Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Lots of Wrapping and Lots of Tape!

We have a wrapping center open where the children can pick anything in the classroom and cut wrapping paper and then tape it up and add bows and ribbons!  It's great fun and we're also using our cutting skills everyday in a very fun way.  They can then bring their wrapped present to the post office in our classroom and weigh it and put a label on it and put it in our mailbox.  As we're reading more about the post office and how mail works you can show them Christmas cards that you get and show them the stamp on it and how you mail letters too.  They have a lot of great questions and they are starting to understand the process.


This week we'll be reading about Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights.  We're also singing a lot of Holiday songs, like Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and We Wish you a Merry Christmas.  Of course, when we sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas, we didn't know what figgy pudding was so we talked about how you find out information when you want to know something.  I will show the children several ways to find out information using the computer and the library. Once we find out our answer we'll make figgy pudding in the classroom.


Dates to Remember:
  • Monday, December 19-Bookmobile
  • Tuesday, December 20-Santa Bob is coming to school for the children to meet with and we'll take pictures
  • Wednesday, December 21-Christmas Party during snack time and our last day of school.
  • Tuesday, January 3-school starts again




Saturday, December 3, 2011

Best toys for kids with special needs: holiday 2011 guide

On our Educational Service Center Facebook page for Occupational Therapy they recently posted a great resource for toys. Please click here for the best toys for children with special needs for this holiday season.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Post Office and Christmas Around the World

We are starting to learn about the post office and how to send packages as the Christmas Holiday approaches.  We'll open up a wrapping station where the children can choose their wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons and lots and lots of tape!  They can wrap up their presents and then take them to the post office to send them to their friends and family.


We'll also learn about other countries and how they celebrate Christmas!  It will be great fun!


Dates to Remember:
Thursday, December 8-Swimming
Saturday, December 10-Breakfast with Santa at Brooks-Yates
Tuesday, December 20-Santa Bob visits Brooks-Yates and we'll take pictures of your child with Santa.
Wednesday, December 21-Christmas Pinata in the morning and our Christmas Around the World party at 2:00. This is the last day of school and we resume school on Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Handwriting without Tears

After the Thanksgiving break, I will send home a paper about the new handwriting system that we're using this year.  It's called Handwriting without Tears and you can get a preview of the tools that we're using by clicking here.


I am very excited about the program as it came very highly recommended by our Occupational Therapists since it's developmentally appropriate for preschoolers to use.  The part of the program that we're utilizing is called Get Set for School which is specially made for preschoolers.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

This week we'll be finishing up our Indian headdresses and necklaces.  We still have our tents set up in the play area for the children to pretend they are Indians.  We're also finishing up our Pumpkin Counting books. These books are made by the children and we'll send them home as soon as they're completed.  We hope that they will want to read their books often!


We only have two days of school this week.  On Monday, Josie is preparing cupcakes for our snack time and on Tuesday we'll be cooking French Toast in our classroom for snack time.


On Tuesday, the whole school, students and staff, will eat together at lunch time and we'll have our Thanksgiving dinner prepared by our kitchen staff and our wonderful bus drivers that come in to help.  The children have made special place mats for this occasion and we'll send them home that day.


We're looking forward to a great week this week and we want to wish you and your family a very Blessed Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Native American Indians and Thanksgiving

     This week we'll start learning about Native American Indians and Thanksgiving.  We'll read about how the Indians lived, what they wore and how they lived.  We'll make some Indian crafts too like a headdress, a necklace, and we'll make a Thanksgiving place mat for  when the whole school eats a Thanksgiving dinner the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.


We'll also continue to observe our celery experiment where we put celery stalks in colored water to see how the water is drawn up into the stalk.  We planted our seeds last Thursday so we'll observe our first sprouts soon!  We planted sunflower, gourd, pumpkin, and corn seeds so we'll have a lot to observe!


