Deuces Wild!

Day 55- Fire Station # 2 Visit

What a fun day we had on our Neighborhood Walk to Fire Station #2!

As usual, we began our day with our Welcome Circle.  I continue to be amazed at the length of the children's attention spans.  This circle was 30 minutes!  We focused on reading our friends and teacher's names with the picture cue hidden.  Once we all guessed the name, we uncovered the picture to see if we were right. 


  Our book today was 'A Fireman', an easy reader with a simple repetitive pattern and several Everyday Words.  We have small individual copies for each child, but haven't had time to make them.  We will send them home tomorrow for the children to color and read at home. 


  Ms. Angela was a big hit today.  She taught us how to play baseball,  We learned the name of all the bases, including 'home', which really did look like a house!  We each took turns hitting the ball and running all the bases.  After we sang our closing song, we closed our huddle with a huge "baseball" cheer!


 Then we were on our way to Fire Station #2!  The fire fighters allowed us to climb around in Engine #2, showed us their bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen.  We watched Fire Fighter Joe put on his gear:  boots, pants, jacket, mask, backpack, and hat.  We heard him breathing and learned what to do in case of fire:  crawl and scream!  See our adorable picture in front of Ladder #2 below.


  While on our walk we were overcome by three wonderful smells:  the donut factory, the pizza shop, and lunch cooking in fire station kitchen.  Needless to say, when we arrived back at school we were all starving!  After lunch, we completed our journals.  Ms. Tiffany helped us practice 'stop, drop and roll' and we acted out a fire scene.  A short 'show and tell' and our day was done!


  We look forward to visiting with Officer Wade and his cool car tomorrow!

Fun at Fire Station #2!

Science exploration- fire

Here's a glimpse of our science experiment today. On the way we saw another community helper- the SaniCan driver!

OT Fun with Ms. Michelle

Playing in the 'snow' was so much fun!

Stop, Drop, & Roll- Firefighters

Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Good afternoon!

  Consistency is important in establishing our new routines.  Today we began with a choice of sensory and a firefighter puzzle.

  I'm amazed at the length of our circletimes- especially the first circle, "Morning Meeting".  Much of this circle involves math concepts- day of the week, month, season, year, counting to 30, and patterns (ABA).  We also touch on social skills (Hello Neighbor song involves shaking hands properly (right hand) and greeting others).  Today, we again reviewed our New Teacher Social Story.  The boys giggled as the saw themselves in the book- they really think they are superstars!

  We met two new "Everyday Words":  'A' and 'the'.  We sang a song about the words, spelled them and found them in our book.  When you read with your child at home, pause and let him read these words!


  Ms. Michelle and her helper, Ms. Erin brought fun 'snow'.  First, we put 'snow' (large cotton balls) on a parachute, bounced and caught the balls.  Then, we played in pretend snow, digging to find hidden treasures.  Finally, the children glued marshmallows in the shape of a snowman.  They worked on touching a variety of textures, working together, asking for supplies, describing pictures, and following directions.  Plus, it was a lot of fun!

  Though it was chilly, we bundled up and headed to the park for a science experiment.  Before we left we observed a piece of paper, talking about the shape, color, and texture.  Each child drew a picture of it in their science journal.  At the park, we predicted what would happen while the paper burns.  We watched the paper as it caught on fire and burned to a crisp.  Once back in the classroom, we talked about the differences before and after and recorded the changes in our journal.  We sent the journal entry home so that your child can talk with you about the changes.  Please return it to school and we will add it to our journal. 

  We joined our green friends to make firefighter hats.  We had fun painting a bowl and a a plate bright red.
Some of us enjoyed it a lot.....getting it all over!  We'll take a picture of them tomorrow before sending them home.

  Throughout this weekly theme, we are talking about fire safety.  Only adults light and handle fire.  It's hot and can burn.  Only adults touch lighters and matches.  We've talked about and practiced 'stop, drop, and roll' and calling 911.

  Tomorrow we're headed to Fire Station #2 to see the fire fighters, trucks, and the special equipment.  Dress warmly! 

This Week's Everyday Words- A, The

Welcome Ms. Ellen!

