BUILDINGS

This week we started our investigation of buildings. This unit has five investigations that we will explore. The investigations offer the children an opportunity to learn more about the characteristics and features of buildings, the people who build them and the tools they use, and the role buildings play in our community. This week we talked about what we know about buildings and what we want to find out. Most of the children were very interested in what it takes to make a building. We also talked about what buildings in our city look like.

The first book we read in the building unit was The Three Little Pigs. Before reading, we had a discussion on what materials are used to make buildings and the children got to use tallies to show what type of material they thought was best to make a house and explain why. Afterwards, we had fun wearing masks and acting out the story.

Making Snow

To go along with the building unit, we made snow to make a winter construction site in our sensory bin! Through this activity, children are engaging their senses by feeling new textures, and developing fine motor skills when using manipulatives.

D Is for dog

We had many furry visitors this week to help us learn about the letter D. We had families share their dogs of all sizes with us and learned a few things about them. We love when families can be involved with interactive activities!

WATERCOLOR City

Christmas Party and Trees

What a fabulous week we have had! To finish up our tree unit, we painted landscapes and made lemonade. We also worked on math skills by playing a game of “Which has more?” The highlight of the week though, was a visit from Santa! The children opened presents in their cozy pajamas and had a treat.

Which has more? and Lemonade

Nature walk

To answer our focus question this week, "What are the characteristics of the trees in our community?", we went on a nature walk. We talked about all the evergreen and deciduous trees on our campus. Along the way, the children collected leaves, pinecones, and sticks.

Sorting and CLASSIFYING

The children practiced sorting and classifying skills with all the things they collected from our nature walk. We made a pile for things from an evergreen tree and one for deciduous.

tree poems

Some of my favorite poems in our curriculum are apart of the tree unit. The first one we went over was "The Green Grass Grows". This song is a great way for children to learn about parts of a tree. The second poem the children learned was "A Tree My Size". This poem is a great way for children to learn the concept of size and width.

A Tree My Size:

This tree is wide

This tree is tall

This tree is thin

This tree is small

Beautiful trees

I see with my eyes

But the one I like best

Is exactly my size

Red riding hood

We had a blast with a great book from the clothing unit! A special thank you to Mrs Lisa Norton for acting as grandmother and to Luna Harris for playing the part of Red Riding Hood. Mrs. Lisa is retired from St. James and Luna is a student at St.James. This dramatic presentation helped your child with language skills, vocabulary, comprehension and expression.

Where do we get our clothes?

Our focus question of the week was, "Where do we get our clothes"? We set up a clothing shop in our home living center and the children got to act out buying costumes.