Dates to Remember:
Swimming-Thursday, November 17
Last day of school before Thanksgiving and our school Thanksgiving lunch-Tuesday, November 22

Sunday, November 6, 2011

November Plans

     We'll continue learning about pumpkins, apples, and farms for the first week of November.  We'll do our experiments this week with things that sink or float.  We'll make our predictions first and then test them out by putting the pumpkins, apples, and gourds in the water and then observing what they do.  We'll also plant our seeds this week and begin observing the changes from week to week.  We'll plant pumpkin, apple, gourd, and sunflower seeds and anything else that we can find in our classroom that has seeds.  We'll be eating some fruit this week and discuss the seeds and see if we can plant those as well.

Then we'll begin our study of Indians and Thanksgiving.  We'll read many books about them and see if we can come up with some questions that we want to learn about Indians.  Then we'll go to our library or the bookmobile and see if we can find out the answers.

Dates to Remember:
Bookmobile-Monday, November 7 and 28
Swimming-Thursday, November 17
Thanksgiving Vacation-Wednesday-Sunday, November 23-27

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Pumpkins, Farms, and Harvest

This week we're learning about farms, harvest, and pumpkins and apples!  We've added apples, potatoes, and pumpkins to our farm market.  The children have been buying the items and also making great soups with them!  They serve them up at the table in our kitchen and then they share them with each other and they look delicious!


We painted with corn cobs and we painted with apples and potatoes that were cut into different designs.  We also made a chart to record our preferences between eating red and green apples. 


We're trying to get out and enjoy the weather this fall so we were able to go to the playground a few times.  The children really enjoy their time outside and with each other.  We vote to decide on going to the gym or to the sensory room when it's raining outside.  So far this week, the children have chosen to go to the sensory room....there's something for everyone to play with there!


We're looking forward to our Fall Harvest Party tomorrow!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Snacks This Week

     On Monday we'll have the new goldfish sandwich bread with peanut butter and juice.  On Tuesday we'll have graham crackers and strawberry yogurt.

Fireman/Apples/Pumpkins/Farms and Fall

     We just finished learning about fireman and why you call 911 when you need a fireman or a policeman's help.  The children had fun making fireman hats and playing in the play area pretending to be fireman and putting out fires. 


This week we will start to put together our garden store in our play area.  We will be asking for the children's help to put the store together so we'll talk about that at circle time together tomorrow.  We will discuss what we need to open up a store that sells gourds, pumpkins, corn, apples, and flowers.  Then we'll gather our supplies throughout the school and during play time we'll set up the store.  We'll need a name for it so we'll start collecting ideas and then have a vote to decide on the name.  It's very fun to see the children add their input as to what the ingredients are for a store.  We'll make the signs, the prices and maybe we'll have a sale or two while the store is open for the next few weeks!


Next week we'll have school on Monday and Tuesday and then we'll be off for Wednesday and Thursday due to Pumpkin Show!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Circle S Farms Field Trip Tomorrow

     We'll be leaving around 9 in the morning and spending all day at Circle S Farms.  Please be sure your child has breakfast at home and please pack a disposable lunch for them.  We'll be back around 2 and we'll dismiss at our regular time of 2:30. There's so much to do there and we'll have a blast!  If you have any questions please give me a call!

Friday, September 30, 2011

A few daily schedule changes

Parents of the Red Room:  We have made a few changes in our day that we wanted to share with you.  We are picking jobs on Monday and Tuesday mornings for our part-time students and your child will have the same job for the week.  We thought that it might be better for them to do the job for the entire week so they can work on doing it independently as they learn how it’s done.  We also changed gym/playground and music time and that has been very successful.


