Rainbow 'Round Me!

We are on our way through our first week of school, and it's great! The children have begun to settle into a routine, and we are already exploring art activities at the table, Spanish Story Time, and morning meeting. Each child is excited to learn what their job is and jumps up to volunteer! A favorite seems to be line leader, as well as lunch helpers.

It's important during these next few weeks to celebrate the steps that your child is going through to become an independent yet strong Pre K 4!  Learning to ask for what we want is a big step for each child, as the first impulse that we feel, wanting something and grabbing for it, won't work in a room full of children! Taking turns and making sure that everyone has a part, as well as figuring out how to say "yes" when someone asks to play, are big steps as well. We honor each child's successes in our classroom with a "I noticed" comment, and the children feel great pride when they are noticed.

This week we continued our rainbow theme and offered all sorts of color activities, painting, singing, matching, and mixing colors. We have many books on our shelf about color mixing, including Press Here and Mix it Up!  which are action packed books with bright colors and concepts.

Palabras la Semana (the Spanish words that we are focusing on in the classroom this week)

amigo- (ah me go)friend
amarillo-(ah mah ree yo)yellow
naranja- (nar ahn hah) orange
arco iris- (ar co ear ees) rainbow
rojo-(ro ho) red

We'll continue with our rainbow theme next week, and begin to think and write about ourselves.

Until Next Time,
Michele

We read a lot of books during our morning, by request and also to calm things down sometimes. There's nothing like a book to bring us to our centered, listening, self. 

 Color mixing with colored water; there is fine motor skill involved in learning to pinch and use an eye dropper, cognition and language as we move the colors to different spaces and make new colors. We heard "I made green!" "I made grey!" "I'm going to make it overflow!" I made brown!" "I made orange!" "I need more red!" (exclamation points mandatory)

 Zucchini muffins! You'll notice from the pictures that the children happily moved in and out of the baking activity, but everyone had a taste of a muffin at snack. Our kitchen is a kind place, and children take turns and use kind words with each other as food is made to make sure that the baking comes out sweet!

The large hollow blocks promote active play as well as cooperative play!