Post Office Week

Welcome back to school! We have had an engaging "Post Office Week" and there have been many opportunities for authentic learning for the children. I thought it would be interesting to detail the different areas of learning that we have engaged in, with pictures to illustrate!

In the area of Social Learning and Communication, the children have taken on the roles of mail carrier and have been putting on a bag and maybe a uniform, looking in the mailbox for letters to deliver, and filling up boxes with "special deliveries" and delivering them. The language that we have heard from the children has included "Special Delivery!" and "Here's your mail" and "You have to sign for this!"

In the area of Readiness Skills such as Number and Letter Recognition, the children have been playing with alphabet puzzles, referring to our name board to write each other's names, and arranging magnetic alphabet letters on a board to write "words" or at least "lists of letters".  We used our math knowledge to weigh packages and letters and the pressure of our hands, and used words such as "heavy" and "lighter". At snack this week we received a envelope with our name on it, filled with graham crackers. We have looked at the lettering for POST OFFICE and MAIL. When we stamped our letters, we noticed that there were a lot of numbers on the stamp.

Our Fine Motor and Pre-Writing Skills received quite an authentic workout! We were motivated to write and so we worked hard to write our letters to ourselves and fold and seal envelopes. There were a lot of letters written to "home" that went directly to our own cubbies. One child spent 45 minutes of his free play time writing letters to everyone in his family including himself! The tape and stickers that we wrapped our packages (and ourselves) with was also quite a fine motor work out. It helped if there were helpers. 

Palabras de la Semana:

carta-letter

buzon-mailbox

sobre- envelope

estampilla-stamp

Until Next Time,

Michele

Outer Space Week II

 We continued our exploration of outer space this week with our boxes on the rug, flashlights, and rocket ship runs. The boxes became something to build with, and the children pulled together a long train of them to become a tunnel. We left the responsibility of construction of the tunnel and the traffic pattern to the children. Through their own conversations and cooperative skills, the tunnel was one way, and "shortcuts" happened here and there. According to reports, the tunnel was really long and really dark! Good thing we had flashlights!

Coloring my own planet-with reference materials.....

 Coloring planets and conversation-"This is a hot planet, it's yellow. It's the sun and it's a star".

 Getting a box upright while you are in it was a special skill that a few children figured out. It involved climbing in feet first, wiggling way to the back, and then with a helping hand "flipping" the box up.

 I'm going to miss this big box. It was a great size and the children really added a lot of color and writing to it. They wrote numbers, drew people, made "buttons" to press, and steering wheels-practicing their fine motor pre-writing skills in a meaningful and motivating way.

 THE TUNNEL!

 Rocket ships to paint. We added "flames" the next day.

 The construction is just beginning....

 The threes spent some of their time in the morning with us this week, and there was a wedding. This is the waltz.

 A slumber party in prek4 is not to be missed! We gathered on the rug with blankets and sleeping bags and enjoyed telling stories, snuggling, and some static electricity. Our buddies joined us for reading stories and an all you can eat pancake snack.

Until Next Time,
Michele