8:30 In class – We gather in our classroom, talk, and put away our belongings.    
Bathroom – We have a bathroom break.
AM Choice- The children can play until morning welcome. On Monday/Tuesday the children pick their job for the week.        
Clean up-When all the children have been to the bathroom we clean up play area.              
8:50 Morning               
Welcome- We gather on the carpet, sitting on the floor, and we do the Welcome Song and give hugs for those what want them.     
9:00 Breakfast-We go up to the cafeteria for breakfast.                 
9:30 Gym/Playground- We play in the gym/playground or the sensory room.                                         
Circle –We go to the carpet with our chairs and get ready for circle time.  We start off the year with a short 5 minute circle and we’ll gradually increase that as the year progresses.   I write a morning message that we all read together, we do our calendar and we’re graphing the weather each month, and we read a book.                          
Bathroom –We have a bathroom break.               
Center Time-We have several centers available and the children can move freely from one to another.  Our centers include playing in the play area, art, computer, sensory table, puzzles, cooking, and working individually or in a small group with one of us.                        
Clean-up-We all clean-up the play area.
11:30 Music-We have music in the circle area on the carpet.  We wash our hands before lunch.                                                                   
12:00  Lunch-We have lunch in the cafeteria                          
Red Room-We come down to our room and have a relaxing time with a video that one of our students chose for the day.  As the children are watching it with a stuffed animal if they so chose, we pull them out to brush their teeth and go to the bathroom.              
1:00 Nap-Some children take a nap at this time.  Our non-nappers do a variety of activities such as go to our school library where we have books, a puppet theater, and games, go to the playground, sensory room or we do a group activity in our classroom.
Bathroom-We have a bathroom break.                   
2:00 Snack –We have a snack at our table in the classroom.                               
2:30 Home-After snack we sing a goodbye song and dismiss for the day.                           

Circle S Farms Field Trip on Thursday, October 6, 2011

Brooks-Yates School Field Trip
Circle S Farms
Thursday, October 6, 2011


We will be spending the day at Circle S Farms.  They offer: hayrides, a pumpkin, a fun barn, a corn maze, a sunflower maze, a petting zoo, a scarecrow bale cave, and a donut and apple juice for each of our students.  The cost of the trip is $6.50 which includes all of the above. We will leave the school at 9 in the morning and return at 2 in the afternoon.  We won’t be here for breakfast so please make sure your child has breakfast before they leave that morning.  Please pack a totally disposable lunch that we will eat at Circle S Farms.  If you want to see what Circle S Farms is all about in Grove City you can visit their website at circlesfarm.com or call 614.878.7980?.

Support Team Luke!

Join one of our families at Brooks-Yates Preschool as they Walk Now for Autism Speaks. You can click here to support Team Luke! The walk is on October 9th and if you can't walk that day you can still support him with a donation.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

New Support Group on Facebook for Special Needs Children in Pickaway County


Elizabeth, one of our parents, would like to tell everyone about an online support group she started on Facebook. It's for parents and caretakers of special needs children in Pickaway County--just a place for us to connect on a personal level...
The group name on Facebook is 'SN Parents of Pickaway County' and it's a closed group, so it's not open to the general public. All parents and caretakers of SN children and/or adults are welcome to join.
If anyone has questions they can email me here at yahoo!
Elizabeth McPherson [elizabeth_mcpherson@yahoo.com]
or via Facebook (Elizabeth Preston McPherson)
Thanks for your help! :)
Elizabeth McPherson

Snacks for this week

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
McDonald’s
Letter and Number Crackers, bananas and juice
Cooking: make individual pizzas on an English muffin
Snack: Wheat and cheese crackers and juice
Smorgasbord- Clean out the leftovers!
Fruit Snacks,
Popcorn, and juice

McDonald's Trip

     We will be walking to McDonald's this Thursday, September 29 at around 11:00. We'll order our food, eat, and then play in the playland.  We'll start heading back around 1:30-1:45, have snack at school and then dismiss at 2:30.  This is always a very fun trip and you're welcome to join us if you can!  Please get your permission slips in by this Tuesday!

Field Trip/Events Schedule for the School Year

We have many field trips planned for the school year.  We love to go on outings and provide our students with as many opportunities as possible to be involved in the community.  Please feel free to join us at anytime for any of these trips!



  • September 29 McDonald's
  • October 6 Circle S Farms
  • October 12 School Pictures
  • October Fall Harvest Party at school
  • December 10 Breakfast with Santa
  • December 20 Holiday Party at school
  • January 19 World of Bounce
  • February 15 Valentine's Party at school
  • April 26 AHA Museum 
  • May 15 Columbus Zoo
  • May 23 Preschool Graduation
  • May 24 Swim and Picnic at the YMCA and Mary Virginia Crites-Hannan Park-last day of school.

