Fall in Love with Learning
9/28/2019
A new season brings new discoveries into the classroom. We have begun our Fall study, a closer look into the smells and colors of fall. Pumpkins, leaves, and spices, oh my! We read a nonfiction book about the life cycle of a pumpkin in which the students learned how a pumpkin grows. We colored, cut, and put together a wheel to help us remember the stages of a pumpkin's life. Because we are still learning how to use scissors and color neatly, this was a great chance for them to practice those skills. Every few weeks we change our sensory tables to go with our themes. Sensory activities are important for young children to engage their five senses. In addition to fine motor development, sensory tables can also become a social activity. The students express excitement in what they are seeing and feeling with each other. At each sensory table there are no rules regarding what they can do with the objects, so their creativity can run free. We received three pumpkins from Pyrah's for our classroom: one orange, one green, and one white, all different sizes! We made predictions about how many seeds would be inside the biggest pumpkin, if a pumpkin would sink or float in water, and how the inside of a pumpkin would feel/look. After we opened our pumpkin we could see and feel pulp and pumpkin strands. Our pumpkin investigation ended with a vote for what face we wanted to carve into our pumpkin. In the end, we decided that we wanted our class pumpkin to be happy! We had many awesome name choices to choose from, but we voted on Rock n Roll the pumpkin. One of my favorite smells in the fall is cinnamon! As a class, we made our very own cinnamon scented play dough! It is always so much fun seeing how the whole group interacts when they have no limits on what they can do. Several students discovered they could use the lid of their container to make shapes, others decided to make pizzas and sandwiches. Ms. Daina baked the pumpkin seeds we pulled from the pumpkin for a tasty snack! We are getting really good at trying new things! To begin our analysis of leaves, we went outside on a leaf hunt to gather different shapes, sizes, and colors. Next week we will create leaf books in which will we measure, paint, and identify leaves. The kids loved picking them out from outside our building. We asked them to find big leaves and small leaves, short leaves and tall leaves, and leaves of different colors. By asking this favor of the students, we were practicing opposites, color recognition, and size concepts. After returning to class, we sorted the leaves into groups the students saw fit. I left the leaf classification all up to them! They decided on a red group, a big group, a small group, a long group, and a green group.
Giving the students the chance to take over an activity such as this is what makes PNA so special. My job is to facilitate their ideas and support them in their educational journey to become independent thinkers. Even at the beginners level, I have the ability to create this atmosphere. Little learners have big ideas too! The Cutest Pumpkins in the Patch
9/21/2019
Fall Outing: Sept. 16thWe had a great time getting together as a preschool to play games, eat popcorn and muffins, and play on the playground. We believe that when students have fun together they build relationships, leading to improved self and social awareness. Thank you to the volunteers that came out to help! This week we began our pumpkin study in preparation for our field trip to Pyrah's Pioneer Peak. At Pyrah's we saw how pumpkins can different shapes, colors, and sizes. Although we did not get to pick our own pumpkins, we will be receiving some for our class to experiment with next week! We will be able to compare our own drawings of the inside of a pumpkin to the real thing! We learned that inside a pumpkin there are seeds, pulp, and strands. We also read a nonfiction book about the life cycle of a pumpkin: from seed to a full grown pumpkin! We also took a poll using tally marks to decide which kind of pie was our favorite! Pumpkin and cherry tied for first (Ms. Daina and I had to vote too!). Pyrah's Pioneer Peak Field Trip: Sept. 19thWhat our field trip lacked in pumpkins, we made up for with fun! What an experience it was to pick our very own vegetables from the farm. Thank you so much to all of the chaperones and parent drivers for making the day a success! We can't wait to get our pumpkins next week and continue our study.
With the vegetables that we picked from the farm, we made a vegetable soup in class! We took turns adding carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes, potatoes, and kale to our crock pot. It was a great time to talk about trying new things. At PNA, we show vision, courage, and integrity, and it starts in the beginners class! Each student showed courage by taking the risk of trying something they never had before: our farm fresh soup! Sprinkle Kindness
9/14/2019
Our theme this week was friendship! We started off the week by talking about how each person in our class is important and unique. The Day the Crayons Quit is a great story about how a crayon box would not be the same without each color. Each child colored a crayon to form our class crayon box, because just like the crayons, we need each child in our class to complete the picture. We also talked about the qualities we like in a friend. The Jelly Donut Difference is a story we read about one of the most important qualities of a friend: kindness! Each student thought of one way we can be kind to our friends and family and "sprinkled it" onto our doughnut. In Mrs. Graham and Ms. Daina's class we sprinkle kindness! For our culinary creation of the week we used our friendship recipe which contained each ingredient (quality) found in a good friend. Our friendship recipe had melted marshmallows, lucky charms, and butter. We are practicing spelling our names, and our friends' names, with sentence strips and clothespins! It is a great way for the students to practice fine motor skills (using the clothespins), and practice letter recognition. We created a friendship tapestry to demonstrate how we can work together to create something beautiful. It is now hung in our classroom! After talking about what it means to be a good friend we drew pictures of ourselves being a good friend. We practiced sharing and using our manners by passing around a toy and a Starburst during circle time. Each time we asked for something we had to say, "Please may I have..." and said "Thank you!" after.
We counted how many friends we had at school in English and Spanish this week. Each child stood up to count up to ten and sat back down to count back to zero. Tuvimos una semana maravillosa! (We had an awesome week!) My Many Colored Days
9/7/2019
This week we continued to talk about family and focused on emotions/feelings. The Creative Curriculum is based largely on social-emotional skills. We reflected on our own emotions and discussed appropriate ways to deal with our feelings and calm down. Some strategies we talked about include: 1. Take deep breaths. 2.Count to 10. 3. Read a book. 5. Ask for a hug. 6. Talk to a friend. Each day we learned a new vocabulary word to use when someone asks, "How are you today?". We practiced feeling calm by doing yoga poses like the budding flower and the worm. We read The Grouchy Ladybug to learn what it means to be grouchy, and read one of our favorite books, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog to talk about what it means to be curious. Clips from the Disney movie, Inside Out and Dr. Suess's My Many Colored Days helped us learn how colors are associated with feelings. We got to say Hola! to Ms. Emani this week. We learned Dad, Mom, Brother, Sister, Baby, Grandma, and Grandpa in Spanish.
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Annalee JohnsonEK Teacher Archives
January 2021
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