Hello TK!
Day 53- Transition to Ms. Ellen!


  I must start by telling you how fortunate I am to return to my favorite classroom- with my favorite kids!  Thank you for the warm welcome this morning.  It's truly my honor to be here and I look forward to finishing out the year with a bang!

  Today was a day full of happy changes and transitions.  First, we noticed our classroom was a little bit different.  One table and the circle spot were switched, giving us a wall for our new calendar, sound board, friend wall, and schedule.  It was as if it had always been that way- no one missed a beat coming to circle.  In fact, everyone attended so well- 40 minutes of instruction flew by!  I never thought our circle would be so long!!! 

  To kick off our lesson learning about Firefighters, we experimented with.....FIRE (outside, of course)!  We carefully observed a new white candle, discussing and recording our observations in our science journals.  We noticed that it was white with white wick on the top.  We all predicted what would happen when lit.  Then, Ms. Ellen lit the candle and we watched the flame.  We noticed that the flame was a a beautiful orange.  After a minute, we noticed that part of the candle was melting.  After blowing it out we observed the burnt candle, noting that it had changed- the top was black, the middle was liquid.  We recorded the changes in our science journals.  Ask me to tell you about my drawing and the observations I made before, during, and after the experiment.  Tomorrow, we will watch paper burn!

  We also made a circle map of prior knowledge about fires and firefighters.  The children each knew something to add to the circle map.  We love thinking maps that help us organize our thoughts. 

  We were also able to act out a fire scene.  It was impressive how quickly everyone picked up on their parts- with verbal instruction only.  Ask your child to tell you the story of the house on fire.

  You might notice a small break in the end-of-the-day journals, but we are back on track with day 53- today.  Please help your child tell you a few things about the day and help your child write a few words about the day.  Return these sheets and we will compile them in a book at the end of the year- a great way to review the year and see the progress your child has made.
 
  We had a great day in TK today and learned many things.

  Dress warmly tomorrow- we are going to walk to the park for our science experiment- with more......FIRE!!!

  Thank you again for the opportunity to work with and learn from your family.  Ellen

FIREFIGHTERS

"Tractor Tipping"

"Taste of Thanksgiving"

A Taste of Thanksgiving

What a fun way to spend a day! The kids cooked up a storm this morning, making turkey and ham roll ups, stuffing, a vegetable tray, and homemade butter. Joseph and his mom contributed a 'turkey' made with fruit, which was a big hit. A fun,chocolately surprise for dessert was brought by Evan and his mom to round out our 'Taste of Thanksgiving'.

The kids greeted their families wearing a pilgrim hat or native american head band with feathers. Their big, plump paper turkeys were in the hallway so everyone could see the things that they were thankful for written on the feathers.

We all enjoyed the feast before the kids' production of "The Little Brown Turkey". They couldn't have been more cute! They each are becoming more comfortable in a larger group, speaking up so every one can hear them.

I think I need a rest from this Thanksgiving feast before I start preparing my own this week!

'Fix-It Plans'

Happy Friday to everyone! As Beau said as got into the car, "See you on Monday!".

"Gem of the Day": Watching Joseph be the 'Little Brown Turkey' during our group's rendition of the story. One of those 'priceless moments'.

While we have been working all along on problem solving skills, I thought I would give a few examples from today of the 'fix-it plans' that we came up with during the course of the day.

1. Problem: A back-pack just won't go on and it is becoming very frustrating. 'Fix-It plan': Stop, find a teacher, use words to say 'my backpack won't go on', ask for help.

2. Problem: Sometime, someone is talking just too loud in the classroom! 'Fix-It Plan': Say the person's name, say "Would you be more quiet?"

3. Problem: Two people want the same toy at the same time. "Fix-It Plan": Stop, say, "I want a turn.", ask a teacher to turn a timer on for each person to play with the toy. (only one solution!)

Ms. Carol, Ms. Cortney and I try to take any opportunity in which a child is mad, frustrated, or sad and turn it into a problem solving time. We will say, "Stop. Use your words. Tell me the problem." After the child has put words to their problem, the degree of emotion decreases (most of the time). We ask the child, "What is a fix-it plan? What can you do to fix the problem?" Depending on the child, the time of day, the context of the problem, we will offer different degrees of scaffolding. We can see a difference from the beginning of the year when so many instances were highly supported!