Swimming Schedule for the School Year

Swimming Schedule for Preschool
2011-2012
All of our swim dates, except for the last date in May, will be from 12:30-1:30 at the YMCA.

Ÿ          October 13
Ÿ          November 3 and 17
Ÿ          December 8
Ÿ          January 5 and 26
Ÿ          February 9 and 23
Ÿ          March 8 and 22
Ÿ          April 19
Ÿ          May 10
Ÿ          May 24 This is our last day of school and we will have the entire school swim at the Y from 10:30-11:30 and then we will go to the Mary Virginia Crites-Hannan Park on 188 for a cookout.

We love to have parents involved so please join us anytime you’re available!  If you have any questions please contact me at hwinner@pickawaydd.org, at school 474.1124, or on my cell at 740.497.7182

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Swimming

     We will be swimming tomorrow so please send in your children's swim suit, towel and swimmies if needed.



Saturday, September 17, 2011

Snack Menu and a New Theme

     We are starting to learn about opposites this week.  This is a fun unit as we read many books about opposites.  The Pickaway County Library has a great collection of books by Lisa Bullard about opposites in the animal world and that's where we'll start reading this week.  If you have a chance, point out as many opposites as you can think of around your home or when you're out and about. It's fun to give your child a word and see if they know the opposite.


Here's a short list to get you started!



  • beginning and end
  • start and finish
  • top and bottom
  • on and off
  • empty and full
  • new and old
  • little and big
  • whisper and shout
  • hungry and full
  • open and close
  • light and heavy
  • in and out
  • short and tall
  • happy and sad
 And that's just a short list of opposites....it's fun, once you get started you'll think of a lot more!  Have fun with it!





Snacks 

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Swimming
Nutrigrain Bars, apples and juice
Popcorn, yogurt, and water
Fruit Loops and milk
Pudding, vanilla wafers, and water







Thursday, September 15, 2011

Field Trips and a few other things!

     Abby is working on a letter to send home about our field trips for the school year.  Just so you know this is what's happening for the rest of this month:
  • We will be swimming next Thursday on September 22.  You already filled out permission slips in your school packet so we are set to go there.  I will send out a reminder on Wednesday to be sure to pack suits and towels.
  •  We will walk to McDonald's on Thursday, September 29 and have lunch there and play in the play land.I will send out permissions slips on Monday.
We are continuing to work on the initial letters of our names so that the children can begin to recognize their names and the names of their friends.  Today we will be cutting out pictures from magazines that start with the initial letters of our names.  We made a big poster size letter for each of these letters:  B, E, J, L, T, and X.  The children will glue their pictures to it and in that way we'll start learning the initial sounds of a variety of words.

We made goop this week which consists of cornstarch and water.  Just add a little water at a time and see what happens.  It's a great mixture to play around with.  You can shape it into a ball and it retains its shape for a few seconds and then it turns to liquid again....it's a great sensory activity that you can do while you're cooking in the kitchen.  You can get out another bowl and let your children play in goop while you talk and cook!.  We're also learning about healthy eating while we're cutting up our watermelon and cantaloupe this week.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Open House/Ice Cream Social

Come and enjoy a sweet treat with your new Superintendent, teachers, Service and Support Director and Administrators.


It's from 6:00-8:00 this evening at the school!  We hope to see you there!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Snack Menu

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Cereal and Milk
Cooking: Cut up watermelon
Snack: Watermelon and Vanilla Wafers
Cooking and Snack: Peanut butter and banana sandwiches
Cooking: Cut up cantaloupe
Snack: Fig Newtons and cantaloupe

Friday, September 9, 2011

More Research Information

Please click here for more information on the research opportunity that we have with Ohio State University.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Tuesday, September 6

     We had a lot of fun making our letter pretzels today.  The children took turns mixing up the ingredients, stirring, kneading the dough, and then shaping the dough into the initial letter of their name.  We then used the pastry brush to brush an egg on our pretzel and we added some coarse salt and gave them to our cook, Elisha, to bake them in the oven.  We ate them at our snack time with a little cheese sauce for dipping!

