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CLASSROOMS - Preschool Kindergarten 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Computer Art Choir / Band / Music P.E.
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3 Year Old Class
This week in the 3 Year Old Preschool Class, our focus was on feelings. We read the book, The Way I Feel. In this story, we read about different feelings. We talked about what might make us feel happy, sad, excited, shy or angry. We also talked about what we can do when we have those feelings. All feelings are ok and we might have many different feelings in one day. In the story, Llama Llama Misses Mama, the children identified when Llama was feeling sad and when he was feeling happy. We talked about what we can do at school when we see a friend at school is sad or if we get sad at school.
Also this week, I introduced different types of lines. We used our bodies to make vertical, horizontal, slanted, and curvy lines. Learning these terms for the lines help as we learn our letters. We will describe the letters by the lines used to make them. We also learn that vertical lines start at the top, horizontal lines go left to right, slanted lines go left to right. I introduced term magic C and backwards curve to describe our curvy lines.
Next week, we will introduce the classroom rules. There are 3 rules for the class: walking feet, helpful and safe hands, and kind words and inside voices. We will talk about each rule and what that means. We will explain that the rules are to keep everyone safe at school. The teacher’s job is to make sure everyone is safe, and the children have to help by being safe keepers. We will invite the children to become safe keepers by promising to follow the rules. They will put a thumbprint on the rules chart to commit to being a safe keeper. Then each day, they will move a picture of themselves into the safe place chart and commit to being a safe keeper. There is also a heart in the middle of the chart. If someone is sick or having a sad day, we put their picture in the chart. We will pray for them and take care of them as a class.
Highlights for week of 9/21/2020
Also this week, I introduced different types of lines. We used our bodies to make vertical, horizontal, slanted, and curvy lines. Learning these terms for the lines help as we learn our letters. We will describe the letters by the lines used to make them. We also learn that vertical lines start at the top, horizontal lines go left to right, slanted lines go left to right. I introduced term magic C and backwards curve to describe our curvy lines.
Next week, we will introduce the classroom rules. There are 3 rules for the class: walking feet, helpful and safe hands, and kind words and inside voices. We will talk about each rule and what that means. We will explain that the rules are to keep everyone safe at school. The teacher’s job is to make sure everyone is safe, and the children have to help by being safe keepers. We will invite the children to become safe keepers by promising to follow the rules. They will put a thumbprint on the rules chart to commit to being a safe keeper. Then each day, they will move a picture of themselves into the safe place chart and commit to being a safe keeper. There is also a heart in the middle of the chart. If someone is sick or having a sad day, we put their picture in the chart. We will pray for them and take care of them as a class.
Highlights for week of 9/21/2020
- Books: How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?
- Nursery Rhyme: Jack and Jill
- Songs: Boom Chicka Boom, If You're Happy and You Know It
- Who Let the Letters Out - Introduce the letter identification song and begin learning the Zoo Phonic Letter Friends. Review letters A - L; Introduce L - Z
- 7 Little Letters Went Out to Play - Letter Identification Song
- Discussion on Classroom Rules
- Review Lines - Show me a straight up and down line, straight across line, slanted line, magic C line and backward curve line.
- Easel Painting
- Move the Bear - Children will listen and follow directions using spatial words: under, above, next to, in between, beside, and around.
- Number Cruncher - Number Identification Game
- Painting with Rollers
- Jack and Jill Sink or Float - Children will predict whether an object will sink in the water or float. They will then test their prediction.
