Music Man Preschool Show

Shadows and Reflections March 23- 27/ March 30-April 3

Theme – This is our first week of our new unit, Shadows and Reflections. During this unit students will explore shadows and reflections, using observations, experiments and books to learn what makes a shadow and a reflection. Through Story Time books, children hear about a girl playing by a still pond, a puppy who thinks he is a kitten, a crocodile collecting reflections in a pail, a sleepy boy who sees a shadow save a cat, and a raccoon who has an adventure with only his reflection for company.

Theme Concepts:
Reflections are images thrown back from a shiny surface.
There must be light or there is no reflection.
Mirrors and still water reflect light well; dull surfaces do not.
If water is moving, its reflections are blurry or crooked.
Objects are opaque, translucent, or transparent.
Shadows are the dark areas made when an object blocks light.

Stories:
March 23-27

Play with Me by Marie Hall Ets 

Raccoon on His Own by: Jim Arnosky
March 30- April 3
The Puddle Pail by Elisa Kleven
Play with Me by Marie Hall Ets
Raccoon on his own

Small Groups:
March 23-27
-Motor Monday-Letter chart of beginning sounds of animals for the book Play with Me 

-Technology-Interactive Shadow Activity on Touch It Board

-Math–Number Go Fish Game and/or Uppercase to Lowercase Letter Go Fish Game

-Manipulatives- Creating 2 different types of patterns. Then we will use 1:1 correspondence to count how many red, how many yellow, and how many in all.
-Games- Animal Memory
March 30- April 3
-Motor Monday-Making Collections- We will sort a variety of animals.  We will count then show how many is in each "collection"  We will reinforce concepts of smallest, largest, equal and sorting.
- Art/ Science-We will be looking at unit books and discussing the animals we have read about.  Then we will create a pet we would like to have out of clay. We will wait for it to dry then paint our pet.  The last step will be to draw a picture of our pet and describe our pet in another small group next week.
-Math-  We will be sequencing pictures of shadows from shortest to longest.  We will reinforce the concept of where the light needs to be to cast a shadow.
-Science- Mirror Play- We will discuss the what a refection is.  Then we will use mirrors to try to reflect objects in flat mirrors, concave mirrors, and triangle shaped mirrors.  These mirrors will be at the science table during the week to explore independently.
-Book Browsing- Using a chart, we will compare the animals found in 3 unit books.  We will discuss our finding (ie. a raccoon is in 2 stories just like the snake)

Choice: -

-Easel – Painting meadow, pond, and stream animals/Cloud Paintings
-Sensory–Bubbles and mirrors (looking for reflections in bubbles)/Plastic Lid Boats
-Dramatic Play – Eye Doctor (eye charts/ literacy)Pet Shop
-Art – Reflective-Paper Collages/Exploring Glitter in Art work
-Writing Center – Drawing and writing about animals
-Puzzles – Animal Puzzles (Raccoons, crocodiles, grasshoppers, and fawns).
-Blocks –Blocks/ Reptiles Zoo
-Science Center- Mirrors and Reflection Exploring
Independent Center- Magic C Letter Books (HWT)/ Sequencing Animal Pictures

Let's Talk About It
March 23-27
-How Animals catch mosquitos(related to swamp books)
-Different Turtles
-Mirror Exploration
March 30-April 3
-Good and Poor Reflections
-Making Collections(What do you collect?, stamps, stickers,)
-Imaging Things in clouds(What animal does this cloud look like?)
-What is a shadow? Discussing sharpness of edges
Songs, Word Plays and Letters
Five Green Frogs
Compound Words
Bingo – with the word Snake
Whose Reflection is in the Pool?  (Smart board Activity)
The Turtle
Five Little Fishies

Handwriting
 -Reviewing Magic C Letters  We will review "Magic C" letters.  I will have a "magic" black hat and a special rabbit to help me write our magic C letters.   They are magic C letters because they can change. If you make a C it can change to a G, O, and Q.  We also have a fun song to sing about Magic C letters.

Preschool Life Skills
We are continuing to review our previous skills 1-7.
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?"
5-When you something from a teacher or a friend and they are doing something, say, "Excuse me" to get them to look at you.
(6and 7 are join together)
7-When someone is in your way or has something that you want, say "Excuse me" to get their attention, and then say"May I_____?" to get what you want.
8-When an adult tells you to wait say, "Okay", and your waiting words. (Waiting Words= "When I wait quietly, I get what I want")
 New Skill:
When a friend tells you to wait say, "Okay", and your waiting words. (Waiting Words= "When I wait quietly, I get what I want")

We also have been learning:
"Checking our Body" - This is to remind us how to sit during large group activities. We will talk about how to "check" our bodies to get ready to listen. This is a important skill as we transition into kindergarten.

Burlington Science Center Show Today

If you are unable to see video above, click the link below;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxmIgb7QD90

Happy leprechaun day!

