We have recently started doing a daily Morning (and Afternoon) Message during first circle. We use this time for the children to help dictate a message about the day such as “Today we read a special story about bears” or to share a personal message such as “Chrissy’s favorite animal is the polar bear”.  The children help sound out words and are beginning to make sound/letter correspondence.  The children take turns writing those letters on the message board and are practicing their fine motor and letter writing abilities.  We also use our “magnifying glasses” to search for certain letters or punctuation marks and take turns underlining those letters and symbols in our message.  During this theme, we used Morning Message to take a vote about our favorite Goldilocks and the 3 Bears character.  The children were able to practice making tally marks and discussed quantities more or less than as well as write the numeral.
During small group, we practiced measuring with different objects.  Each child was given a set of bears (1-5) and we put in order the sets from shortest to longest.  We also went on a hunt to search for classroom objects that matched their number of bears.  The children were very excited to see that the garbage can was 5 bears tall and that the chairs were only 3 bears tall.  We practiced our 1 to 1 counting as well as estimation.  The children correctly guessed that Miss Chrissy was 18 bears tall!  The whole class had to work together and cooperate to put all the bears together to measure taller objects.  We also practiced “using our words” to ask to switch bear sets with a friend.
After reading many different versions of Goldilocks, we practiced sequencing the story and identified each character in the story.   During art these last 2 weeks, we created Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, and Goldilocks masks.  The children used their fine motor skills to sponge paint the bears and to color Goldilocks.  They were very creative finding ways to create her curly locks.  The children had the opportunity at the end of the week to perform the story for other classrooms.  The children enjoyed retelling the story and took turns acting out each character.  We worked on talking in front of a group and being good listeners in the audience.  We all worked together to help provide the narration for the play.
Looking ahead, we are preparing for Valentine’s Day celebrations. Children are decorating their mail bags to collect valentine cards and goodies.  And…thank you for participating in our parent teacher conferences.  We enjoyed sharing your child’s progress with you.  Please let us know if you have any questions and we will be happy to set up a time to speak with you.

About the Author:

Leave A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.