We spent time making some things for Monday. While they worked on find motor skills involving coloring, tracing and cutting, we snuck some letter identification into the activity.

Using our experience with retelling "The Little Red Hen", we told the story of "The Little Brown Turkey" taking turns being the different characters. Hmmmm....I wonder if you are going to see the play on Monday?

Have a great weekend!

Thanksgiving is coming!

As we prepare for our 'Taste of Thanksgiving' next Monday, we spent time reading two books, "The Story of Thanksgiving" (Nancy Skarmeas)and "Celebrating Thanksgiving" (Joel Kupperstein). The books introduced the Pilgrims, their trip over the great big ocean, the Native Americans and how they helped the Pilgrims, and then the feast they shared for being so thankful for all of the food that they had. We talked about how this happened a long time ago, but we still celebrate Thanksgiving because we are thankful for so many things. The kids were excited to share the things for which they are thankful.

We started painting the body and feathers for a turkey and will finish our product tomorrow.

Using the IPad, the kids used an alphabet application to reinforce letter identification while they practiced taking turns.

Our 'gem of the day' was when Tucker observed the playground today and commented, "Ms. Gail, this isn't a real playground. It's a wet playground!" Indeed it was, but we had fun finding all different kinds of leaves of all different colors.

We joined the three and four year old class at the end of the day to listen to the things that they are thankful for and sing songs with them. It was a little hard for the kids to understand that we were having our "party", as they called it, next Monday. But, everything turned out okay and we will be busy making our decorations for Monday. Please see your email with details about Monday.

Fireman Fun!

Day 47!

Ms. Gail was not here today!  The boys all noticed right away that she was missing!  We certainly hope she is able to join us tomorrow….but, she would be proud of all the learning we did while she was gone!!

Ms. Cortney led our circle time today, where we continued to learn about firemen.  We talked about a fireman being a very important helper in our community and learned about some of the special equipment that they use.  Each friend picked two cards and described the tool on the card and told how a fireman might use it.  Evan told us that a hat protects the fireman’s head.  Joseph shared that a uniform keeps the fireman safe.  Beau told everyone about the fire hose shooting out water and Tucker shared that an alarm lets the fireman know that there is a fire.  After we talked about all the cards, we put them in the correct order that a fireman might need to use them.  For example, the alarm sounds before the fireman puts on his hat.  Evan also spontaneously reminded the group about the stop, drop, and roll rule and we all enjoyed practicing it.  We hope we never need it for real, but if we do, we are ready.

The kids also had some sensory fun and learning today with paint.  They each got to take their shoes off, step in some “smoke” colored paint and run down the paper trail to create a smoke wall.  The paint was squishy on our feet and in our toes and our footprints were fun to look out.  We talked about when you are in a smoky room, how important it is to stay low to the ground and crawl out to the closest door.

After working so hard, each child helped to “build” a fire truck.  Everyone told one fact they learned or remembered from today, and got a wheel to put on the truck.  For a special treat, we went around a second time for more fun facts, and everyone got to “earn’ their fireman hat! 

Ms. Angela came today. She had some fun warm up games where we all had to listen to the music and do the action that it told us to do. Walking, crawling, jumping, running, tip toeing, skipping, and galloping......it might have been the longest song ever created, but the kids certainly enjoyed it! The main lesson today was about hockey and hitting a puck with a small hockey stick. Everyone got a turn to pass the puck to their friends. They all waited and cheered on their friends so nicely! As a reward for such great listening skills, Ms. Angela took orange swimming noodles and stacked them up in a pile. The kids took turns jumping over the pile. It was fun to see the kids expressions when they cleared the jump, and when they knocked all the noodles down! Either way, we all left Ms. Angela laughing!

