Early morning activities while we unpack and greet one another. There is always a lot to talk about on a Monday morning!
The special helpers this week busy at work!
Today, the class worked on fine motor skills while we unpacked and got ready for the day. The children have become very independent in doing this first job of the day, and they know where everything goes. They love pretending that the peg boards are birthday cakes and today they were singing to one another!
Here is the special helper of the day collecting the nametags at circle time, holding the flag for the pledge, and choosing the morning song. It is very exciting for the children to be chosen as the special helper. They know that to get a turn they must listen and be kind, because that is what a "helper" does.
Today, we read the book, "Big Pumpkin," by Erica Silverman. The children are getting very excited for Halloween, and they loved the characters in this funny book.
The playground was so much fun today! We are at the point where the children have become familiar with each other and have started to collaborate while playing. They are using their imaginations and building on things they know and like in their games. Today the grass became water with a "shark" swimming around who was trying to eat everyone's feet.
At first everyone hopped up onto the playground equiptment to get away from the shark, and then they realized that the shark was good on the steps.
The children in fits of giggles all jumped into the water to join the shark...who eventually decided to be a friendly shark. So much fun!
We are painting pumpkins on the easel. When they are all dry, we will add jack-o- lantern faces and decorate our classroom with them. The children had decide whether they wanted to paint a tall pumpkin or a fat pumpkin.
We learned a funny new song today. Our silly version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider. We practiced it a few times so that they could do it with family at home. Here are the words:
The itsy bitsy spider crawled up on (name) head.
It crawled all around and used it for a bed.
It crawled down (his/her) back,
and jumped onto the floor.
Then the itsy bitsy spider
crawled underneath the door.
I will see everyone on Friday!
Here are some pictures of our playtime fun today:
Today we read a book and talked about Chinese New Year and painted dragon masks.
We all had the sillies at dismissal.
The dress up clothes and the doll clothes were all placed inside our tunnel which was folded up under a table. They were spinning it around and pretending it was their washing machine. They are so imaginative!
There were building blocks to begin our day. This is one of their favorite (and loudest) morning activities. The children get very creative.
We begin each day with a table activity that helps to refine fine motor skills. This class loves building blocks and legos!
Here is the special helper busy at work.
We spent a great deal of time this week talking about apples. We read stories about them, cut them, took out the seeds and sorted them by color and size. The best part was painting them on the easel and using them to make apple prints!
Painting with water colors.
The children have really gotten used to our classroom routines. We meet on the rug after table activities and unpacking is done. We give out name tags, pray, and then see who the special helper of the day will be. The special helper is in charge of collecting the name tags before we say the Pledge of Allegiance, and then they hold the flag. New jobs are added on as the weeks go by, and it is amazing to see how eager they are to help.
Here we are working on shape recognition. The children loved searching for shapes around the classroom.
The best way to end a busy week is with some parachute fun! The special helper always gets a ride.
Here we are doing a mitten match up game after singing a fun mitten color song .
I will see everyone on Monday!
There are many daily routines in Nursery, and the children really like predictability. They feel comfortable when they know what is coming next and some reluctant students become more engaged when they know what to expect. Here is a staple of our morning - the special helper collecting the name tags and counting on the calendar.
We spent time having a letter hunt this week to practice what we have learned. This activity is not about knowing the letters, but for working on visual discrimination. Even if a child is unfamiliar with the name of a letter, they can still find a match and feel successful.
The weather was beautiful this week and made for a lot of fun on the playground.
We highlight a new letter every week, but none of the concepts we introduce are in isolation. They are woven into everything we do and the goal is to have the children be the ones to eventually get excited about recognizing and pointing them out to us. Our learning in Nursery is done primarily through play. Today we went on a letter hunt!
We have been talking a great deal about Thanksgiving. We have read about the first Thanksgiving, books about gratitude and today, a counting book highlighting some popular Thanksgiving food. "1, 2,3 Thanksgiving," by W. Nicola-Lisa. The children had a lot to say about the food!
