Our school year is off to a wonderful start! We have been busy creating and following the classroom rules and routines, learning our new friends names and naming our new class pet. The children were very excited to name our Chinese dwarf hamster. We took several name suggestions from the children and then we voted. Our hamster is officially named Rainbow.
This week the children have started signing in before they choose a job. We use a handwriting program called Handwriting Without Tears. You will notice that there is a sticker on their name tag and on the paper that they use to sign in. This helps the children remember to start their name on the left-hand side of the paper. It also helps reinforce starting the letters at the top and making lines and curves down. You may hear your children using the words: “big lines”, “little lines”, “big curves”, “little curves”- these four shapes create all letters. We have also been singing songs and playing games to help them learn left and right. We are strengthening their fine motor skills by playing with play dough, clay and Floam and by doing finger-plays. Please don’t be alarmed if your child’s name doesn’t look correct yet. There are several developmentally correct stages that a child goes through before they can form their letters. Handwriting Without Tears also suggests that the children begin to write their name in all upper-case letters because these are easier to master. Once your child has mastered their name in upper-case we will then gradually introduce them to lower-case letters.
This week we have been learning about farms. The children have been very busy helping us transform our dramatic play area into a farm. On Monday we painted our barn red. It was really hard to wait for it to dry so that we could go in the barn! On Tuesday the children named it Diamond Farm. Several of children worked together to make the sign for our farm and helped hang it on the barn door. We also worked together to make a cow for our farm. We used chairs as a skeletal framework for our cow and brown packing paper to cover the chairs. We then used newspaper as stuffing. The children used markers to draw a face and we twisted paper for the horns and the tail. The highlight of our farm is milking the cow! The children have also been busy gathering eggs from the hens nest, feeding the cow, and planting the garden.
We will continue the farm theme next week by learning about apples and pumpkins. We will then visit a working farm when we take our field trip to Burnham Orchard on Wednesday, October 5th. Next week School Portraits will be taken Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Please let us know if you have not received your paperwork to let you know which day your child is scheduled for their pictures.
Miss Theresa & Miss Tiffany