4 Year Old Am Class
Hello 4 AM Preschool Families. Thank you so much for your patience as I learn to navigate all these new programs. So here we are the end of week 3 about to start week 4. We are moving right along here in preschool. This week we covered more of our routines and schedule. They are quick to let me know if I haven’t moved the schedule marker down. We talked about our classroom rules and how to be a safe keeper. I gave them examples of situations and they were able to tell me if it was a thumbs up (good choice) or a thumbs down (unsafe choice). All the children were invited to make a promise to do their very best to follow the rules and keep their friends safe. They each received a magnet of themselves that they will use when checking in. In the morning they place it in the safe place. If there is a friend that needs a little TLC or is absent, they can place their magnet directly in the heart and we will keep them in our prayers and check in on them. Our friend Ellie was able to join us via google meet to lead us in prayer. It was a fun experience seeing her on the big screen. A lot of our friends are missing her and made her cards to show they care and can’t wait until she is back in class with us again. We learnt about the 7 days of creation and are working hard to learn a song to help us remember the creation order. Miss Jo and I helped them measure out and make individual batches of play dough that they are thoroughly enjoying playing. This will help build the muscles in their hands increasing their fine motor skills, helping them to progress with their writing skills. We began assessment this week to get our baseline for the year. This one on one time is so very fun as they have so many stories to tell me.
This week we will continue our Beginning of the Year study and learn more about our school and the people that help keep it running and all of us safe. We are so excited to be able to offer Physical Education class to the 4-year-olds this year with Mr. R. Our first class is tomorrow. Mr. R will be one of 3 people we meet this week at school as we find out what people do what jobs here at St Mary’s. We will also continue working on our creation song in religion as well as watching a virtual tour of the church. Introducing things like the Holy water, tabernacle, pew and kneeler. We will start to practice all the thing we do at mass so that we are ready when we are able to return. It is sure to be a fun filled, jam packed week for all.
One quick note. Please send in an old t-shirt or button-down shirt for your child to use as an art shirt.
Highlights for Week of 9/14/2020
This week we will continue our Beginning of the Year study and learn more about our school and the people that help keep it running and all of us safe. We are so excited to be able to offer Physical Education class to the 4-year-olds this year with Mr. R. Our first class is tomorrow. Mr. R will be one of 3 people we meet this week at school as we find out what people do what jobs here at St Mary’s. We will also continue working on our creation song in religion as well as watching a virtual tour of the church. Introducing things like the Holy water, tabernacle, pew and kneeler. We will start to practice all the thing we do at mass so that we are ready when we are able to return. It is sure to be a fun filled, jam packed week for all.
One quick note. Please send in an old t-shirt or button-down shirt for your child to use as an art shirt.
Highlights for Week of 9/14/2020
- Books: Kevin and his Dad; The Gingerbread Man; What is a Neighborhood; Promises; Have You Filled a Bucket Today?
- Songs: 7 Days of Creation; Who are the people in your neighborhood
- Virtue Focus - Kindness
- Our very first Physical Education class with Mr. R
- Name Writing Instruction - Writing our name with a capital letter first, followed by lowercase letters.
- We will introduce out Zoo phonics friends. Working on letters A-N listening to the song who let the letters out.
- Religion Lesson – Review the Creation story using our song and go on a Virtual tour of church including holy water font, tabernacle, church pew, and kneeler.
- Learn about 3 different jobs around the school and who does them.
- Introducing name plates for the children to use to practice writing their names. Artists always sign their work.
- Continue working on completing our benchmark assessments and start collecting work for our portfolios.
- Create a window filled with hearts sharing our ideas on how we can fill our friend’s buckets.
- Also working on the virtue of kindness
Kindergarten Prep PM class
This week in Kindergarten Prep, we introduced classroom jobs. Each student got a job for the whole week. Next week everyone will get a new job. The children are helping to lead prayer, give a 5 minute reminder, ring the clean up bell, water the plants, and other helpful chores. Ask your child about the job they had for the week. For our Religion lesson, we took a virtual tour of the church. We saw the Holy Water Font, Tabernacle, pew and kneeler. When we enter church we can use our fingertips to get a little Holy Water on our fingers and then we bless ourselves. We practiced genuflecting in front of the tabernacle. We also reviewed our virtue of kindness. We read the story, Have You Filled a Bucket Today?. The children drew pictures of what they can do to show kindness and be a bucket filler.