Outside time started off with a light sprinkle. The kids are getting used to being out in the rain. They hardly noticed. The funny part was that today the Weekday teachers saw us outside and hurried out to join us! We are rubbing off!! Now, I must tell you that they left.....very quickly.....when the sprinkling rain got a little heavier! We, in true TSGI fashion, waited until all the kids were seeking shelter under the climbing equipment to call it a day!! A little rain never hurt anybody!! Fingers crossed that tomorrow the Thursday curse won't continue.....we would love to finally mark pictures off the list.....but it doesn't look like the weather is going to cooperate!! We'll see......

Day 46:

Oops! I made a mistake! The tune to our fire fighter song isn't "Clementine"! It's the one that goes with "Hi, Ho, the Derry-O". The kids practiced today and just about have it memorized. While memorizing isn't really that important, we do work on sequencing, complete sentence structures, and conceptual knowledge when we repeat the song often!

Our 'buildings' that we made out of small boxes were dry and the kids put pictures of what each building is suppose to be on top. After matching the building with word on our floor mat, the kids got the cars and trucks out to play together.

Using shaving cream and paint (red, orange, and yellow), the kids made ''fire' on their individual mats. We took the opportunity to write letters in the shaving cream, especially the upper and lower case 'f'. Donning our fire hats, we took the 'fire mats' out to the playground, setting them against the fence. Before spraying their fires with their water squirters, the kids went up the playground ladder, slid down the slide, climbed over the dome and ran to the fire. This activity gave us so much to talk about during and after the squirting!

As we watched "Elmo's Neighborhood" about the fire fighters, I stopped the video at random points and took turns retelling what we saw or answering 'wh' questions.

We practiced tracing lines and shapes to get ready for our writing. The kids were told to get their red, orange and yellow markers out and draw a fire in their writing journal. They each drew their own kind of fire and it was great. Drawing upon all of our activities, each child had so much to dictate about the topic.

There's always a 'gem of the day' that I hear, but I usually don't write it down and forget it by blog time. I am going to earnestly try to write them down and share them with you. The 'gem' for the day came from Evan who told Suzanna, after she showed us the picture she drew, was, "Susanna, you are such a great artist!" More gems to come in other blogs.

Day 45: Fire fighters!

"Fire fighters are strong!

Fire fighters are fast!

Fire fighters put out the fires

and drive the big, red trucks!"

Yes, I am a song writer as long as I use the tune to "Clementine" and make some one word syllables stretch into two syllables!

Hopefully, the kids can sing this with you and add the hand motions that we are used in school today. Not only did we sing about fire fighters, we lived and breathed fire fighters today!

When the kids arrived today, they took turns riding on the bottom of Mr. Jimmy's cart (the fire truck), and then pulling the cart as the fireman. You should have seen their faces when I told them to sit on the cart!

Since fire fighters drive red trucks, two of the kids painted a box red that we will turn into a truck tomorrow. The other two kids painted another box blue to get ready to a police officer on Wednesday. They LOVE to paint!

Since fire fighters are strong and fast, the kids practiced jumping off the chair, lifting weights, running outside, and climbing. The kids each earned their own red, metallic spray bottle to take outside. Wearing red fire coats and fire hats, the kids ran outside to put out all of the fires! Of course, we had to sound like the truck siren as we ran from place to place. I had given them quite the talk about what they could spray and what would happen if they sprayed a friend before we went outside. I have the cutest picture of them standing in the pretend fire truck, heads peeking out of the top, spraying water into the air like real firemen with a hose. At the very end of the activity, Ms. Carol and I surprised them by letting them chase us with the spray bottles for one minute. I don't know who had more fu; we were all laughing so hard!

Instead of reading a book to the kids today, we all spread out on the floor and looked at books about fire fighters and police officers that had a lot of pictures. We took turns telling what we saw in the pictures tapping into prior knowledge, taking turns with the books, formulating complete sentences, answering questions, and learning new vocabulary. When we saw the pictures of the walkie-talkies, we held a conversation like we were fire fighters on the way to a fire. As Evan said, "Roger that!" Can you see why I get such a kick out of being with your kids?

For a math activity, we asked the question, "Would you like to be a fire fighter or police officer when you group up?", in order to graph our preferences. The kids asked each other, and then we walked the hallway and found other people to ask. The kids said, "Excuse me, will you answer a question?" and then asked our graphing question. They needed to look at the person and speak loudly enough for everyone to hear. When the person gave their answer, the kids would 'figure out' the first sound/letter of the person's name and write it on the graph. Our results indicated that more people wanted to be fire fighters!

