Theme Week

Each day is a different theme and we introduced the theme by sharing what the children brought in to wear at group time.

Art

The children made their own sunglasses by coloring their sunglasses pattern and glued on foil for shades, painted under the table laying on our backs, Wednesday/Thursday we made our big Turkey by painting and gluing on feathers to hang in front window, and Friday we will make a Mickey Mouse headband for Disney day.

Math

The children explored with 2 different kinds of tiles to build with, Color Dino snaps to practice matching colors, animal counters w/ scoops to practice squeezing and opening, Unifix blocks to make patterns. and color hat matching to practice naming/recognizing colors.

Motor Development

We practice cutting with scissors and brown paper bags to practice holding scissors correctly ,rings and peg sticks to practice sliding down the rings, practiced lacing with shoe strings and clothing boards to manipulate string in holes, and Friday we will work with Mr. Potato Heads to fit pieces in various spots.

Social Emotional

Activity- Piled hats in middle of group time and had the children name other friends hats and find yours

Friday- Hair graph ask children their hair color?

animal Yoga

We have been singing Thanksgiving songs: "Hello Tommy Turkey How are you? , "Turkey Dinner", "A Turkey is a Funny Bird"

Talking about what we are Thankful for

Working on manners at meal times- saying" Please & Thank You"

This week in the infant classroom, the theme is theme week! We have explored quite a bit but here are our favorites from the week so far. We all enjoyed trying on sunglasses, big and small, in the play yard mirror. The group practiced using buttons and small zippers on cloth dolls with different skin tones and hair types. It was fun to talk about the colors and simple body parts on the dolls with the group. We also tried our coats on backwards for backwards day! We talked about the weather outside and how we use our coats to keep us warm when the weather changes seasons. The group enjoyed making marks with jumbo crayons on colorful paper, chalk on chalk boards and shaking sensory bottles together. This has been a great week, but we look forward to a new theme on Monday. Until next time!

This week, we went around the world and learned about different countries such as Japan, Australia, Italy, Ireland, Egypt, and made a quick stop at France. We made a flag of Italy, Japan, and Egypt. We came up with words that started with Ii such as Ireland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, etc. We learned how to say Hello in different languages such as Bonjour, Guten Tag, Ni hao, Kalimera to name a few. We also learned how to count in Japanese and Spanish. We practiced writing the letter Ii, countries, and the number 8 eight.

We picked a number, counted the pepperoni, Egyptian bingo, patterned by making the Irish flag by using unifix cubes, we did an Australian Count and Clip game. The children learned about the time differences between the countries because not every one is up at the same time. For example, in Japan they are just going to bed while we are just getting ready to go to school. The children also learned that the seasons are different because in Australia, its their Spring and our Fall.

We looked for countries on the map with my help so that the children know where each country we are learning about is located. We talked about how to be kind to others who are from another country and how to help them because they are not familiar with our country. The children all agreed that we should help them so that they have a good experience in our country. I played music from different countries as well so that the children can hear the differences between the instruments and sounds.

Our theme next week is Theme Week.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me!

-Ms. Michelle

We learned the words "similar" and "different" this week as we looked at some many pictures of people, places and things from all over the world. We saw boys and girls who looked like is, who went to school like us and even dressed like us, but then we saw so many boys and girls who didn't look anything like us. We learned that everyone goes to school, not everyone eats what we eat and not everyone has all the "extras" that we have. We saw different countries landscapes and little tiny towns. It was an eye opening week for some of us! At the art table, we learned about China and made a drum. We saw the colorful fans from Japan and made one for ourselves. We worked on small muscles as we painted and colored. At the language table, we did some investigating and asked questions about countries we had never seen. Some of the children made a list and then we read answers on the iPad. Did you know they see sharks in Australia? Did you ever see what they wear in India? These boys and girls were so curious and we were happy to find answers together! At the math table, we worked on numbers and found some boxes that we have been ordering smallest to biggest or just making structures with. Our drama area was full of different hats and bags and we "shopped" around for a variety of things. Our science area has a pendulum that we have been exploring and finding out how close we can put a small stack of blocks before the swinging pendulum knocks them over. Outside has been a blast since we got more new toys! Look out, we have some tennis players on our hands!

We introduced the theme with a globe and pictures/print representing all the countries we will be learning about.(Africa, London, Chinese and Arabic. We will be making art related to the theme too.

Monday- Halloween Trick or Treating and Halloween games in the great room

Art

The children made African masks by gluing on feathers and decorating with glitter/sparkles, London Bus- glued windows and wheels to red paper to resemble a Double Decker Bus, Chinese Drum- The children will decorate and paint paper plates red and fill with beans and Friday, we will decorate the letter "D" with feathers and pieces to represent a "chicken".

Math

The children practiced peeling dot stickers and placed them on the spots on Giraffe plastic animals to build finger grasp, During activity time the children worked with an interactive number bus game by placing number cards to the windows on the double decker bus to practice number matching and recognition, Chinese New Year pattern match to match symbols to board and Friday, we will guess animals sounds we hear.

Motor Development

Basket weaving- The children used ribbon to practice weaving in and out of baskets{eye-hand coordination & finger manipulation}, we used small bus counters to make tracks in sand by moving the bus in various directions, we introduced chop sticks to the children and 2 different ways to hold them to pick up pom-poms and place inside party boxes and Friday, we will do Freeze dance moving our whole bodies to directions.

