Mrs. Fanning’s Three Year Old Class
During the first half of our school year we focused on establishing routines, separation, transitioning from home to school and getting to know each other in the classroom.  The second half of the school year will be dedicated to reinforcing established routines and  encouraging independence which can be very empowering.  We will also work on the development of fine motor skills, pre-literacy and beginning math concepts.  A thematic, multisensory, learning center based approach which provides a variety of activities daily gives our students many opportunities for exploration and growth.  For example we introduced the concept of identifying our first names and writing our first names by writing them in shaving cream, glue, sand, glitter and snow.  Our writing center is stocked with crayons, markers and pencils of many different shapes and sizes.  Daily activities in our sensory table and manipulatives center helps to strenghten the small muscles used for writing while providing exploration in math skills and preliteracy.  Some themes that will be explored in January and February are Winter/Winter animals, Teddy Bears, Dinosaurs, some fine art appreciation with Claude Monet, and St. Valentine.   We will also have the opportunity to share our favorite books from home with our classmates.

Mrs. Neroni’s Three Year Old Class
January and February may bring snowy weather outside, but they also bring fun to the three year old classrooms! In January, we begin working on recognizing our first name in print; as the children enter the classroom, each child cooses the card that has his/her name on it.  We also have our “Teddy Bear” week in January, culminating with a teddy bear party where each child brings in a favorite stuffed animal from home.  The best part is seeing what their animal “friends” get into while the children are in gym class!  At the end of the month, we have a pajama party.  What could be more fun than wearing your PJs to school?

For St. Valentine’s Day in February, the children will send a specially made valentine to their families.  We will work on each child knowing the name of his or her street and mail the valentine’s home.  The end of February brings the beginning of our “favorite book” unit.  Each child signs up for a day to share their favorite book from home and we read it as a class.  Finally the winter weather in January and February gives us the opportunity to play in the snow on our playground.  As the snow flies, I am reminded of how quickly our year is flying by!

Mrs. Salata’s Four Year Old Class
January brought us the study of winter and all things cold.  We had fun exploring penguins, snowflakes and writing about winter fun in our journals.  We had fun painting snowmen using balloons. We incorporated our numbers by counting out buttons on snowmen marked with a number on their hats.  We ordered snowmen numbered 1 – 12.  We had fun cutting out snowflakes and hanging them on our class tree.  We made a class book titled: If I had to hibernate what would I bring with me and what would I miss about the winter?  January also brought the study of space and all that is out in our galaxy.  We studied the planets and learned about gravity.  We experimented with a globe and flashlight to determine how we have day and night.  We painted night skies with moon, rockets and planets.  We made rocket ships and flying saucers.  We had a space path game helping us to count one to one.  We even had pajama day and incorporated math by graphing what we wore to school that day.  The study of Vincent Van Gogh was incorporated as we studied his work especially Starry Night.  We learned about Martin Luther King and his peaceful ways to bring about change in our country.  The children were fascinated to hear stories about the days of segregation.  January ends with our study of Dinosaurs.  New vocabulary will include herbivore, carnivore, paleontologist, fossils and omnivore.  Our letter study included the letters K, L, M and N.  We had parents come in to cook with us making lemon squares and monkey bread.  Mrs. Kallay, one of our kindergarten teachers, came in and made kebobs (with fruit) for K week.  The children enjoyed meeting her and spending time with her.  Our workbench has reopened and the children are enjoying making rocket ships and other wood structures.  February brings us the study of careers.

 

Mrs. Lautenbach’s Four Year Old Class (PM)
Space and our solar system has been our study this month.  We learned about the planets, stars, asteroids, comet, orbits, rockets, space shuttles and the astronauts. We hung up a model of the planets in our classroom and have painted pictures of space adding rockets, planets and stars to our creations.  We worked with some galaxy playdough that was fun to roll and cut into different space shapes.  We discovered the artwork of Vincent Van Gogh and his painting, “Starry, Starry Night”. We used oil pastels to make our own starry night pictures.  Pajama day was a perfect time to visit with Van Gogh and we had fun charting our pajama day attire. We also learned about Martin Luther King.  He was a man of peace who helped change our country by using his words.  We learned about the problems he saw and how he solved the problems. It was interesting to learn about the time of segregation in our country.   We are now moving on to study dinosaurs.  The topic that the children know and love!  We will study carnivores, herbivore and omnivores.  We will learn about many different types of dinosaurs and we will ponder what happened to the dinosaurs.  We will learn about paleontologists and fossils.  Our letter study continues with  the letters  K, L, M, and N.  Mrs. Kallay, one of our kindergarten teachers, came in to make fruit kebobs with us for K week.  We enjoyed getting to spend time with her and she invited us to her classroom for snack on our pajama day!  We were so grown up visiting a kindergarten room.  We made delicous lemon cookies during L week.  This class is filled with wonderful chefs!  

 

Mrs. Fanning’s Pre-K Class
The new year brings seasonal changes, more holidays to celebrate, and more letter of the week activities as we work our way through the alphabet.  Our focus becomes even more centered on preparation for Kindergarten as our parents attend the Kindergarten Information Night on Jan. 19th.  Encouraging independence (especially when dressing for outdoor play), following multi-step directions, working independently, and listening during group activities are important skills that we continue to work on and are essential to kindergarten.  We are also working on identifying upper and lower case letters, number concepts to 20, and increasing our sight words to include color words – red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink and purple.   Writing our first and last names the “kindergarten way” (upper case letters for the inital letter and lower case for the rest) is how we sign in before entering the classroom each afternoon.  Our art center will include activities to work in different mediums using some great artisits as our inspiration such as Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, and Remrandt to name a few.  Highlights of some letter of the week activities include: L week: having lunch in school, M week: learning about money, N week: exploring nocturnal and diurnal animals, O week: studying owls , P week: PJ day in pre-k, Q week:  making quesidillas, R week: rhyming words, and S week: silly hat day.