Unit 1 Friends Are Special Week 3 October 1-5

Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Books

Oscar is Cold

Read Aloud:We Are Friends
-We will reenact the story of Oscar is Cold with props

 Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

How Do Friends Help Each Other?
(listen, arrive, exclaim, share, help, shiver)

Literacy Small Groups

-Syllable Segment: We will begin segmenting the syllables in our names in small groups. We will be clapping the sounds in our friends names and creating a chart to show how many claps are in each name.

-Sequencing The Story Oscar is Cold
-Journal Writing."How do friends help us?"
- Big Letters and Little letters- We will be looking at our friends names making every aware than our first letter always starts with a big letter and then little letters.  We will create a chart to show this.
-Your name/My name- We will be drawing self portraits of ourselves and looking at our friends to draw a picture that looks like them.  We will note similarities and differences.
-Number cube game- Using a die with numbers 1-5 and a 5 frame, we will roll the die to identify the number then count the correct number of objects to place in our five frames. 

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-What’s My Letter? Small Groups E and H

We learned what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ee look like.  We sorted magnetic letters to find matches for Ee.  We hunted for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Search for these letters at home.  Remember to help your child name the letter.

Centers
Art Table- Color color painting (blue shades)

Block Area- blocks

Sand Table- leaves and acorn sorting 
Book Area- Exploring Books about friends
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Friendship writing
Dramatic Play- Camping (Making Smores)/ Role play of story
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Finding Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Rug- tracks and cars

Science/Social Studies/Social Thinking Circle Concepts
What keeps us warm?
Living and Non-Living
hought Bubbles/

Bring a stuffed animal to school day tomorrow

Tomorrow is a special day.  We have been reading Corduroy this week and we are inviting our class to bring in 1 special stuffed animal friend to spend a day at school with us.  Please be sure the stuffed animal can fit inside of your child's backpack and has a tag with your child's name. 

Unit 1 Friends are Special Week 2 September 24-26

Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Books
Corduroy

Read Aloud: Friends Share

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What is a friend?

(friend, play, laugh, admire, together, enormous)

 Small Groups

-Corduroy Sequencing Story Pictures
- Letters in our name/Not in our name- We will cut a variety of letters and then sort on our papers letters in our name and not in our name.  We will also compare at our tables if our friends share letters.
-Letters in our name hunt- We will use special glasses to hunt for letters in our name around the room on post its.  We will find them and match them on our papers. When we find all the letters we will practice writing our names (rainbow writing)
-Corduroy Lacing- We will color a picture of Corduroy from our unit book.   Then with a teachers help we will put holes on him and lace a string around him.
-Journal writing- We will begin writing in our journals.  Children will draw a picture of their stuffed animal they bring to school and tell us one thing about their "friend". Teachers will write their words to reinforce how oral language can become words/text to describe their pictures.

Handwriting/Letter Groups
-Letters L and F-We will be using a hands-on approach(ie. sand, colored chalk, shaving cream) to reinforce correct letter formation.  Then we will practice in our Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) books

Centers
Art Table- Corduroy Button Design

Block Area- blocks  and bears (building bed for Corduroy)

Sand Table- buttons
Book Area- Exploring Books about school
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- crayons and paper
Dramatic Play- Shoe Store (related to Corduroy)
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letter Puzzles
Science -ramps
Rug- Jungle Animals

Science/Social Studies Circle
- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say ,"Yes".
-Discussing how we sit and listen in a group (our community classroom)
2. When a teacher tells me to do something, "I do it right away."

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Nursery Rhymes: Hey Diddle Diddle / Mary Had a Little Lamb

-Our Good Morning Chant

-ABC Rock by Steve and Greg

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg
-Shake Breaks (Go Noodle)
-Sing and Move- We will sing a song that has the word friend and together.  Each child will have one word and one instrument.  When they hear their word they will play their instrument.

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors.

Unit 1 Friends are Special Week 1

Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Books

The Lion and The Mouse 

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What makes each of us special?

(thank, help, protect, kindness, patient, mighty)

Small Groups

-Sound Search- We will use Ipads to listen to the sounds we hear.  We will use descriptive language to describe each sound. This game reinforces listening skills and gets us ready to listen to sounds in words.

-Letters in my name game- Each child will have their name card.  Letters will be in a bag.  Each child will pull out a letter from the bag.  If they have the letter in their name they will keep it.  If it is not in their name they will find a friend that has the letter and give it to them.  The goal for everyone to make their name.  We will compare letters their letters in their name to a friend.  

-Digging for Treasure-In sand, each child will dig and find objects in the sand. We will find 5 objects then we will find objects based on size, color, shape.

--Mouse Tails- We will color and cut out paper mouses.  Then we will put on a tail. Then we will put on 5 beads on the mouse tail.  

Handwriting/Letter Groups

Name Formation- We will be working with our name cards and looking for the letters in our name. We will match manipulative letters. Then we will trace our letters on dry erase cards. Then we will write our names by looking at our model. Please remind your child to start each letter at the top.
-What’s My Letter? (L l)

We learned what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ll  looks like.  We sorted magnetic letters to find matches for Ll.  We hunted for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Search for these letters at home.  Remember to help your child name the letter.

-What’s My Letter?(F f )

We learned what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ff looks like.  We sorted magnetic letters to find matches for Ff. .  We hunted for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Search for these letters at home.  Remember to help your child name the letter.