Please see the weekly note in your child's take home folder to see what other math concept and literacy concept on which we are focusing this week.

Day 43: "Feelings, whoa, whoa, feelings'......

The kids looked so cute this morning for pictures! They all were proud of their clothes, telling me that they couldn't get them dirty!

We learned a poem about brushing our teeth today.

"I know how to brush my teeth.

On the top and underneath.

Up like a rocket and down like a plane,

back and forth like a choo-choo train."

After each child was able to say the last two lines, he 'earned' toothpaste to put on his toothbrush and practice brushing his teeth. I have no idea what it's like for them brush their teeth at home, but they seem to love doing it at school!

We finished our Dr. Suess story, Green Eggs and Ham, giving everyone a chance to complete sentences with the rhyming word. I enjoy that word play and I think the kids did too.

Feeling words and faces were introduced today (happy, sad, mad, tired, scared and sick). We pretended to be feeling each of those feelings, making faces and changing our voices. They giggled so much which I just hadn't anticipated! We used the old stand by song, "If You're ___ and You Know It, _____", using words and actions to depict the feeling. (happy=smiling, throw up your arms; sad=pretending to cry, wipe your tears; mad=growling face, stomp your feet; tired=yawning, stretch your arms; scared=wide eyes and shake voice, shaking our hands; and sick=moaning, hold your stomach). Your child might enjoy singing this at home!

As we read 'Green Eggs and Ham', we would look at the character's face and decide how he felt. I wanted to break out into song with "Feelings" by Barry Manilow (hopefully you remember that song and I am not THAT old!), but didn't put the kids through my rendition!

As an experiment, I asked the kids to draw any picture that they wanted to using pencils, crayons and markers. To my delight everyone went right to work with absolutely no hesitation. Their ability to visualize something and draw it on paper has improved so much since the beginning of the year. Their confidence level has increased! After dictating phrases/sentences about their pictures, the kids sat in the "Super Star' chair to tell each other about their pictures.

I opened up the last part of the day for free play to see what they would gravitate toward and just observe their play/interaction with each other.

They immediately went to the dentist/doctor box, working out who would go first. All of the kids used the various items as the dentist/doctor, talking to each other. We were past the parallel play and onto symbolic play today. Isn't that exciting?

Several kids started to play with the calendar numbers, board pictures or books. They were given a chance to put the calendar numbers in the correct sequence, talk about the dentist pictures we have been using, and read to each other. The end of a really wonderful day:)

Day 42:

The kids started off the day with picking a heavy brick, walking in a box with letters, crawling under a bridge with their block and then jumping on bubble wrap. On the way in, we worked on identifying the letters and on the way out the kids told us the sound of the letters! When they got down to the end of the obstacle course, the kids worked with a new peg board, counting as they went OR upper and lower case stamps to make their names and write the letters that we are working on in class.

When it was time to sing our 'hello song' about the dentist, they were ready to sit and focus. I was very impressed with what they are remembered about the dentist and putting their ideas into sentences. Every time we finished an activity, we put one piece from our 'dentist box' into a bag to use later in the day. They earned the bag before lunch time and were able to take turns playing dentist. We were very lucky that Even brought in a doctor bag along with his hamster, Pickles, so we could also play vet. I saw more playing 'together' in the last few days which was very exciting!

The kids threw basketballs...they threw bean bags...they threw tennis balls....and they threw balls to each other with Ms. Angela today. She had four stations set up and the kids went from one to the next. I suggested that the kids choose before they go and then rotate with a timer, but they didn't need that at all! Ms. Angela let them stand up and go wherever they wanted. I was very impressed with the kids.

Walking back into the room, the kids found letters on their chair and we thought of words that started with the corresponding sound. I help a lot with kind of activity now, but I can tell we are going to get better and better at this phonological awareness skill.

We are learning the 3 months of Fall (and, yes, I know that part of December is technically Fall, but we aren't going to be technical about this one!) We say the names together, the kids take turns finding the month and putting it on the board, and then put pictures of what happens in that month on the board to build a context for them to remember.