Today, we water colored some turkeys. Painting is definitely one of their favorite table time activities.
Welcome back everyone! The children were all so happy to see one another again, and had a lot to talk about. We got right back into the swing of things and the special helper did a great job collecting the name tags, holding the flag, and marking off the date on the calendar.
A busy week full of holiday projects and a lot of practice following directions. We made an angel, a Christmas tree, a manger scene, Rudolph and a candy cane too!
Spirit week was so much fun, and the best was when we got to wear our pajamas. We got to see our tree lights get turned on, and we sang songs too!
We sang some fun songs with our shaky eggs.
There was time for play-doh too!
As important as routine is in nursery, there are times when we need to break routine when things don't go as planned, in order to recognize the need of a student, or when something seems very important to a little one. Today it was needing to wrap the baby doll up just right, hold it tight, and bring it to the table for lunch (highchair and all). As young as they are, these children have tremendous capacity to love and care for one another. They watch everything we do!
We reviewed our letters today with a game of memory using paper plates and then all took a turn trying to hit letters with the ball.
A parachute "clubhouse" is so much fun, and a great place to read books with your friends. "No grown-ups allowed," we were told!
Not all children are fans of the parachute, so this week we did some unique parachute activities that everyone LOVED! The children did some block sorting on the parachute. It was interesting to watch them make corrections when they found a stray block. More, less, shapes, colors - we got it all in with this simple activity.
Today we celebrated Charlotte and Ellie's birthday. Mr. and Mrs. Traina came in to read the book "Birthday Monsters," by Sandra Boynton. A perfect book since we are working on the letter M. We painted monster paper bag puppets also. They will come home on Wednesday after we use them to act out some funny monster stories!
It was a beautiful day so, after lunch and reading time, we went out to play and had so much fun! It definitely did not feel like a winter day in February!
One of my favorite moments of the week. A quiet moment in the flurry of free play. One student quietly reading to a friend and another stopping by to listen.
We have been reading and talking about hibernation. We even made our own brown bears! Today we put them in their "den" to hibernate until the spring. We will check each day off on the calendar until spring arrives.
We started our day with puzzles!
The special helper was very happy to do the morning jobs: collecting the tags, holding the flag, labeling the weather, and counting on the calendar.
There was a lot going on in the kitchen at playtime today!
A new job has been added for the special helper! We are crossing off the days until spring arrives and our bears come out of hibernation.
The weather was so wonderful today that we decided to go out to play in the afternoon. When we told the children, they let out a big cheer. Rest time was much more restful after they had the chance to run and play.
Our busy special helpers this week. Look at all of the jobs they did!
Some bowling fun in the afternoon. This is one of their favorite activities.
We loved the book fair. Thank you to Mrs. Serrano, our school librarian and to all the moms that helped us shop.
Finishing our letter V project:
Some morning fun this week:
Fun with crayons, paper and stickers!
The playground on a beautiful sunny day!
It was a beautiful day for the Walk-A-Thon! Thank you to all who joined us. The ice pops were delicious!
Here are our special helpers this week doing their jobs:
This week we learned all about the letter V, but first we had to finish our letter U craft. U is for Unicorn. The children all loved the pink glitter! Making the gluey triangle horn, scooping the glitter out and sprinkling it on, pouring the extra off - they loved it all!
Playground fun!
Who needs toys when you have a bunch of empty chairs? Spontaneous playtime fun - an airplane ride with a seat for everyone. The baby dolls even came along on the trip. The hardest part was waiting for a turn to be the pilot! Goodbye everyone. We're taking off!
There is nothing better than getting to see your big brother at school and getting a hug.
Cleaning up with friends always makes the job easier.
Manipulative time this morning!
Welcome back to everyone! It was so exciting for the children to be back with their Nursery friends. We got right back into our routine and had a great week. Here are some pictures of the special helpers this week:
We have been focusing on the spring and talking about the weather a lot. The April showers had us painting colorful umbrellas this week. They look beautiful hanging up outside the classroom.
