Circles, Pets and our first Exploring

The boys and girls enjoy playing with their new friends on the playground everyday. After the children climb on top of the yellow tube, using the circular holes on the sides, they have definitely met with success! Once aboard, they pretend to be on a choo-choo train, an airplane or even in a spaceship. Some have discovered that the entrance to the tube is circular in shape.

Sliding down the big yellow slide.....what fun, but you have to wait for your turn!

After the boys and girls used Handwriting Without Tears lines and curves to create themselves and we discovered markers in the magic basket, we drew marker self-portraits.

In Music class the children were introduced to rhythm sticks and kept the beat to songs such as "The Wheels on the Bus."

This week we enjoyed watching ourselves in action on a slideshow,

building creative structures for pets and

working with number pegs. Here the children are practicing number recognition and one to one correspondence.

Others enjoyed reading and role playing, "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" by Eileen Christelow,

tracing stencils with crayons

or helping a friend with their smock!

Recently when the boys and girls come to work with the teacher on a special project, they are asked to identify their names on a class list and then draw a line through it. They are beginning to recognize not only their own name, but the names of their classmates, as well.
After talking about the various sizes of circles and ordering them from smallest to largest and largest to smallest, they glued circles on circles.

On Friday we had our very first Exploring. The activities were planned around our current theme of pets, circles and the colors red and yellow. We began with a short assembly in the Exploratorium where the children learned about  all of the exciting activities. Then the doors were opened between all three rooms, and the excitement began!

One of the children's favorite things was making their puppy or kitty hats, decorating them with stampers and crayons and then getting their little noses!

What fun to try and eat from the bowl, just like cats and dogs!

Trees were constructed of large foam blocks to prepare homes for the animals and pets.

Birdhouses were built just like the one "Flappydoodle" has in JK!

Funnels, cups, wheels, caps and toilet paper rolls were used as printing tools to make circles on a circle.

It was a treat to make stamp prints of kitty cats, dogs, fish, horses and birds.

Hanging monkeys on the branches of a tree and

making animal footprints in play-dough were among the exciting activities enjoyed by Alpha students.

What a fantastic first Exploring!

 Some literature read this week:
"Silly Sally" by Audrey Wood
"Skippy John Jones in the Dog House" by Judy Schachner
"The Peace Book" by Todd Parr
"Dogzilla" by Dav Pilkey

Upcoming Dates:
9/25 Field Trip to Crisp Park (9:30-11:00)
9/28 Exploring
10/4 Conference Day
10/12 School Closed - Professional Day