Last Week in January and Starting February

We froze water in many containers last week in preparation for our ice races on Tuesday.  We'll take the ice out of the containers and in the gym we'll set up a race course.  We will take turns predicting how far our ice will slide on the gym floor and then as we line them we will give them a shove and see how far they glide!  In our small swimming pool we will also add ice and talk about what will help the ice melt.  One of our children already guessed that if we add salt, it will melt the ice.  The children will add salt and see what happens!


We will also play with colors this week as we add water to our markers on paper to see how they combine.  For cooking this week, we'll make pigs in a blanket and enjoy some hot chocolate too.

Dates to Remember:

Monday, January 30-Bookmobile visits our school

Thursday, February 9 and 23-Swimming at the YMCA

Tuesday, February 14-Valentine's Day Party

Monday, February 20-No School for President's Day

Fun day at World of Bounce and Future Plans

We had a very fun day at World of Bounce and a lot of tired children on the way back to school!  Next week we will continue to learn about winter and learn about colors.  The children are starting to read Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?  We will also work on our bird feeders to help out our feathered friends.


We have a lot of children that like to paint so we'll be planning some more painting opportunities next week.  We'll also play around with black paper and wet and dry chalk to see what we can learn about colors.  This week we'll prepare for our ice races on Tuesday, January 31. We will freeze water in several different containers and then do some experiments to see how to melt it and what effects how quickly it melts too.  Then we'll take some of our ice structures to the gym and race each other and predict how far each one will go.  We can also measure and mark their distances and compare the sizes of our structures to see which ones will go the furthest.  

Dates to Remember:

Thursday, January 26-Swimming at the YMCA

Monday, January 30-Bookmobile visits the school

Thursday, February 9-Swimming at the YMCA

Tuesday, February 14-Valentine's Day Party 

Monday, February 20- President's Day/No School

Thursday, February 23- Swimming at the YMCA

The Winter Environment

This week we will continue learning about colors, animals in winter and how they react to their environment.  With what we learned about last week while reading, the children wanted to make some bird feeders to set outside our window.  I found some resources to share with our children on different options that we can make to help out our feathered friends although it's been a very mild winter to say the least!


This week we'll explore more sensory materials such as shaving cream and popcorn in our sensory table.  We still have some Jell-o left from last week so we'll use that one day too.  We're also going to fill water containers and freeze them at the end of this week so we can have ice races in the gym next week after the children come back to school after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Ice races are always a lot of fun and we'll do some science experiments after we hold our ice race to determine the best materials to use to melt the ice.


This week we'll do science experiments with baking soda and vinegar and see what happens when we combine those two and then we'll add some food coloring and see how that changes things.....we'll observe and make some predictions of what we think will occur.  We'll continue to read more about animals in winter and winter in general.

Dates to remember:

Monday, January 9-Bookmobile

Monday, January 16-No School due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Thursday, January 19-World of Bounce Field Trip

Thursday, January 26-Swimming at the YMCA

World of Bounce Field Trip

Here's some information on our World of Bounce field trip that's coming up next week.  I will send this information home in a permission slip on Monday.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Open Bounce!!

Let your children jump, climb, slide and play at World of Bounce! A truly unforgettable experience for ages 2 to adult! If you wish to join in on the fun (it’s hard to resist!), adults always play for free when accompanying a child!!

We’ll be going on January 19th during an open bounce session which means that other children and their parents might be there.  We will leave the school at 9:00 and we can bounce from 10:00 to 1:00.  We’ll leave there at 1:00 and return to school for a snack and bathroom break and then board the buses/vans and leave for home at the regular time of 2:30.  You are welcome to attend with your child and we’d love to have you come along and bring the camera too!  You will need to pack a lunch for you and your child.  You can bring in a sack lunch and any drinks must have a lid on them to close and single servings meaning no two liter bottles that need to be poured into cups are allowed.  We’ll take a break and eat lunch there.

There are several things you need to send in before your child can go to the World of Bounce.

1.    This signed permission slip

2.    The signed waiver from World of Bounce

3.    The cost for each child is $6.00 and if that’s a hardship for you please contact your teacher to work it out.  We would like all the children to be able to go if possible!  Parents are free!  Please make checks payable to your child’s teacher or you can send in cash.

4.    You will need to pack a lunch and drinks with a lid for you and your child on the 19^th.

5.    You and your child need to have socks to be able to play in the inflatables on the 19^th.

6.    If your child is not going on this field trip he/she will need to stay home on the 19^th as all of the staff are going.

7.    Please return your permission slips and have your money into your teacher by Tuesday, January 17th.

January 2012

Welcome to 2012!

We're looking forward to a great new year in preschool!  We have a lot of exciting things to learn as we embark on our journey of learning about winter, ice, and how animals cope in the winter time.  We'll start off by bringing in some snow into our classroom by making some!  We'll do science experiments with Insta Snow and put it into our sensory table. We'll also make some jello on Tuesday and then use it in our sensory table on Wednesday.  We'll make it in several containers and discuss the properties of it as a liquid and then discuss what happens when we put it in the refrigerator.

This month we'll also be swimming two times and going to the World of Bounce. It's going to be a great start to the new year!

Dates to remember:

Thursday, January 5 and 26-Swimming

Monday, January 9-Bookmobile

Monday, January 16-No School for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Thursday, January 19-World of Bounce field trip- I will be sending home permission slips this week.