who thought it would not float. To our amazement it floated! Hands on learning is always the best!!

We have started our roads study! Why investigate roads? Roads are all around us.  Roads take us to school, to the store, and to visit family and friends. When riding in vehicles, children gaze out of the windows and watch the world go by.  They delight in pointing out features on the road that, for adults, are simply part of the landscape: light poles, reflector bumps, overpasses, and bridges. In the classroom, roads become a key feature in the Block area, when children push toy cars from one building to another.  A study of roads provides children with an opportunity to learn how roads are made, where roads take us, how we can stay safe on the road, and the features that make up a road. When children work together to create roads, they use a variety of skills to plan, write, draw, build, and negotiate with others.

Our focus question for the week was what do we know about roads?  Here are our answers:

Scout - “they can have street lights”

Ben - “they have stop signs”

Dovie - “some are made out of cement”

Rhett - “some have red lights”

Natalie - “you drive your car on roads”

Katelyn - “there are bridges on some roads”

We have added many cars and a race track to our cars/block center. The children are enjoying building roads out of wooden blocks.

We colored, counted and graphed shape objects on ghosts!! They all did an awesome job on this activity.  They are hanging up in the hallway…...check them out. Activities like this are helping them learn the verbal number sequence and one-to-one correspondence.

The children worked on geoboards and learned about spatial relationships and shapes.  Understanding spatial relationships and shapes helps children build the foundation for understanding geometry. Children who have strong spatial sense do better in mathematics.

We played Boggle Junior this week.  Why are we playing board games in PreK?  Young children are learning all the time, and all types of “play” can give them opportunities to learn.  Playing Boggle Junior gives them the opportunity to start to learn, practice and improve their letter and word recognition skills.  The object of the game is to match letters on letter cubes with letters on picture/word cards; and race against the timer. Games like this are demonstrating positive approaches to learning.  When children have a positive approach to learning, they are likely to want to learn more.