Friends!

We had such a wonderful week learning about Friends!  We learned that friends share, are kind, and play nicely with each other!  The children had so much fun playing together at centers and outside with their school friends all week!

 

 

 Building blocks together with friends!  Blocks is always a great way to practice key social skills needed to be a good friend like sharing, teamwork, and using words to tell someone how you feel.

 After we learned that sometimes our friends are very different than us, but that 2 things that are different often go together, we played a fun matching game!  Each child picked two things that go together, like socks and shoes or a mixing bowl and spoon.  A wonderful book we read about friends this week was "Being Friends," by Karen Beaumont.

 We had a great time making friends out of Play-doh!  This was a great way for the kids to develop fine motor skills as well as use creativity to decide how they wanted to form their friends out of Play-doh.

 Friends like to do fun things together!  We chose a friend and then made a boat together.  The kids loved "rowing" back and forth as we sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

 

 

 Then, we got to make our own row boats for some friends to ride in! 

 

Counting friends!  

One-to-one correspondence is a counting skill most preschoolers are working on.  As we sorted this group of friends, we practiced our counting. 

We learned the letter "A" this week!  The Pre-K classes each got a turn to practice writing the letter on the white board.

 Apples and animal crackers were a perfect "A" snack!

 Our project for the letter "A" was making an apple.  The children got strips of colored paper that they tore into pieces and then glued on the apple!  We did this after looking at real apples and doing some hands-on apple math!

It was magical to see our tree turn into an apple tree full of beautiful, colorful apples!

We love to read stories at our preschool!  Reading to children is a wonderful teaching tool as well as a great opportunity to instill the love of good books in these children's hearts!  Be sure to make time to read with your preschooler each day!

Next week we will be learning about our community!  Our first field trip of the school year is coming up!

Family Week!

This was one fabulous week!  We learned about families!  We learned that every family is different- some people live with mom and dad, some live with just one parent, some have one child in the family, some have lots of children... 

 The kids really enjoyed bringing their family pictures to show to the class!  They felt so special as they told us who was in their family and how much they love their family and how their family loves them! Thanks to all the parents who sent family pictures!  If you didn't get a chance to send a picture, you may send it next week if you'd like!

 

The kids loved playing and learning together in the family center!  

This group decided their families were going camping! 

After talking about helping in our families, the Pre-K classes practiced their artistic skills as they drew their family, their house, and how they help their family.  We have some great artists as well as some wonderful helpers!

Animals have families too!  

 

 This was a very engaging math activity!  First, we put the little bears into families according to number- they practiced recognizing the numbers and one-to-one correspondence as they counted the bears to match the number. 

 Afterwards, they had fun making their own bear families!  We sorted the bears into buckets according to color when we were all through.  There was some great learning going on!

 Family finger puppets were a hit! 

We're always happy when Mother Goose flies in for a visit!   The kids always enjoy her rhymes, stories, and songs!  She comes once a month to all our classes!  We sure love Mother Goose!

Our Pre-K classes learned about another family...the old woman who lived in the shoe!  Nursery rhymes are a perfect way to encourage memorization and confidence as they retell the rhyme!

If you can't tell, "X" was the letter of the week!

A picture from this week is perfect for introducing our theme for next week...Friends!  It is magical to see how preschoolers make friends so quickly!  I love how they play so nicely together, share toys and books, and are so concerned for one another!  We're looking forward to another wonderful week!

The Lending Library!

We started our lending library this week!  It was so rewarding to see how excited these kids were to get to take a special book home from school to borrow!  It is never too early to instill a love of books and learning!  

 

 Each child got a unique library bag to use for the school year to keep their Treasure Tree Academy library books safe!  This was a great opportunity to teach the students how to treat books and care for them so we can continue enjoying such wonderful books!

 It was fun to see which books the kids chose!

 Checking out books is a special time!  The kids are learning to file their library card under the first initial of their name.  It is a good way to let them make independent choices in which book they want to take home. 

 

Some fun pictures from this week's centers:

 

 

Play-doh makes a great medium for practicing letters at home or at school!

Each week we learn a new letter.  This week's letter was "S"!  Ask your child to point out the letter "S" now as you read books together and on signs as you're out and about.  This will help solidify what we've learned this week!

 

Our classroom set of small whiteboards is perfect for kids to practice writing their letters!

 After learning that the "S" makes a sound like a snake, the kids took turns making an "S" snake!

 This was a sparkly, fun project to heighten the kids' familiarity with their name in preparation to be able to recognize and write their own name independently.  It was also a great way to strengthen those fine-motor and concentration skills as they carefully glued sequins onto the first letter of their name.

 

 Music and movement classes were simply magic this week!  From dancing to playing different instruments--they had a great time!

 

We're looking forward to another wonderful week next week learning about "Family!"  Be sure to bring a family photo for your child to share with their class!  It will be neat to see how each family is different as well as the similarities between families!