Play, Learn, & Grow in 4K
November 22nd
Happy Thanksgiving!
Reminder that next week we will be off Wednesday-Friday. Enjoy your long weekend!
Snow Pants, Boots, and Mittens...Oh My!!
Now that winter weather is upon us it is time to prepare for all the winter gear. The 4K children will be going outside for recess everyday. If there is snow on the ground, please send your child to school already dressed in boots and snow pants.
When sending snow clothes to school:
- Please send a separate bag for snow pants and boots
- Please label EVERYTHING
- Please send your child with mittens they can put on without difficulty. Gloves can be very tricky for some children.
- Please practice putting on shoes. Children should be wearing shoes that they can take off and put on independently. If your child has shoes that tie, please be working with them at home to tie on their own. Slip-on shoes and velcro are best for kiddos who do not know how to tie yet. :)
- Please have your child practice putting on and taking off snow clothes. Turn it into a game, set a five-minute timer and see if they can get dressed in under five minutes! This includes snow pants, boots, jackets on and zipped, hats, and mittens.
Thank you for all your help!
Library Book Reminder
Library books are due back each Tuesday. If your child does not return their book, they will not be able to check out a new book until we receive the past weeks book back as according to library policy. If you lose your book, please contact us so we can get you in touch with the librarian on what your next steps should be. Thanks!
4K Reminders
- Please have your child go to the bathroom before arriving to school, we are finding more and more students who come in and immediately need to go. We take 2 full group bathroom breaks, 1 after recess and 1 after snack, and a 3rd bathroom break for those who say they need to go towards the end of play centers before heading home.
- With cold and flu season upon us please reinforce good hygiene habits with your children including how to cough/sneeze into your elbow and how to blow and wipe your nose. We give these reminders daily in school and are staying on top of washing hands as much as possible, but making that connection between school and home always helps!
Math
In Math we are continuing to work on number recognition and counting up to 10. Our next step will be applying our knowledge of numbers to being able to subitize - look at a cluster of dots (1-5) - and tell how many dots there are without having to count each individual one. We used BINGO dobbers at center time to create our own clusters along with fill in pre-made clusters to help our eyes get used to this new skill. We also have a big dice game that we play whole group where each child gets an opportunity to roll the dice and tell the class what number is on the cluster they roll. We will continue practicing this skill through Thanksgiving along with constantly practicing our counting any chance we get. Students are also enjoying our weekly poll where they get a chance to answer a question and add to our chart to collect data. We then have a group discussion about the data we have collected and are working on using math language such as most and least.
Subitizing Dice Game
Weekly Poll - Taking Data
Creating Clusters
Literacy
We are applying our letter of the day to our literacy centers by playing letter BINGO with Mrs. Kaufman. The children find the letter on their board that is called and are practicing saying the sound that goes with each letter. The goal is to have students be able to identify the letter just by the name without having a visual to copy, but we continue to show the letter for children who still have difficulty with this. The students have also had fun going on a "turkey hunt" - there are little turkeys hidden around the room with each letter of the alphabet that the children then get to search for and color in their letter sheet as they find the letters. This is helping students with their matching skills along with giving each student an opportunity for movement during our center time.
We have a new letter of the day about twice a week.The students first listen to the letter of the day song and are asked to come up with words that start with the letter of the day. We then have a group discussion about the letter and sound it makes and write down all the words we can come up with that begin with that letter before practicing writing the letter ourselves in our handwriting books. So far we have covered L, F, E, H, and T.
Social/Emotional Growth
This week we read the book People Who Help at School. In this story we explored different helpers that are at schools such as principals, nurses, and librarians, and the way that they help students. We then discussed what it means to be a helper and how we can be a helper in our own classroom. This also prompted a discussion about the difference between tattling and reporting...we explored different scenarios and were able to label them as necessary to find a teacher or if it was something we should use our own strategies to try to solve amongst ourselves. We stressed the importance of if someone is in trouble, hurt, or is unable to solve a conflict on their own to always find a teacher to help us.
Buddy Day!
Our first buddy day of the year was on Friday, November 8th. Our 4th grade buddy class came to join our AM students to play board games. Here are some photos of the fun!