Sensory

Safari animals w/ scoops, boxes and noodles

Social Emotional

African dancing to drums

Parachute outside to Chinese music

Animal Yoga

Health & Wellness

Discuss winter fruits and fruits available in the winter

This week in the infant classroom the theme is all around the world! The infants enjoyed quite a bit but here are a few of our favorite activities from the week. Although Halloween’s theme was last week, we all enjoyed our Halloween celebration in the center. It was fun to see familiar teachers, siblings, and practice waving, signing please or saying hello/goodbye! Moving onto all around the world, the group enjoyed reading books about babies around the globe, listening to different types of music like African or Cuban music during play, and exploring maracas! This has been a wonderful week in the infant classroom, but we look forward to a new theme on Monday! Until next time!

This week's theme is Halloween! The children were so excited because they wanted to share what they will be for Halloween so we talked about it. We discussed how to be safe while trick or treating, using our manners, and staying close to our mommies and daddies. The children told me how excited they are about our Halloween celebration because of the treats they will have. It will be so exciting! Thank you to our PreK 2 parents for their contribution and it is appreciated!

We have been working on number recognition, letter recognition, and sight word recognition, We practiced writing Hh, 7 seven, and sight words. We learned how to count by 2's and we learned what numbers are even/odd. We made a list of Hh words and it was a big list! I was impressed by how many words the children knew. We played a Halloween Bingo game, Spider Web letter match, and we practiced writing Halloween words.

We did a Creepy Crawler math game where they had to do patterning, count the number of spiders and find the number card, learning to count using their fingers, figuring out what number comes next, and verbally counting as high as they could. I have been using the 100 Days of School chart to help them with their number recognition. I also did some simple addition with the children this week.

The children have been working on their fine motor skills by cutting paper, zipping up their jackets, using tweezers to lift small items, etc I carved the top of the pumpkin so that they can look and feel inside the pumpkin. They also made a Haunted House, Mummy, and candy corn in Art. It was a fun week because they seemed to love this theme.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me!

-Ms. Michelle

Ghosts, witches, skeletons and zombies have been on the brain! This week has been all about the fabulous holiday of HALLOWEEN!! The children worked on number recognition activities via spiders and candy corn, Halloween roll and cover and sorted pom poms on a colorful spiderweb. At the language table this week, the children worked on letter recognition and matching activities, rhyming words and writing. We worked on our letter of the week which was Gg. As a group, the children came up with words that begin with Gg, practiced writing the letter and sang the Gg song. The children dove into their creative side and made candy corn rip art, used an apple to stamp and create a pumpkin, a monster out of a coffee filter and a Q-tip skeleton hand. We discussed how to be safe during Halloween night when trick o'treating. The children came up with amazing ideas of staying with mom and dad, making sure to look both ways before crossing the street and to not eat the candy until mom and dad check it first! We also enjoyed some Halloween music all week. We hope the children had a fun week with us and we can't wait to see the costumes on Monday! Have a safe and healthy weekend!

~Chasity and Tara~

Yeah! Halloween is coming, and we have had some fun activities this week. Monday in art the children cut out pumpkins and glued shapes to make a jack-o'-lantern. In math the children matched numbers to a candy corn and in language the children engaged in a Halloween bingo game. Tuesday in art the children continued to work on their jack-o-lanterns and in math the children added colored discs to a pumpkin 1 to 1 grid. We also took a walk around the block on the beautiful day and saw so many Halloween decorations, so fun! Wednesday in art the children painted with Halloween cookie cutters and math they sorted dinosaurs by color. Today the children worked their fine motor skills as they explored playdough with rollers, and cookie cutters. In language the children matched letters to haunted houses and in math they engaged in a Halloween concentration game. Tomorrow in art the children will do some crayon resist art and in math they will roll n' cover numbers on a jack-o-lantern. This week in the sensory table the children explored macaroni noodles with bugs, bowls and tongs.

Halloween

I introduced the theme with songs, pictures, games and lots of singing!

Art

the children made a ghost by gluing on cotton balls to black paper, Pumpkin cookie cutter stamping with black paper and orange paint, Witch- painted paper plate green, glued on hat, nose, teeth and black yarn for hair and Friday, we will make a Skeleton out of Q-tips.

Fine Motor

Witch baskets with small pumpkin eraser's and tongs to practice grasp and open/close motions, practiced counting with Halloween pencils and pumpkin containers, Candy corn stickers w/ orange paper to peel stickers using fingers, and Friday we will do Candy Corn experiment.

Math

We explored a pumpkin by cutting open and exploring the insides and took all the seeds out{all the children had a turn}, counting pumpkins w/ candy corn-placed each one on the number of dots on the pumpkins, Halloween treat bags w/ tongs and wrapped candy for counting and filling up bags

Sensory Table

Orange rice, rubber bats, Skeletons, Halloween buckets, shovels and Halloween bracelets

Songs: Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on the gate, 5 Pumpkins, The Ghost says Boo!, 5 Little Witches

Books: Five Black Cats, Ten Little Pumpkins, Clifford's Halloween, The Spooky Wheels on The Bus, Pete The Cat Trick or Treat.

Activities

Ring Around the Witch, Eye ball toss w/ Pumpkin Buckets, Pumpkin Bean Bag Toss, Ghost Marshmallow experiment.