New Unit: Unit 2 Friends Oct 29-Nov2

In Unit 2, children will be talking about friendship, how to be a good friend, and ways to resolve conflicts with friends. Through the Story Time books, children hear about the importance of being who you are, helping friends, enjoying special times together, and getting along. In addition to listening to stories, children will learn to idenify rhyming works and beginning letters and sounds in words, as they build vocabulary and comprehension skills. They will also participate in a variety of music, poetry, math, science, and art activities.

Theme Concepts:

-A friend is someone we like and want to spend time with. Friends like to do things together. They enjoy each other's company.

-We can have more than one good friend, and we might like to do some things with one friend and other things with other friends.

-Friends usually share with and help one another.

-Friends may have arguments and get mad at one another. Usually, friends work out their problems and continue to be friends.

-We can make new friends and also keep old friends.

Books this week

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)
A Letter to Amy by Ezra Jack Keats

Small Groups
-Science- Exploring Pizza Dough- Children will be given pizza dough to observe. They will use language to describe they observations such as how does it feel and what does it look like. They will be encouraged to knead the dough and shape it just like at a pizza shop.  We will be making pizza and enjoying it for lunch.  A letter will follow shortly to tell you when we will be cooking our pizza.
-Writing- Friendship Pictures- Children will illustrate a picture of something they like to do with their friends at school. They will talk about their picture in small groups. We will create a class book using the illustrations.
-Math- Pizza Books- We will put toppings onto pizzas, count, then write the number for each pizza.   -Language- Alphabet Letter Tiles and Storybook Word Cards- They will match letters to create words of familiar vocabulary from our stories this week. Some groups will be matching uppercase to uppercase and other groups will try to match lowercase to uppercase.
- Making Stationery- We will be creating stationery like in Letter to Amy.  We will create patterns on our paper and include a new self portrait to add to our portfolios.
-How many chips? Children will use 10 or 5 two sided chips. We they will put the chips into a cup then put them on a plate. They will sort what colors are on the chips. Then use basis addition skills to count how many.
Centers
Blocks-Dollhouses and friends
Sensory Table-Washing Dishes with soap and sponges
Dramatic Play- Pizza Shop
Library- A variety of books about friends
Art Table-Pizza Art
Easel- Water Colors
Puzzles- Vegetable Puzzles
Manipulatives- Stringing Beads to make friendship bracelets
Writing Center- Creating Handmade Stationary
Song, Word Play and Letters
Poems- Five Juicy Apples, Five Little Owl in an old oak tree
Songs- Come On and Join In To The Game, Down by the Bay, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
Literacy Skills- Clap out our names(counting the syllables in our friends names), If your name starts with a __ raise your hand, Chiming in with rhyming words.

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 1-4.
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".
4-When something is too hard, first try then say,"Can you help me please?"
New Skill:
When you something from a teacher or a friend and they are doing something, say, "Excuse me" to get them to look at you.

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.