In literacy and writing, we also worked on name writing. We are learning to write our name with a capital letter first followed by lowercase letters. When we write our letters, we always start at the top and move down. We teach the children to write their letters using the descriptions from Handwriting Without Tears. To hold our pencil, we put our ring finger and pinky to sleep with a pillow (cotton ball). We use our 3 working fingers, thumb, pointer, and middle man to hold our pencil. We learned all the Zoo Phonic friends names and signals. We will continue to review these over the next few weeks.
For math, Mrs. Hughes measured us with string. We then compared our string to objects in the room. We found something that is taller than us and something that is shorter than us. We also practiced counting slowly with 1 to 1 correspondence like a turtle. We placed mini erasers on a 20 frame grid to help us say 1 number name with each object.
Next week, our focus will be, “How do we solve problems with friends?” We will read the story of Tucker Turtle who takes time to stop, breath and think when he gets mad. We look at solution cards that show ideas for how to solve a problem with a friend. Some of the cards include: sharing a toy, taking turns, or asking someone to stop. We will continue to practice writing with our working fingers and writing our names with a capital letter first followed by lowercase letters.
Highlights for Week of 9/14/2020
In literacy and writing, we also worked on name writing. We are learning to write our name with a capital letter first followed by lowercase letters. When we write our letters, we always start at the top and move down. We teach the children to write their letters using the descriptions from Handwriting Without Tears. To hold our pencil, we put our ring finger and pinky to sleep with a pillow (cotton ball). We use our 3 working fingers, thumb, pointer, and middle man to hold our pencil. We learned all the Zoo Phonic friends names and signals. We will continue to review these over the next few weeks.
For math, Mrs. Hughes measured us with string. We then compared our string to objects in the room. We found something that is taller than us and something that is shorter than us. We also practiced counting slowly with 1 to 1 correspondence like a turtle. We placed mini erasers on a 20 frame grid to help us say 1 number name with each object.
Next week, our focus will be, “How do we solve problems with friends?” We will read the story of Tucker Turtle who takes time to stop, breath and think when he gets mad. We look at solution cards that show ideas for how to solve a problem with a friend. Some of the cards include: sharing a toy, taking turns, or asking someone to stop. We will continue to practice writing with our working fingers and writing our names with a capital letter first followed by lowercase letters.
Highlights for Week of 9/14/2020
- Books: Leonardo the Terrible Monster; Pig the Pug; Tucker Turtle; Please Mr. Panda; When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really, Angry
- Nursery Rhyme: Jack be Nimble
- Songs: 7 Days of Creation;
- Virtue Focus - Kindness
- Action Patterns - Children will practice copying, extending, and creating action pattern cards.
- Water Table - Children will play in a small water table with scoops, cups, and pipettes.
- Journal Writing Topic - At home I like to...
- Make a Friend's Name - Children will decorate a name card and write a special message for a friend. After a few days, everyone will get to take their name card home.
- Who Let the Letters Out? - Review all Zoo Phonics Signals
- Religion Lesson - Review virtual tour of church including holy water font, tabernacle, church pew, and kneeler. Read a book about St. Elizabeth Seaton
- Straight Line Writing - Teacher will introduce concept of writing straight lines. We always start our lines at the top and go straight down.
- Where is Bear? - Teacher will hide a bear under cups labeled with numbers. Children will identify the numbers to guess where the bear is hiding.
- Feelings Volcano - In their stories Leonardo and Sophie get really angry and they feel like they will explode. We need to let our feelings out so we don't explode like a volcano. We will make a coke and Mentos volcano.
- Candy Land - Children will practice taking turns by playing Candy Land.
- Zoo Phonics Names - Children will use Zoo Phonics stamps to stamp their name.
Preschool PLus
Preschool Plus
Inspired by Saint Mary and rooted in our Catholic faith, St. Mary's School fosters spiritual development, academic excellence,
responsibility to self, and service to others in order that the Gospel of Christ may be known in the world.
responsibility to self, and service to others in order that the Gospel of Christ may be known in the world.
