Welcome to Preschool!
We had a fantastic first week!
During the first week of school, our main focus is establishing the routine and rules. It's important for us to start with a good foundation so the rest of the year runs smoothly. When the children clearly understand my expectations, our learning environment is positive and enhanced, which leads to learning success!
So . . . this week we practiced, and practiced, and practiced our routine!
First, we begin with a "quick start" activity. This week we wrote our names. Most students already know how to write their names, but the idea behind this activity, is to have the children learn the routine and the importance of completing work and doing their best.
Next we read books together. Every week I change the books in our library, bringing in books based on our theme, the season, and any upcoming holidays. Of course, we have our favorites, which stay around longer!
After everyone has arrived and completed their "quick start" activity, we meet together at the carpet for "Chat Time" . This is a time when students each take a turn to tell the class what is on their mind. We learn the importance of raising our hands, taking turns, respecting others, formulating stories, and confidence in speaking in front of others.
As we move from one activity to the next, I use activities to help us transition smoothly. It's usually a book, song, or body movement. Transitional activities are so important at this age - we are busy, busy, busy and this helps us refocus together.
Here we're singing the song "Bubble Gum". On Thursday, the students chewed real bubblegum - sugar free of course:) - as we sang this song!
Next we do our Calendar Time. Each month we learn a new song teaching us how to spell the month. This month's song is based on the tune of "I'm a Little Tea Pot". Ask your child to sing it for you! Calendar time is valuable in learning number sequencing, days of the week, the months and year, as well as the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
After Calendar we do a short activity focusing on letters and one focusing on numbers. We may use whiteboards, play a game, complete a worksheet, or sing a song with an activity.
In this picture we are playing the game "Turn Around and Close your Eyes" which focuses on name and letter recognition. The kids love this game!! Ask them how to play it - maybe you can play it as a family!
Next up: Balanced Literacy
Every week we will focus on a book with different Balanced Literacy based activities each day. Balanced Literacy involves reading TO, WITH, and BY the students. We focus on chorus reading (to students), shared reading, guided reading/writing (with), interactive reading/writing (with), and finally, on Thursday, independent reading (by students). Although the children may be reciting the words from memory, the exposure is very important for them as they develop concepts of print, as well as confidence and excitement associated with reading. Most of the time, they will get to bring home a copy of the book every Thursday to keep. Please ask your child to read to you, and let them read to other family members as well! If they don't have all the words correct, don't bring too much attention to it, just praise them for a great job. In these early literacy experiences we want them to feel successful!
Here we are reading our book, "Time for School" together in a shared reading experience. In shared reading, we - as the name suggests - share important reading strategies before, during, and after reading the book (which usually contains predictable text). Examples of reading strategies include: concepts of print, comprehension, high order thinking questions, etc.
As the stages of reading instruction transitions from chorus reading, to shared reading, to guided reading, students learn and practice good reading strategies with various amounts of responsibility. At the end of the week, the children do an Independent reading activity, using the strategies learned throughout the week.
After Balanced Literacy we move onto our unit or theme for the week. Once we've discussed our unit/theme, the students are given between 2 and 3 jobs and excused from the carpet to complete their seat work at an independent pace.
This week our theme is Routine and Rules. We discussed what our classroom rules should be, and why. After I typed them out, the children illustrated the rules.
Then we posted our rules on the wall - here's the finished product!
Once the students finish their seat work, or "jobs" as we call them, they are welcome to clean up their supplies and head over to "Centers". Eventually "Centers" will be made up of three to four activities the children can complete to help them master certain skills. There will be a literacy center, math, make-believe, something from our theme, exploration, or a building center. This structure will slowly be introduced. For the first weeks of school however, "Centers" is an Open Playtime, where the children can explore any center and activity they wish.
This is a fun time to make friends and work on our social skills. The students must work together to create fun games where everyone is involved and feels they belong.
In this picture, Montego must have been pulling dear Bailee over for texting while driving :)
As one of our math and unit activities this week, we counted how many students we had in our class and compared and contrasted our class "specs". Then we colored self portraits and cut them out to hang on our classroom door.
And "Here We Are"!!
One last thing we did this week was choose our Homework Folders. I put your child's name on the folder they chose. Please have your child bring their Homework folders to class everyday so we can put work completed in them, as well as any homework (which we'll have usually two times a week).
I'm so excited for this year of preschool!!
Make sure to tell your preschoolers they are doing an awesome job!!
