Room A

Thursday, August 22, 2013

We are off to an amazing year in Room A.  We had a terrific Thursday learning and exploring the number 1, the color blue, a square and learning our new bible song THE BIBLE today.  Please be sure to check out all the fun we had below.  As always if you have questions, comments or concerns best way to reach me is at hhorn@zionharvester.org.  I will return your email within a 24 hour period.  

REMINDERS

Please remember that drop off time is from 7:45-8:15 and pickup is at 12:30 unless your child is staying for rest time and then pick up is at 3:00.  Please do your best to have your child here at time above so that they are able to participate fully in all the activities and centers that will be done for the day as well as courtesy to all the other students in the class.  

Please be sure to your child's blue folder returns with them each day they come to school this is how your child's work will come home and other important papers.  You will receive at the beginning of each month all of your child's  classwork from the previous month.  I will hold some things out that you will receive at the end of the year in the form of a portfolio.

Here is our day....ENJOY!

Today we started out by playing with blue play dough!

Isaac entertained us with his music on the xylophone

Scarlett was sampling the food that was being cooked in the housekeeping area

Sarah had fun listening to the different animal sounds on the musical farm

Mrs. Linneman one of our fabulous aides in our classroom helped the students paint a picture of the number one with blue watercolors.  Our aides are an important part of our classroom they are what helps us make our classroom run smoothly and efficiently.  

Painting is something we do a lot in ROOM A so please keep that in mind when you send your child to school in the choice of clothing they wear.  

We also got down to business today and brought out the scissors and glue sticks to practice our cutting and gluing skills.

It was so neat to see how some of my students from last year have really grown and are working to cutting more independently as opposed to doing it hand over hand

Cutting is a skill that we will work on through out the entire year this a great fine motor skill.

We will also be working to allow the children to use the glue sticks a little more frequently this year so they can learn how much glue they need to use to make their paper stick 

Every student today worked on cutting either on their own or with the help of a teacher and the same with gluing.  

Today we cut out a square and glued it on a piece of blue paper.  When a student is ready to use scissors I allow the student to pick up the scissors using which ever hand is comfortable to them and then I help them place their hands in the scissors correctly in them. 

When we glue with glue sticks we try and remind the students they need to move the glue stick around to cover all the areas to make it stick. 

Using the glue stick is teaching them some self control and giving the student the feeling of independence

Mrs. Linneman is helping our friend Sarah cut out her square using the hand over hand technique

Each child will work at their own pace some are already able to cut with out any assistance where others still need help using the glue.  As a parent you will see by the end of the year a change in where they were at the beginning of the year. 

During our Morning circle today we talked about the number 1, did our color board, dressed Mr. Weather Frog and talked about how our classroom windows are shaped like a square. We also read the book When The Elephant walks we decided that the Elephant and his friends were so silly because they were all afraid of a little tiny mouse!

After snack time we did a bible coloring page that has our Bible Verse for the school year on it with a picture of the cross.  We talked about during Jesus time that the cross helps us remember that Jesus and God are very important and that we will spend the year reading lots of stories out of the Bible. 

Coloring is a great fine motor skill and pre writing skill we will be doing a lot of coloring in our class this year. 

It is so exciting to see how many of the students have grown over the summer and how they are learning how to color rather than just putting lines on a paper 

When coloring we work on holding the crayon correctly and to make sure we are not grabbing it with our whole hand. 

We are not to concerned at this age with what hand your child is using.  Studies have shown that children can take up to the age of seven to decide which hand they prefer to use.  

When we are coloring it also gives us a chance to talk about what color we are using.  

Some of older students are starting to move towards coloring more inside the lines rather than all over the paper

During our second circle of the day we read a book about the color blue and sang If your Happy and You know it, our ABC's and identified the different colors in our color book 

This year we are going to be also focusing on the letters in the Alphabet.  Today we talked about the letter A.  The sound it makes as well some items that begin with the letter A.  Today we discovered that we also have a few friends whose name began with the letter A. 

We then headed outside to play with new and old friends 

Some of us had fun kicking the big balls we had out on the playground

Isaac and Addison were trying out their leaping skills on the tree stumps

The rock pit is always a favorite with this class

We had places to go and people to see 

Amelija had fun playing on our funny riding worm. 

Some of us took a break for the hot sun

Others of us were on the go at all times!

The big playground balls we have are a super hit with the kids

Some enjoyed playing with the trucks

Sophia had fun trying to do the "balance beam."  If your child came home dirty that means they were having a great time today at school and played hard 

We headed inside got cleaned up and got ready to do our center work.  We had fun making elephant heads to correspond with our book we read at Morning Circle. 

We practiced coloring the letter A with and Ant on it. 

Be sure to check your child's folder for their letter A coloring page

The students had to glue the different pieces to make their elephant

We practiced coloring our letter A with a blue crayon today

Our last center of the day was the first page in our Alphabet book 

This book will come home at the end of the year in your child's portfolio

We made our very own Ants to go with the letter A

We made three Blue Ants using our finger and our thumb

Using the stamp pad was a great sensory skill today because it required some of us to get our hands messy.

We had fun after center time doing a little music and movement to a new Animal Action Song

We had to practice galloping like a horse

Hopping like a bunny rabbit

We ended our day after lunch with our Good-Bye Circle where we ready the story Blue Sky, sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and said Good-Bye to Morris the Monkey 

Wow as you can see were very busy today and had a lot of fun.   Next week will be our last week to work with the color blue, the number 1 and the shape the Square.  We will introduce a new letter and read lots of fun books.  I look forward to seeing everyone next week and hope you all have a wonderful weekend with your families.  God's Blessings to you All!