Room A

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Happy Tuesday to everyone and a steamy and hot Tuesday at that!  We had a great day today in Room A we were very busy as we are finishing up the month of August.  We reviewed this week the Number One, the color Blue, the shape of a Square and talked about how we will read important stories from the Bible.  We also work on the letter B and practiced making the B sound with our mouths.  We read lots of books and had fun learning new songs.  We did a fire drill today and played outside for a short time because of the heat.  Be sure to check out all the fun we had today below.  

Reminders

Thank you everyone for making sure your child has on the proper foot attire when they come to school.  As a reminder sandals and open toed shoes are not the best choice due to the fact that we do go outside everyday and we have the rocks to play in.  If you would like for your child to wear sunscreen it is our programs policy that you apply it before your child arrives to school.  

Morning Tubs

It is the parents responsibility in the morning to make sure that they put all the necessary items in the tubs that are provided on the first table in the classroom.  Please make sure that you are putting your child's drink in a tub, snack in a tub, diaper or pull-ups and their folders.  Everything needs to be labeled with your child's name on it.  These tubs will be out from 7:45 till 8:15 after that they will be put away. 

Classwork

Your child will come home each day from my class with the alphabet coloring sheet we did that day.  The remainder of your child's class work will come home at the beginning of the next month.  Some items will not be pulled and kept till the end of the year for a portfolio that you will receive on the last day of class in May.  So please be sure to check your child's folders each night for their coloring sheet as well as any other important information 

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to email me at hhorn@zionharvester.org.  I will do my best to return your email with in a 24 hour period.  

Today we painted with the color blue

We painted a blue truck

We practiced holding the paint brush the correct way 

and tried to paint just the truck 

Painting is a great way for the students to work on holding a writing instrument the correct way. 

When painting we asked the students what color they were painting with 

Some of our students did a great job painting just the truck 

When we are also painting we try and help them learn the rule that they will hear a lot in our class "less is more"

Mrs. Burke one of our wonderful aides worked with a group of students with some puzzles.  This is Mrs. Burke's third year with us hear at Zion and she awesome with the students and does a great job helping our classroom run smoothly. 

Puzzles are a great way to work on pre math skills and problem solving 

Addison, Evan and Scarlett had a great time chasing each other around the pole today.  It so great to watch the students make friends. 

We put our number and shape skills to work as we each got to put one square outline and one full square on our number one check it out in our hallway as you come in!

We worked our finger muscles hard today as we cut and glued

Korrinne working hard at staying on the lines as she cut her blue strip of paper

Amelija was concentrating on making good snips with her scissors as well

After the students finished cutting their strip of paper they glued them on a square shape

This allowed for more fine motor work as they had to pick up the pieces of paper and glue it on their square

We also learned that glue can be very very sticky!

lots of my friends like Will today were able to do some of this activity without the help of hand over hand/

Rose was able to get started after she was shown the correct way to hold her scissors

As we glued down our blue paper we counted how many we had on our square

As we counted we used our pointer finger to point to each blue piece of paper

Some of us had to count all the way to 9!

Even our littlest ones were able to do this project as they are able to do with all of them everyone works at their own level just like the students in the main school at Zion. 

Lining up to wash our hands this is an important skill that we work on all year long. 

Children have to wait for their name to be called and then they need to stand on a special animal and wait until it is time to go.

After morning circle, Jesus time and snack we painted a picture of Jesus with blue water colors 

We also used this time to look at books 

Looking at books is a great pre-reading skill gets us in the habit of holding a book the correct way and turning the pages correctly as well as treating the books with care.  Your child will learn that "Books are our Friends"  a lot this year 

We had lots of fun painting with water colors and seeing how fast the water color paints spread in comparison to the tempera paint we had used earlier in the morning to paint our truck 

The students were fascinated with my numbers book that we use during circle time 

We do a lot of painting in our classroom 

Please make sure that they do not wear their Sunday best to school for fear it could get pain on it!

After we practiced our fire drill we headed outside to play with our friends 

Our friends love to be outside even on the hot days 

Rose having fun scooping up rocks into the bucket

Sophia had fun pushing the car

Addison practing her climbing skills 

Evan had a great time playing with the great big dump truck in the rock pit!

Playing outside is so important for children of this age and we highly encourage our friends to run and play when we are outside. 

After we came in and had circle time and talked about the letter B and read a story and sang our ABC's we got to work on our centers. 

Today we started our numbers book that your child will be bringing home at the end of the year

We had to color an apple tree and then put 1 apple sticker on our apple tree. 

We also completed the second page in our alphabet book the letter B

Ask your child if they can make the B sound with their mouth tonight.

We stamped 4 blue blocks on our paper today. 

Each block had a different design on it. 

As the students were working I helped them say the word block. 

and had them make the b sound for me.

We also made our Blue Book today that will be coming home next week. 

We had to color each object the color blue on the pages . 

We used our crayons today and most of my friends will be finishing their blue books on Thursday

Coloring with crayons is another way to help your child with their pre writing skills 

We love to color with markers!

Scarlett is coloring her Bumble Bee Yellow 

Amelija started with Blue and Evan had a great time coloring with yellow and blue 

Be sure to check your child's folder for the letter B coloring page 

 Noah wasn't to sure about coloring with the markers at first but had a great time after he got started. 

Again this is a skill you will see done a lot over the course of the year as we work on our pre-writing skills 

Again we do a lot with markers they are washables but please do not dress your child in something you don't want to get ruined 

We got our carpet squares back out today and we did a much better job sitting for circle time!

We had fun at music and movement today singing new songs and old.  

We sang the Wheels on the Bus, Bringing home a Baby Bumblebee, Clap your Hands and the Animal Action Song!

We finished out our day with string one blue bead on a string that will show we are done with the month of August. 

Each month the students will thread the number of beads with the number we are working on.  

The bead will be in the color we are currently working on.  

At the end of the year they will have a beautiful rainbow necklace!

It will come home the last day of school 

This is a great fine motor skill for the students

Being able to get the string thru the bead and pulling it to the end.

It was really hard to do this time but over time it will become easier over the course of the year. 

It will also be a good way to review the colors we have already worked on. 

Here are all the books we read today during our circle times.  Reading is so important and should be started at a young age.  We will be reading lots of books over the course of the year.  

As you can see we were busy again today and we had a lot of fun exploring and learning.  I hope you all have a wonderful evening and stay cool!  I look forward to seeing some of you on Thursday and look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday.  As a reminder there is NO SCHOOL on MONDAY SEPTEMBER 02 in observance of Labor Day!  God's Blessings to you all.