Snacks This Week

September Cooking and Snack Menu-First Week
Monday 5th
Tuesday 6th
Wednesday 7th
Thursday 8th
Labor Day
Cooking: Whole Wheat Letter Pretzels
Snack:  Letter Pretzels with Mustard or Cheese Dip
Nutrigrain Bars, Apples and Juice
Josie’s Birthday Party

Friday, September 2, 2011

Our Activities This Week

     This week I learned that we like to cook!  We made banana cream pudding and chocolate pudding for our snack one day this week and we enjoyed making it and eating it!  We also grated our carrots for our snack yesterday.  Each child had an opportunity to grate the carrots and they did a great job.  I will definitely plan more cooking activities for next week!

This week we played in the water tables with cups for pouring, boats, and water wheels.  We also took a walk and observed what's happening outside in the summer time.  We'll be learning about seasons and how they change throughout the school year.  We saw many green trees and we discussed the colors of the many beautiful flowers that we saw on our walk.  On our walk we take wagons so the children can ride part of the time and part of the time, they walk with us holding our hands.  

Labor Day Reminder

     We will be closed on Monday, September 5th for Labor Day.  Enjoy your weekend!

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Last Week of August

     During this second week of school we're learning all about our school, our new friends and our new teachers.  The children are learning about many new ways to communicate with each such as sign language, using pictures and using a communication device such as a Dynavox to talk with their friends.  You might see new signs at home such as drink, please, more and friends. We are learning why our school has ramps and that our friends that use wheelchairs need those ramps to get around the school. We are also learning that our school has rules that we need to follow.  The children are already saying, "walking feet" inside the school.  Our rules are very simple:

  • Listen to your teachers
  • Walking feet inside the school
  • Keep your hands and feet to yourself
  • Use nice words with our friends
  • Use inside voices



     We played musical chairs yesterday and it was fantastic...we giggled and laughed a lot as we all scrambled to find a chair when the Sousa marching music stopped!  We are also learning nursery rhymes during our music time.  Today we'll use our rhythm sticks.  We'll first learn the rules with our sticks and I will demonstrate the myriad of ways to use the sticks.  Then I'll pass out the sticks to each child and we'll go around the circle and play follow the leader with each child taking the leadership role.  This is where the children get very creative and do fantastic moves with their sticks and we all follow their lead.


     

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Welcome to Brooks-Yates Preschool!

     What a great first week of preschool!  We're meeting new friends and learning their names!  We sing a good morning song to our friends before we eat breakfast and everyday we're learning more and more of our friends' 
names.

This week we're learning the new routines of preschool and the ins and outs of our school building!  Within the first week we have visited all of our areas of play from the playground in the back of the school to the sensory room on the fourth floor.  This week we'll start cooking by making pudding together.  We'll also peel carrots for our snack on Thursday.  At snack time, we discuss what we're eating and also what category of food we're eating. Is it a fruit, a vegetable, or a grain?  Here's our snack menu for this month:


Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
22

Juice/Graham Crackers/Bananas
23

Juice/Fig Newtons/Pears
24

Juice/Popcorn/
Cantaloupe
25

Juice/Celery/
Peanut Butter
29

Fruit Loops/Milk
30

Juice/Cheese Puffs
31

Water/Pudding/
Vanilla Wafers
1

Juice/Carrots/
Animal Crackers











Within in the next few weeks, I'll be sending home Clifford papers and Weekly Readers. I am trying out both subscriptions to see which ones our class prefers.  I have a month to try them out and then we'll decide on one to use for the rest of the year.  If you have a preference after seeing both of them, please let me know so we can decide together!  Please read over them together with your child and give me your input.

I am also sending home a Parent/Child Magazine that might help you out with ideas for your family.  I hope you'll enjoy this resource!


Friday, May 27, 2011

Thanks!

To all of our wonderful parents!

Thank you for entrusting your precious children to us for this past school year!  It's been a fantastic year!  Have a wonderful summer and if you need anything please let me know.  You can call the school and I'll get the message!

Thanks!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Last Day of School

Thanks for supporting your children in their Preschool Celebration today!  The children did a marvelous job with their tunes on their recorders and with their songs and finger plays!  By the way, I will be sending home their recorders tomorrow so you'll be able to fully enjoy their talents!  We've had a lot of fun with music this year and it was wonderful to have the children play their own musical instrument!