Here is the special helper of the day collecting the nametags, holding the flag and counting on the calendar.
We were very busy today making our Advent wreathes and painting Christmas trees to hang up in the classroom.
R was our letter of the week. Here we are coloring the Rainbow Fish and adding glitter to make one of his shiny scales.
There was a lot of cooperative play happening in the classroom this week. From fixing broken things to making a meal together - this type of play encourages conversation, listening skills, taking turns, and best of all stretching the imagination!
We added trains to the classroom this week and they were a big hit!
We were lucky enough to get out to play this week when the weather cooperated.
When it was too wet to play outside, we did fun things inside. Here we are bowling and cheering one another on.
There were puzzles to begin our day today. We love to watch them work together.
Here is the special helper collecting the nametags, holding the flag and counting on the calendar.
Play time is the best time to make friends. All of the children are making connections with their peers now. They are learning how to negotiate sharing, taking turns and expressing how they feel (both positive and negative). It is very interesting to watch how they come to the rescue when they see a friend having difficulty. It doesn't always go smoothly, but they have come so far in such a short time. This is hard work!
It was wonderful to watch the children's faces, and hear them sing during our lower school tree lighting. One of the children walked past the unlit tree last week and said, "Google, turn the tree lights on," and now it has happened! They really do make us laugh every day.
Happy Monday! Today we continued with the letter E and read the book "Elmer," by David McKee. This book is a wonderful story that illustrates how we are all uniquely created by God. The children were as eager to talk about the differences in their hair and eyes as they were to talk about who liked to dance, color. paint and run. Here is our special helper holding the flag!
Creative building - one of our favorite ways to start the day together. A great way to get everyone chatting and working together.
It was a boisterous, fun morning free play with cooking in the kitchen, truck driving, and setting up the animals in the barn.
A quiet relaxing afternoon with the "real animals" and soft blocks. The children built enclosures for the animals and organized them too. I will see everyone on Friday!
There were two playtime art projects today. The children watercolored a beautiful patchwork Elmer. and then made an Elephant. They loved painting the toe nails - there was a lot of giggling!
It was a beautiful day to play outside!
Here is our special helper of the day collecting the nametags.
Free play is not only fun for the children, but the perfect opportunity to develop social skills and explore imaginative and role playing activities. It has been very interesting to watch the process of the children not only going from playing alone to playing in groups, but also from playing with the toys as they were designed to be played with, to using the toys to represent other things they are familiar with. Today, the yellow bins that we usually use as baby beds, became footbaths as a group of girls decided to open a beauty parlor. Ketchup and syrup bottles from the play kitchen became the shampoo. They filled the bins with blankets for the water. They poured cups of tea to sip. Interestingly, at circle time today one of the boys was talking about getting his hair cut at the barber, this led to talking about the differences between the barber and hair salons...and the beauty parlor was created! The children listened carefully to details and created something together. What a fun play time!
Here is our special helper taking care of the morning business!
This week we worked on classroom routines. It is amazing how quickly they learn them.
We talked about all of the things we can do now that we couldn't do when we were babies. The children love to talk about themselves and all that they can do. We talked about celebrating birthdays, and painted the crowns that they will wear on their special day. They will be displayed with their photos below them, and in order. Once we have one birthday, the children love to name who is next.
We read the book, "The Grouchy Ladybug", by Eric Carle, and then made our own cute ladybugs. After adding the eyes, and the wings, we put on the spots.
I am looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday!
We had such a busy morning that we ran out of time for play-doh, so we did it in the afternoon all together.
A fun activity in the afternoon was making hearts with sponge painters and paint that we mixed ourselves.
Puzzles to start the day today! The children were very excited to see one another again after the Thanksgiving break. There was a a lot to talk about.
Here is the special helper collecting the name tags, holding the flag and counting on the calendar.
Today we learned about the Nativity and read the Christmas story. We learned that Advent is a time for waiting and getting ready. We made Advent wreathes but we didn't want them to be ruined in the rain, so they will go home on Wednesday. The children painted angel ornaments.