Today was the day for our leprechaun hunt. Sean the leprechaun wrote us a note to give us clues. 

Our hunt started in the BECC office.  No Sean!

Next Louise D'Amato's office. No Sean!

Then we went to Dr. Conti's office. Still no Sean! 

We went back toward the preschool.  We did not catch him but he left a note to say we were good lads and lassies. Sean also left a gift for each of us in traps in our classroom. A pot of gold for each of us. 

Thank you Pat for sharing your leprechaun with us every year. 

Also a thank you to Tarsha(Joseph's mom) for sending in traps for everyone and Tonia(Liam's mom) for sending in shamrock pins. It was a fun day!

More leprechaun traps

More leprechaun traps

Leprechaun traps of the day

Today some of us worked in teams to create a trap for Sean McFlarety. They had to share ideas to build one trap. We will share other inventions each day on the blog so check back.

Leprechaun experiment

Today Sean McFlarethy, the leprechaun that visits Pat, left special snow melting liquid at school today. (Green vinegar;)shsh!). He also left magic snow (baking powder with green shamrocks hidden inside). We  poured his magic liquid over the magic snow!  Magic!!!!!! 

Last Two Weeks of Color Unit -(March 9-13 and March 16-20)

World of Color Unit
 During this unit students will interact with colors explore topics such as color mixing, stains, fading, camouflage, and color patterns. Students will learn that color can be found in nature, that color can carry information, that paints and dyes are used to color things, colors can be mixed to make new colors and that sun and washing can make colors fade.

Books This Week

Dear Juno

The Lion and the Little Red Bird
Little Blue and Little Yellow
Mouse Paint

Small Groups
March 9-13
-Motor Monday- Straight Lines(HWT) Color Art Activity
-Writing Color Words- We will be writing color words to reinforce letter formation and then matching materials onto the papers
-Color Butterfly Collages- Using (alligator fingers) we will used tissue paper to form butterflies.  We will observe how the colors blend and mix as we paint to form new colors.
-Animal Sorting- We will talk about and look in books to see how animals have different patterns. We will note how animal patterns will be similar to their environments (camouflage).  Then we will sort animals  by their patterns.
-Color Rhyme Books- To reinforce color and rhyme, we will be continue our books(brown crown, green bean)
March 16-20
- Motor Monday-Compound Word Activity- As we are talking about colors mixing, we have also been talking about how words can mix and create a new word(cup/ cake, put them together and get cupcake) We will be completing a phonemic and fine motor activity with this concept.
-Cool and Warm Color Art activity-Inspired by the art of Eric Carle (we will look at his books)
      - Day 1 will be painting paper with just the cool colors then a paper with the warm colors.
       -Day 2 will be cutting and assembling our art work.
-Science Center Visit- We will go to the science center and look for animals patterns and how they camouflage in their homes.  We will come back to our classroom and draw a picture of what we saw and use "ear spelling" to write.
-Color Rhyme Books- To reinforce color and rhyme, we will be finishing our books (pink drink, red bed, white kite)

Center 
Blocks-Blocks
Independent Multi-Step Table: HWT books (Magic C letters),
Sensory Table- Snow and spraying colors in the snow,
Dramatic Play-Airplane (Dear Juno related), Art Store (Children will "buy" supplies and go to art table to create art)
Library- A variety of books about color
Art Table- Shaving Cream Colors, Art store creations
Easel- Primary colors
Puzzles- Puzzles
Manipulatives-  Legos, Large Geometric Shapes to create patterns
Writing Center- Teacher led activity, letter assessments

Song, Word Play and Letters
Poems- Boom, Bang, Raindrops
Songs-Green Grass Grows All Around, Diagonal Lines
Literacy Skills- Rhyming Word Guessing Game, Compound Boogie
Let's Talk About It
-Super Flex
-Camouflage,
-Patterns of Animals book read aloud
-Color Meanings(red in stop sign, yellow cones for traffic, yellow in school signs)
-Can animals change color(arctic hare, chameleon)
-Colors in air mail envelopes, flags from different countries

Preschool Life Skills
We are continuing to review our previous skills 1-7.
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?"
5-When you something from a teacher or a friend and they are doing something, say, "Excuse me" to get them to look at you.
(6and 7 are join together)
7-When someone is in your way or has something that you want, say "Excuse me" to get their attention, and then say"May I_____?" to get what you want.
Continuing to work on:
8-When an adult tells you to wait say, "Okay", and your waiting words.  (Waiting Words= "When I wait quietly, I get what I want")

We also have been working on:
-SuperFlex- We have been talking about how we can be more flexible(not getting stuck on situations that make us sad/mad/frustrated).  When children are observed being flexible we offer them the chance to wear the superflex cape.

"Checking our Body" - This is to remind us how to sit during large group activities. We will talk about how to "check" our bodies to get ready to listen.  This is a important skill as we transition into kindergarten. Ask your child to show you what this means.