Tomorrow is our picnic in the park day and we'll be at the Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park on 188 at 11:00 with lunch at 12:00.  If it rains, then we'll stay at school and eat at school too.  We hope to see you tomorrow-rain or shine!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Last Week of School

Please join for our Preschool Celebration on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 1:00.  We'll have a wonderful presentation by the children...it should be a lot of fun!  Afterwards, we'll have refreshments and your scrapbooks will be ready for you to peruse though and take home.  We hope you'll enjoy those for years to come as you can get a glimpse of what the children did at school.

On Thursday, May, 26, we'll be going to the Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park on 188 for fun and for a cookout.  Please send in your child's permission slip by Tuesday so we'll know how many to cook for.  If you can, please join us for that day as well! We'll go to the park around 11:00 and eat lunch at 12:00.  We'll judge how long to stay there by the weather.  We checked and the Splash Pad won't be turned on yet so we'll bring some water balloons with us if it's hot enough.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Zoo Trip

We're headed to the zoo tomorrow!  My best guess is to wear layers as the weather might change, being in Ohio!  Please remember your lunches and we'll be leaving the school at 9:00 am and returning by 2-2:15.  We won't be serving breakfast since we're leaving so early.  The children are very excited to see as many animals as they can!  We'll do our best to see all of their favorites!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Changes in our Swim and Picnic Plans!

I wanted to let you know that we're unable to swim on our last day of school due to a scheduling conflict.  I am sending home a permission slip today for our picnic in the park on our last day of school, Thursday, May 26.  We'll play at the park and then have a cookout and we'd love for you to join us if you can.  If you have any questions about the picnic please let me know.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Events at Preschool!

We had a lot of fun at preschool this week!  The children enjoyed the girls Logan Elm basketball team coming and playing basketball with us on Monday and they especially enjoyed the red balls they handed out.  It was a flurry of activity in the gym!  Our trip to McDonald's yesterday was rain free so we were able to walk there and back and not get wet!  We had a lot of fun in the tunnels, slides, and the little cars. There's just something fun about eating and playing at McDonald's with friends!

In the classroom we're exploring zoo animals and learning about what animals we might see at the zoo.  We're also learning about animal habitats and where animals live that aren't in the zoo.  We moved in all of our zoo stuffed animals last week and this week we'll move in the veterinarians office.  We'll have appointment books, calendars, phones, medical equipment, and of course, a cash register, so you can pay for the treatment for your animal! The children like to help arrange their play area so I will have all the ingredients to make a veterinarian's office and they can help me set it up and decide where to put the office and the waiting room for instance.  This activity involves a lot of communication and discussion and it's wonderful to see how they share ideas with each other and how they give and take as they set up their new play area.

Dates to Remember:

Thursday, May 19th-Zoo field trip-the children need to have a completely disposable packed lunch. The rain date is Tuesday, May 24.

Wednesday, May 25-Graduation/Preschool Celebration at school at 1:00 with a reception afterwards.  We'd love for you to stay for light refreshments and we'll have your scrapbooks ready for you to take home.

Thursday, May 26-End of the school year swim at the Y and a picnic at the Mary Virginia Crites Park on 188.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

So Much to do...So Little time!!

We have a lot going on in the month of May!  We're starting our zoo animals unit and we'll be looking at land and water animals. This will be a lot of fun as we build up our understanding and knowledge of the animals that we'll visit on May 19th.  Later on this week, we'll open up a veterinarian's office in our play area and bring in all of our zoo stuffed animals.  We'll start off this week learning about elephants and we'll learn a song about how the elephants went out to play on a spider's web one day!  We'll see how large an elephant's tooth is by measuring out ten inches!  Wow, that is very long.  Then we'll measure out the size of a full grown African elephant's ear which is about six feet long and four feet wide!  I wonder how many children we can fit inside an elephant's ear! The children are still enjoying the camping area so we'll leave that up for a few more days.