Ms. Cortney started to read the book, "Green Eggs and Ham", focusing on the rhyming words. It's such a fun book and gives the kids plenty of opportunities to hearing and playing with different rhymes. Reading Dr. Suess books with your kids at home would a great way to have fun with words.

Day 41: The Veterinarian

We started our day by exploring our new math manipulatives. I wanted the kids to have some open ended experiences with all of them before we used them for specific instructions. They played with all of the following: a balancing scale with blocks, wood shapes of all different colors, big tweezers and little frogs, the geoboard (to makes shapes out of rubber bands), and number tracing cards. It was fun to see the kids figure out what they would do with each set of manipulatives.

Tucker brought a book, "Amazing Airplanes", to share with the class today. We all sat on the floor, taking turns telling what we saw on each page of the book. Seeing that it was a perfect opportunity to ask 'who, what, where' questions, Ms. Cortney took notes while I asked the questions. Before putting the book away, we all pretended to be a pilot and told everyone to where we were flying. Then, we were airplanes that zoomed down the hallway, making a safe landing as we descended down to the floor. (I do believe that my body has become more flexible as I move up and down and all around with the kids. An added bonus for me!)

To reinforce the things that we are learning about a dentist, the group worked together to make our vocabulary chart. As each child put their picture on the chart, he formulated a sentence about how this picture goes with a dentist.

Ms. Michelle had the kids painting trees with apples, crawling through a long tunnel, and doing some relaxing yoga poses. I have got to find a tunnel like hers because it seems to be magical!!

As you know, we saw a veterinarian today at his office. The kids so enjoyed Dr. Wheelock as he showed them how to examine his dog with different instruments. Each child had a chance to look into my eye with a very, very bright light and then use a stethoscope to hear their heart beating. Eyes lit up when Dr. Wheelock brought out his lizards! We all touched the big lizard with our two fingers, knowing that we needed to be quiet or we would scare the lizard!

I am so grateful for this beautiful Fall weather!

Day 40: New Sensory Processing Activities Tried Out!

On Friday, I attended a conference about sensory processing disorder and using play in our teaching by Carol Kranowitz. Evan's mom, Amanda, was there also and we got play and sing and dance while we learned about different ways to address sensory processing problems. We were busy writing and discussing some fun activities that we could use at home and in school. These type of conferences can put a 'bee in my bonnet' and I am excited about bringing new activities into our class.

Over the weekend, I wrapped bricks (yes, actual bricks) in different colored duct tape. The kids lifted them, moved them and pushed boxes that had the bricks on top which provided the heavy lifting/pushing to help regulate alertness....and just to have fun! We did it as a group, but if someone needed a sensory break later in the day, Ms. Carol would take them to push their 'car' down the hallway.

We read the book, "If I Were a ......", again today, focusing on the kids answering 'who, what, and where' questions. Since I wasn't getting answers that were totally on target, we revisited the book later in the day. Each child chose a picture of a community helper off of a chart and said the sentence, "If I were a ____, I would ______." We landed on dentists, which I cleverly chose so that I could introduce our next activity!

To facilitate imaginative play, cooperation, turn taking, and event recounting, we pretended that we were dentists. First, I was the dentist and each child took a turn being the patient. Every time we started over I would say: "A dentist washes his hands."; "A dentist wears gloves."; "A dentist uses a mirror to look in the patient's mouth."; "A dentist cleans the mirror." As I interacted with the patient I would use the same questions and sentences to provide a script or modeling for the kids. When it was their turn, the kids did use some of the same questions and sentences and followed what the dentist does to a tee! It really was so much fun. We should have a little time in they morning to play again!

Looking forward to seeing the vet tomorrow! I'm sure we will be playing 'vet' later this week!

Day 39:

I am officially confused over the exact number of days we have been in school, BUT I have decided to stick with Day 39 and move on from here!

Day 39ish started off with the kids walking down the hallway on number mats. They identified the numbers with Ms. Cortney and then we all gathered around a sensory box filled with different pasta shapes. After finding the different lids that had a numeral on top, each child identified the numeral and counted out exactly that amount to put in a container. Putting those stubborn lids on the containers made all of finger muscles get stronger! We lined the containers up in sequential order, but two were missing (on purpose!). The kids had to figure out what number came after or before another number to decide which numbers were missing.