Centers

Art Table- Lion painting with plastic forks to create manes for lions

Block Area- blocks and cars

Sand Table- sand exploration

Book Area- Exploring Books about school

Easel-Markers and paper

Writing Table- crayons and paper

Dramatic Play- Taking care of babies

Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letter Puzzles

Rug- Jungle Animals

Science/Social Studies Circle

- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say ,"Yes".

-Discussing how we sit and listen in a group (our community classroom)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-ABC Rock by Steve and Greg

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg

-Dino Stomp

Classroom Motivational System

We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors. 

First Full Week of School September 10-14

First Full Week of School
We will begin our school year getting to know each other and establishing classroom routines. During the month of September, we will be focusing on developing classroom expectations, routines, and getting to know each learner. Our books for the first several weeks will pertain to transitioning to school and feelings about coming to school.
We will also use these books to have the students become familiar with our curriculum approach which is to use books to build on our classroom activities.
We will begin our first unit during the week of September 23rd.  Our first unit will be "Friends".

Books These Weeks:

The Kissing Hand
Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom

Small Groups:
Literacy Small Groups/Fine Motor

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Bowling- We will roll a "coconut" to knock down bowling pins with letters on them.  We will stamp on our bowling recording sheet which letters we knocked down.
-Coconut Tree Letter Bean Bag Throwing- Each child will receive a bean bag with a letter.  They will name the letter, then gently toss it onto a coconut tree(brown paper with green leaves on top)
Kissing Hand
-Feed Chester- We will be cutting letters both in our name and not in our name.  Then we will use the letters in our name to make our name on our papers.  The letters not in our name we will feed to Chester Raccoon. 
-Story Sequencing-After listening to our story, we will discuss events that happened.   Then we will cut pictures from the story then place in order to retell the story to reinforce left to right progression.  Students will verbally retell the events.

Math Small Groups/Fine Motor Small Groups
Kissing Hand
-Patterning- We will create patterns using pictures from the Kissing Hand
-Graphing- We will spin a spinner that has pictures from our story.  Then we will record by coloring one box to show which picture the spinner landed on. We will then count to see which picture we recorded the most and least.
-Using a coconut tree mat, we will use playdough to create letters and coconuts for the tree. 
-Coconut Pick up- Using clothespins we picked up "coconut" pom poms and move them into cups. This will help strengthen our fingers in this fun game. 

Centers
Art Table- Tissue Paper Collages for the first letter in our names to make letter mosaics

Block Area- blocks with coconut leaves

Sand Table- Sand/ Chicka, Chicka Trees, beans(as the coconuts), and letters
Book Area- Exploring Books about school
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- crayons and paper
Dramatic Play- dishes, cookware, and food (restaurant role play)
Rug- Legos

Science/Social Studies Circle
- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say ,"Yes".
-Discussing how we sit and listen in a group (our community classroom)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Action Bingo Song:

There was a class that had a boy/girl, and _____was his/her name-o

(Each child chooses an action for others to follow)

Jump, Jump, (name), Jump, Jump, (name), Jump, Jump, (name) ,

We're glad you're in school today.
-If your happy and you know it.
-Here we are together at school
-Our Good Morning Chant
-ABC Rock by Steve and Greg

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg
-Dino Stomp

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors.  This system can be explained more thoroughly in a tab on this blog.  

Open House Tomorrow

Dear Families,

Welcome to the Burlington Early Childhood Center.  We hope that you had a wonderful summer and are ready to start the school year.  My name is Lisa Bottiglio and I will be your child’s teacher in the Cub Cadet Pre-K classroom.  We will also have an Instructional Assistant and an assistant that will be in our classroom daily.  We are also lucky enough to have a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, and a physical therapist comes into our classroom to support all of our students with various classroom activities.   We look forward to the year ahead. We are planning many exciting themes and activities that will provide your child with meaningful learning experiences as well as individual learning opportunities.

Below are a few  important notes:

Open House- Please attend our open house with your child on Wednesday, September 5, 2018, from 12:00pm-12:30pm.  This will allow your child to meet me and our classroom assistants.  Your child will have the opportunity to meet new friends and see their new classroom.

First Day- Our first day of school is Thursday, September 6, 2018.  We will give more information at the open house regarding this day.   

Class Blog: Our classroom will have a blog to keep you informed of classroom curriculum and happenings.  I will update the blog weekly. Our goal is to give you the opportunity to discuss activities and themes your child experiences in school.   http://cubcadetsnews.blogspot.com

Arrival and Dismissal- Children will be dismissed through the front door of the preschool.  Our school has a “live “ pickup and dropoff routine. You will receive a paper at the open house which will explain this in detail.  Our classroom hours are Monday through Thursday from 8:10-12:10 and Friday 8:10 to 11:10.

Absence- If your child is going to be absent from school, please call 781-270-1808. If possible email me as well.  

Clothes- At times, preschool can be fun but also messy.  We use smocks, however, we cannot guarantee that clothes remain spotless.  Please send your child to school wearing clothes for such experiences.

Contact information- If you need to contact me for any reason, the preschool office number is 781-270-1808.  The program secretary will forward you to my direct line. We will provide folders in your child’s backpack to serve as one form of communication if you need me to know something first thing in the morning.  We will check the folders first thing in the morning for any parent notes. I also have an email I check regularly as well. Please email me rather than leaving a voicemail. (bottiglio@bpsk12.org).

Thank you in advance for your support. We look forward to working with your child and your family.  We look forward to a wonderful year together.

Lisa