Week One--Welcome to Preschool!

We had a fantastic first week of school! I honestly think this was my smoothest first day of school ever!

*I took a few group shots. I am sorry if your child isn't in the pictures. I try to catch everyone, but I am sure I occasionally miss someone.*

*Click on the collages to view them larger.*

Here are a few pictures of the afternoon class enjoying snack and then playing. What cuties!

 On Tuesday we read the book The Kissing Hand and then made our own hands. I traced their hands and then they decorated them and put a sticker in the middle.

 Here are a few pictures of the morning class. More than half of the students in the morning class are returning students from last year. It's great! It's fun to watch the students making friends. Even though some of them know each other from various activities, they all include each other.

 On Wednesday the Pre-K class did a letter matching activity. I drew a letter out of a stack and we said the name of the letter and sound, and then they used dot markers to mark it on their papers. We used uppercase letters this time. They enjoyed this activity and it worked on several skills. I am sure we'll be doing this several times this year. We also did a writing activity. I am planning to write at least once a week. At this point, the goal is for them to understand they can communicate an idea by drawing something on their papers. Towards the end of the year, I hope that most students would be able to write a few letters to represent their pictures and help tell the story. (Lots more on that later.)

 We worked on cutting in both classes. Students were given a strip of paper, scissors and a small cup and told to cut the strip of paper into small enough pieces to fit in the cut. Great activity. We did this in small groups and I was able to help the students as needed to be successful in cutting. Several students had never used scissors before. We did a more difficult cutting activity as an extension in the morning class. The students cut strips of paper and then rolled and glued them into a flower. I let the students choose whether or not to make the flower with their strips. When asked whether or not he wanted to make the flower, he said, "Well, that looks like a lot of work." Too cute.

 On Thursday we read the story The Rainbow Fish. It's a cute book that talks about friends and sharing. We made rainbow fish using dot markers and tinfoil for the sparkly scales.

 Here is the finished product! Morning class is on top, afternoon on bottom.

Thanks for the great week!