This week we hope to walk to McDonald's on Thursday and please send in socks with your child so they will be able to play in the Play land.  I'll send home a reminder as well.  We have two more permission slips for this month, besides our McDonald's one this week.  I will send home the zoo permission slip next week and the swim and picnic permission slip in about a week and a half.  Please reserve the date-Wednesday, May 25 as that's when our preschool Red Room will be presenting a short program. We will also give you the scrapbooks that we've been working on all year and share some time to talk over the year over some refreshments.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

McDonald's Field Trip

We will be going to McDonald's for lunch and to play in the play land with our classmates on Thursday, May 12.  We'll have breakfast in the morning and we'll follow our regular schedule until we walk over to McDonald's around 11 in the morning.  We'll order our lunch and eat first and then we'll get to play, play, play.  We did this in the fall and the children had so much fun that we wanted to repeat it plus we have some new classmates that we wanted to share it with!

Saturday, April 30, 2011

May

We learned so much at our conference!  It's always wonderful to learn new ways to teach and innovative ways to make the classroom more inviting and full of discovery!  We'll be using some of those ideas starting on Monday!

We'll finish up this week studying insects as the last two weeks have been extremely short weeks.  We have our camping area set up and the children just love the tent and the swimming pool.  Barb brought in another tent that we'll set up on Monday morning so they can visit each other's camp sites.  It will add a whole new dimension to their play.  There's just something about getting in a tent with your friends that is absolutely so much fun! And, of course, you need to bring food from the play kitchen, blankets, a few babies and all of their belongings....it just wouldn't be camping without hauling our things with us!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Short Week!

I hope you had a nice Spring Break and enjoyed some of the candy the children brought home in their eggs.  They had a lot of fun looking for them and then they had the joy of opening them up and discovering what was inside.  We thank the Circleville Key Club for providing the Easter Egg Hunt for us!

Over the weekend, I added a tent and a plastic swimming pool to our play area since we'll be pretending to camp this week and next.  Since we're studying bugs, the camping theme seemed to fit!  We'll take our bug puppets with us to the play area and see where they'll surprise us!  The swimming pool will be our reading area in our campsite so I've added our soft pillows and stuffed animal friends so we can read to them while we're 'sunning' ourselves!

Our ants have been very busy building their ant hill and the children will be able to observe them at work this week.  They have built numerous tunnels and they are still building more.  We're learning more bug songs and the children seem to especially love, Baby Bumblebee and the Ants Go Marching!  Speaking of bugs....What kind of bug can't go into the men's bathroom?  Give up yet?.......why, it's the ladybug of course!  I have plenty more of those up my sleeve for this week!  We'll be making ladybug hats on Tuesday so I imagine we'll hear that joke a lot that day!

We will only have school this week on Tuesday, April 26 and Wednesday, April 27.  On Thursday, April 28, Barb, Gerry and I will be heading to Columbus to the Early Care and Education Conference and we're very excited as it's always wonderful to learn more and to be able to bring back fresh ideas to our classroom to share with our children.

Dates to Remember:

We'll have school on Tuesday, April 26 and Wednesday, April 27.

Thursday, April 28-No School due to Staff Training.

The Slate Run trip has been cancelled for May and they don't have any other openings.

Thursday, May 19-We're going to the Zoo with a rain date on Tuesday, April 24.  This is an all day trip and the children will be needing a packed lunch. 

Wednesday, May 25-the Preschool will be having their graduation ceremony in the conference room at 1:00.

Thursday, May 26-we have our last swimming date followed by a picnic at the Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park on 188 and that will be the last school day for this year.

Friday, April 15, 2011

A Little Music, a Little Tball, a Little Swimming, and Lots of Insects!

This week has been a very well rounded week with a variety of activities.  On Monday, Sharon, who works in Early Intervention, brought her son in to play the baritone for us and that was a new instrument for us to explore.  The children listened intently as he explained the baritone to us.  Then he played 'Name That Tune' with the children and they were able to guess his selections!

