Friends Unit-Dec 3-7

Upcoming Events:
Dec. 3 ---No School -Teacher Conferences
Dec. 7 ---send in stuffed animal with your child that fits in their backpack
Dec. 10 --Holiday Class Party

This is our last week of Unit 2-
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 identify 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

Hooray A Pinata
Road Builders
The Door Bell Rang

Small Groups
-Writing Journal- Our stories in unit 2 involve the characters with pets.  We will discuss how to take care of pets and how they can be our friends. We will draw and write about how to take care of pets.
-Exploring Different Foods and how they taste. We will have a taste test and discuss how different foods taste sweet, salty, and sour. We will relate our conversations to events in Matthew and Tilly and Hooray A Pinata.
-Hungry Monkeys-We will further develop 1:1 correspondence and divide sets of objects equally among the monkeys.  We will discuss vocabulary such as equal, half, and whole.
-Pinata Party!!!!

Center
Blocks-Blocks
Sensory Table-Building Roads at a construction site
Dramatic Play-  Construction Zone
Library- A variety of books about friends
Art Table-Crayon Resist with watercolors
Easel- Water Colors
Puzzles- Puzzles
Manipulatives- Letter Matching Activity
Writing Center- Writing Letters
Song, Word Play and Letters
Poems- Five Juicy Apples, Five Little Owl in an old oak tree
Songs- We will be practicing our songs for our performance.
Literacy Skills- Letter Sound Activities, Change and Rearrange Words
Handwriting
-We will be constructing a pinata in our handwriting groups.  On Friday, we will have a pinata party and invite a stuffed animal friend from home.  We will be writing letters to them.

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.

Nov. 19-21

We will have an early dismissal on Wed. Nov. 21 at 11:30.
We will be closed on Nov. 22 and 23 for Thanksgiving.
Have a wonderful holiday!!
**Our class book order in Due Nov. 29**

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

Hooray A Pinata
A Letter to Amy by Ezra Jack Keats

Small Groups
-Exploring Money- We will be discussing and exploring money.  The characters in our stories play with a cash register and buy things at various stores.  We will sort coins and role play with a cash register.
-Recording Data- Each group will be given a set of 2 sided coins to flip.  We will flip the set of coins then count the color that each land on.  We will record what happens on our papers.  Then we will dicsuss the concepts of more, less, and equal.
-Ice Cream Friendship Project- Our graduate student friend Kerry is going to be discussing thing that build a friendship(like helping and sharing) and things that melt a friendship (like stomping your foot or shouting). This will continue next week as well
-Making a book about friendships- Each child will pick a picture of themselves playing with a friend from school. Then they will tell a story about the picture and draw an illustration. We will be creating a class book to bring home.
Center
Blocks-Dollhouses and friends
Sensory Table-Sand
Dramatic Play-  Lemonade Shop
Library- A variety of books about friends
Art Table-pumpkin lacing
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- Thanksgiving Dinner
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.

Pizza Day Nov. 7

Our class has been reading the book The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza).  Last week we had a pizza shop in our dramatic play area and making pizza at the art table with brown paper, red paint, and yellow tissue paper.

Today we made pizza for lunch. We first stretched the dough. Lisa flipped the dough up in the air for good luck (just like the little red hen did in the story). Then we pinched string cheese with our "alligator fingers" for the cheese. We made our pizzas then put them in the oven. When they were ready we enjoyed yummy pizza for lunch.

We also created pizza boxes for our paper pizzas. Then at the end of the day we sang some pizza songs. It was a really fun day.

Election Day Fun!

Cub Cadet Election

Today our class held a mock election.  During one of our “Let’s Talk About It” discussions, many of our friends knew who Obama, Romney, Warren, and Brown were.  They talked about all the TV commercials they saw. We decided to have our own class election. We have 2 baskets, one for each candidate.  Then we used popsicle sticks to cast our vote.  Each child went to the “secret” poll and put their stick into the basket of there choice. Then we use 1:1 correspondence to count our results.  We then discussed which had more and which had less.

Here are our results:

President

Barack Obama  10 votes (more)

Mitt Romney     5 votes  (less)

 We think the next president will be Barack Obama

U.S. Senate

Elizabeth Warren  2 votes  (less)

Scott Brown        13  votes  (more)

We think the next senator will be Scott Brown.

It was a fun and exciting process to have a class election.

We are excited to see if our election will be the same or different from tomorrows election.  

Friends Unit Nove. 5-9

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.

Pizza Day on Wed. November 7---We will be using dough and making pizza for lunch

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.
-Science- Sorting food and items from the grocery store.  We will be discussing why we find different foods in different sections of the grocery store(ex- cold items together, freezer items together, dairy items.....)Then we will sort our food into categories.
-Ice Cream Friendship Project- Our graduate student friend Kerry is going to be discussing thing that build a friendship(like helping and sharing) and things that melt a friendship (like stomping your foot or shouting). This will continue next week as well
Center
Blocks-Dollhouses and friends
Sensory Table-Modeling Sand
Dramatic Play- Grocery Shop
Library- A variety of books about friends
Art Table-Playdough and letters
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.