Here is the special helper for the day collecting everyone's name tag, holding the flag and counting on the calendar. It is amazing to see the children not only recognize their own name in print but, each other's names as well.
We finished our paper bag turkeys today! Aren't they cute?
We did an activity today where each child got a plate with a picture of a food they might eat on Thanksgiving. They had to practice saying, "yes, please" if they wanted to try something and "no thank you" if they didn't.
Our snowmen are finally done! They took a while but don't they look wonderful? They make our classroom look happy. The children really wanted to take them home.
We got to go out on the playground this week and we had so much fun!
We began our day today with manipulatives.
Here is the special helper busy collecting the name tags and counting on the calendar at circle time.
We had so much fun doing the turkey feather dance. Whoever had the same color feather had to go in the center of our circle and dance to the music! They had to flap their wings and waddle like a turkey
The children love when we use Play-Doh!
Today we started making our paper bag turkey by coloring the feathers and adding on the face. We will let it dry before we stuff it.
The first thing we do is unpack. The children have gotten very independent and love to help each other.
We spent the week talking about the letter J, positional words and hibernation. We have read several books about hibernation, and we have put our bears into their "lair" (which is on my desk). Snooze our friendly classroom mascot comes out of his log every day to sing with us. He makes everyone laugh!
We began the day with block building.
We had a very enthusiastic special helper today who was very excited for it to be her turn.
Today we read the story of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," retold by Janet Stevens. We used blocks and our play animals to act the story out.
It was a great morning to play outside. We were running, hanging, sliding, jumping and a few were trying to wake up a princess!
Some free play after snack!
Playtime was busy. The children were cooking for Mrs. Amarain, and there was a lot of laughing. Mrs. Amarain loves everything the children make even though they tell her there are hot peppers in everything!
We had a fix-it crew working on the lockers today. They were loud but, the crew assured me that they all work right now. So much fun.
We had a great day! I will see you all on Wednesday.
We had awonderful time on the playground this week.
Mixing paint for the most special project.
"Writing letters" is one of our new favorite playtime activities.
Finishing our caterpillars.
Here are our special helpers for the week!
The mornings are for playing and building together! It is one of our favorite parts of the day.
Counting fuzzy caterpillars. We love this song!
We had so much fun learning about the letter O this week. We read several books about ocean animals and did many ocean themed activities.
It was a group effort to put the ocean puzzle together, and everyone that helped was very proud at the job they had done.
We did our best to find ocean animal toys that matched the ones in the puzzle.
We used different shades of blue to make an ocean scene. It was fun mixing and swirling the paint colors together. When it was all dry we glued little fish to it. Our favorite part was drawing on the happy faces!
We did a little fishing in the afternoon while we waited for our friends to finish resting.
The best part of this busy week was that we were able to go to our little playground again! The snow has melted and the weather was beautiful!
A traffic director and a bouquet of pretty flowers!
We celebrated a birthday this week and it was double the fun!
Welcome February! Our busy day began with manipulatives with patterning, sorting and gear assembly.
We read the book, "Go to Sleep Groundhog!" by Judy Cox and then made cute groundhog paperbag puppets.
We introduced the new month and all of the special days. Today we talked about Groundhog's Day. No shadow and, an early spring proclaimed Punxsutawney Phil! Here is our special helper.
In the afternoon we played with shaving cream! A messy, but fun sensory activity. The children had as much fun helping to clean up as they did playing with the shaving cream.
We started the day with manipulatives!
We read the book "Fall Ball," by Peter McCarty. We loved the funny pictures, and the dog who jumped into the leaves. We took turns raking up leaves on the classroom floor.
It was a beautiful day to play outside.
Here is our special helper for the day collecting the nametags, and holding the flag. He was very excited to help!
We were very busy during play time today. The children had fun with Mrs. Amarain setting up a big picnic and they also spent time trying to "fix" our refrigerator. It was a good day. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday!
Working on puzzles and building together.
We have fun together on the playground even on cloudy days.
We love watching our butterflies!