We played Tball with new friends at the Pioneer School in Chillicothe and we learned that it's fun to hit the ball.  We're also learning about running to first base, and where that is...and that we're on the same team in the outfield so we don't need to fight over the ball as we're fielding it...so much to learn in Tball.  I believe we'll get out our Tball stand in the gym so we can play since the children enjoyed it so much.  One of the highlights of the game for us was the cheering that was going on with our children while they were batting.  As each child had a turn to bat the other children started chanting their name saying, "Go Evan, Go Evan, Go Evan" and clapped to the rhythm....it was fantastic!

It's hard to describe the progress that the children have made with their swimming abilities.....other than saying it's tremendous!  Whether it's becoming more comfortable just being in the water, to learning to blow bubbles, to getting your hair wet to learning how to back float....they all have increased their skills in the water.  Actually, one of our children says he's. "Just relaxin" as he back floats!

We are in the process of making insect puppets and the children are doing a great job coloring the various insects, cutting them out, and then gluing them to popsicle sticks.  We'll be using our puppets as we sing and read about insects.  I found a great series of non-fiction books by Nancy Loewen that the children are enjoying.  This week we learned that a bee's tongue is a long tube that works like a drinking straw.  Bees can either roll up their tongue or hold it out straight so we tried rolling up our tongues...that was a lot of fun.  We also learned that it takes 55,000 bees and 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey...I now have new appreciation for the jar of honey that I have!  Did you know that bees have a great way of talking to each other?  They do it by dancing.  If a bee finds a lot of flowers, he goes back to the hive and flies in the shape of an 8.  From this dance, that's called a waggle dance, the other bees know where the flowers are, how far they are, and how good they are....that's amazing!  We'll continue to learn more about other insects next week.

Dates to Remember:
Spring Break is from Thursday, April 21- Monday, April 25.

We'll have school on Tuesday, April 26 and Wednesday, April 27.

Thursday, April 28-No School due to Staff Training.

The Slate Run trip has been cancelled for May and they don't have any other openings.

Thursday, May 19-We're going to the Zoo with a rain date on Tuesday, April 24.  This is an all day trip and the children will be needing a packed lunch. 

Wednesday, May 25-the Preschool will be having their graduation ceremony in the conference room at 1:00.

Thursday, May 26-we have our last swimming date followed by a picnic at the Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park on 188 and that will be the last school day for this year...so hard to believe as this has been such a wonderful group of children to spend each day with!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Spring is Here!

We enjoyed a fun day at the AHA! Museum yesterday and capped it off with eating lunch and playing at Rising Park on a beautiful spring day!

We're looking forward to beginning our study of bugs-the good, the bad and the ugly...we want the whole truth about bugs!  I've sent away for our ants for our ant farm and expect their arrival any day now!  They are coming from Utah, believe it or not!  Did you know that you can't send a queen ant across state lines.....just a little fun fact for you!  We'll have to look up that state on the map to see where that is in the USA so we know where our ants are from!  We have our magnifying glasses ready to do some inspections of different species.  We also have our crayons ready to record what we see and our rulers so we can measure our specimens.

We've added some nice pretend bugs to our dirt in the sensory table so we'll be waiting on Monday morning for the first child that finds them.  We'll also adapt a song that we're familiar with, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and change it to Head, Thorax, Abdomen!  Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along!

Insects

(Tune: “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” )

Head (point to head)

Thorax (point to chest)

Abdomen – abdomen! (point to stomach)

Head, thorax, abdomen – abdomen!

And eyes (point to eyes)

And mouth (point to mouth)

And antennae, two (stick 2 fingers up)

Six legs (wiggle 3 fingers on each hand)

And there’s an insect for you!

(Leave off a verse each time you sing and hum.)
 
Dates to Remember:
 
Wednesday, April 13-Tball trip to Chillicothe at Pioneer School.  Please pack a lunch for your child.
 
Thursday, April 14-Swimming at the YMCA
 
Thursday-Monday, April 21-25-No School-Spring Break
 
Tuesday, April 26-Free concert with Shawn Brown for your family. I will send home a flyer about it on Monday.
 
Thursday, April 28-No School due to staff training.
 
Tuesday, May 4-Free Slate Run Historical Farm Field Trip with a picnic lunch first.
 
Later in May we plan to go to the Zoo and we'll have a swim and picnic lunch at the new park on 188.  I will double check the dates on those events and let you know.