Families Week 4 October 22-26

Families ThemeChildren will be exploring and talking about families and the many different ways families relate to and help one another. Through the Story Time books, children will hear about a boy who helps his family take care of his baby sister, a boy who realizes how much he has grown when a new baby arrives, a girl who behaves badly when she want attention, and a lonely stuffed bear who finds a new friend. Besides listening to stories, children will begin to recognize initial sounds in words and identify rhyming words as they build vocabulary and comprehension skills. They will also be participating in a variety of music, poetry, mathematics, science, and art activities during Center Time and in Small Groups.
Theme Concepts:
*Family members have role names: mother, father, sister, and so on.
*Some family members live together; some live in other places but are still family members.
*Grown-ups in a family take care of the children. Younger children need more care. Older children can help take care of younger brothers and sisters.
*Children sometimes get angry at parents and may feel that their parents don't love them as much as their siblings.
*Sometimes grown-ups in a family don't like things that children do and tell them to stop or be quiet.
*Families do things together that are fun.


Books This Week:
Corduroy by Don Freeman
Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats
Time for Bed

Small Groups:
From Last Week:
-Marble Play- We will be observing marbles using magnifying glasses and drawing our observations. Then we will watch how marbles more differently on different surfaces and inclines.
-Uppercase/Lowercase Bingo- We will play bingo to reinforce letter identification skills. Some groups will be matching uppercase to uppercase and other groups will match uppercase to lowercase.
-Book Browsing- We will be reviewing vocabulary words from our stories and then creating unit 1 vocabulary books.
New this week:
-Rhyming Words-We will be matching words that rhyme. To extend this activity will be singing rhyming words during SWPL
-Book Browsing- We will be reviewing vocabulary words from our stories and then creating unit 1 vocabulary books
-Sequencing- We will cut and arrange pictures from our unit book Corduroy to retell the story.

Centers
-Dramatic Play-  Dress Up with costumes
-Sensory Table- water wheels

-Art Table- Marble Painting

-Writing-Black Paper with chalk (inspired by Peter's chalk lines in Whistle for Willie)
-Blocks- blocks with superheroes (inspired by SuperFlex)
-Math- Manipulatives
-Library- Books about families

Let's Talk About It
-Discussing Fabrics
-"Have you really wanted something and had to wait?"
-review and role playing Preschool Life Skills
-Special Viewing of Unit Books with Friendly Frogs on Friday to celebrate the end of unit

Songs, Word Play, and Letters
-Rhyming Words Song
-Dr. Jean Alphabet
-Stand Up
-Down by the Bay
-PETER Bingo song on Touch It Board (There was a boy who had a chair... There was a boy who learned to whistle...)

Handwriting
-We will be continuing our color books for the Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum. We will focus on proper grasp holding our stubby crayons.

Preschool Life Skills
We are continuing to review our previous skills 1-3.
1-When a teacher calls your name, stop, look and say, "Yes".
2-When a teacher tells you to do something, do it "Right Away".
3-When a teacher tells you to do 2 things, do it "Right Away".
We will reviewing our skill from last week:
"When something is too hard, first try then say,"Can you help me please?"

SuperFlex
We have also been learning about how to be "flexible" in our classroom when something does not happen the way we thought it would. We have introduced the children to the newest action hero, "SuperFlex". He has the power to be flexible and is a great problem solver. If you child receives a "SuperFlex Award", they demonstrated great flexibility in a situation at school.