Outside we went, to play with Ms. Angela. Throwing and catching balls with a partner, the kids laughed and had a great time. What was even better was throwing little plastic balls over a net at the teachers, pretending that they were snowballs. There are some good arms in this crew!

We wrapped our science experiment up today by observing the different eggs and comparing their color to how the egg looked before we put it into the liquid. The egg in the orange juice was orange and the egg in the Coke was brown. The other eggs were still white. We colored pictures of eggs to show the changes on our results chart. We decided that we don't want our teeth to be orange or brown it is very important to brush our teeth after we drink things juice and soda. Using our new toothbrushes we practiced brushing pretend teeth (upside down yellow egg cartons) by brushing up and down and then across while we put the words to a fun tune. We took our other toothbrushes, that were clean, and brushed our teeth with a little squirt of toothpaste. At the last minute, we decided to paint our pretend teeth with white paint using our toothbrush.

We broke our group of four kids into two groups for writing journal time. Ms. Cortney had one group and I had the other. The kids chose a picture of a community helper to glue onto their page and write about it. Some of the community helpers that we are talking about include: police officer, dentist, doctor, fireman, waitress, veterinarian, banker, construction worker.

I hope that you have fun on the four day weekend from school!

If anyone has a doctor kit, firetrucks, fire station, and/or police cars that we might borrow next week, we could add them to our station for playing. Thanks!

Great day in the TK!

During the 'hello song' today, we each held a circle with a letter on it (d, s, t, p). We asked each other " What letter is that?", "What sound does it make?", and "Can you think of a word that starts with __?". One sound-symbol association that the kids need to review is for the 'd'. They tend to say the 'b' sound. If this happens for you, tell them that the 'd' is the 'tongue tapper' sound which will help them to remember to put their tongue up instead of using the'lip popper' sound of 'b'!

We made our way down the hall to find the letters, 'd, b, k, g, t, p, f, v', in a box of rice. As the kids found the letters we practiced their sounds and put them on magnetic boards. When we got back to the room, the kids took one letter at a time, identifying it and writing it on a big piece of butcher block paper. I was able to assess if they knew the sounds of the letters while everyone kept busy.
I am thinking back to September and appreciating how far we have all come!

As you saw when you picked your child up today, they each made a sensory box with Ms. Michelle and Ms. Erin during our OT time. Ms. Erin put a lot of time and energy into gathering all the materials and organizing this activity. Thank you so much, Ms. Erin.

We are going to start having our "morning circle' a little later in the day. This time includes:
1) reading a morning message together which allows us to work on print awareness, identifying target letters and their sounds, sight words, day of the week, and answering questions, 2) weather which includes science and math state standards, along with formulating complete sentences about the weather using the conjunction 'and', 3) calendar which incorporates patterning, rote counting, identifying numerals, days of the week, months, identifying 'yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and saying the date. On some days, we will include a graphing activity and/or measuring activity during this time also.

Today, we listened and watched a story, "The Berenstein Bears Go To The Dentist", on youtube. You can find it on youtube just by typing in the title of the book. Today was an overview of the book, allowing each child to tell us about their experience at the dentist. Tomorrow, we will answer 'who, what, where' questions while we listen to the story.

We made a trip down to the kitchen today to look at our science experiment. We took the eggs out of their cup and described what we saw using the questions: "Is it the same color as yesterday?" and "Are there any cracks in the egg?". The one in the juice looks orange and the one in coke has turned a lovely shade of brown. The eggs in the water or milk are still white and don't have any cracks. We made a hypothesis about whether each liquid would help or hurt the egg. Since the word hypothesis is new to the kids, we clapped out the syllables while saying it and talked about what it meant. We will be writing our results tomorrow!

Since we had a few minutes before lunch time, everyone worked on lacing the big paper tooth to work on fine motor and visual motor skills.

We had a really calm day, moving from one activity to another. Looking forward to tomorrow and seeing what happens in our science experiment!