Spring is almost here! Please remember that we go outside daily (weather permitting), so please continue to dress your child appropriately for the temperature of the day. With the snow melting, you may want to continue to send in boots to prevent muddy shoes. Won’t it be nice when we don’t have to worry about snow pants anymore?

Since the beginning of the school year, we have started each day by signing in and using those names to choose our jobs for the day. The children started the beginning of the year by identifying their name in print and were working on “reading” their friend’s names. To meet the needs of each child, we are now encouraging children to sign in by writing their first name or first and last name. As your child’s fine motor skills develop, we have begun using lower case letters. Please practice name writing at home, by having them sign their artwork or letters to grandparents etc.

The last 2 weeks we have been learning about the Olympics. This theme was very exciting for the children because the Olympics were also being watched and talked about at home. They were very excited to be able to share something from home and family time each day. We were able to incorporate technology by using Mr. Steve’s laptop to view the opening ceremony and torch lighting process. We also used the laptop to view new sports like curling, luge, and skeleton. The children were very excited to come in and tell us that they had seen those sports at home. We looked at Canada on the globe and talked about many different country’s flags. We took a closer look at what makes up the United State’s flag and even discussed why there were 50 stars on it.

During this theme, we were really focused on gross motor skills, which we used in the many games we played at circle. We had torch relay races in the gym and really encouraged team work and cheering for our classmates. We practiced balance and running by racing with balloons between our legs. We worked on our throwing by tossing bean bags in to the correct colored rings.
For the next few weeks, we will begin a theme on Creepy Crawling Bugs!!!