NO SCHOOL FRIDAY & TUITION DUE

**REMINDER! Wednesday is the 1st of the month, which means tuition for the month is due. Please bring your tuition check with your preschooler on Wednesday morning. Also, there is NO SCHOOL on Friday (10-3-14). HISD has off for the "Fall Holiday", which means we don't have school either. See you on Wednesday!

Week 4 (Sept 25, 26)

We had a short week! Wendesday was an HISD 1/2 day, which means we didn't have school at all. We completed our transition from dinosaurs. We played lots of games and had lots of fun, despite not having nearly enough time for anything. 2 days isn't enough preschool for anyone. Fine motor skills, turn-taking, PATIENCE. This fishing game is lovely.

Lucky Ducks is another game we tried out. The concept is simple enough that they are able to play this without an adult, and naturally with 4 preschoolers playing, problems arose, and they were able to reason it out. Very nice team building activity.

Some of our academic work was turned into games as well. First, cutting, then finding the right sticker, then writing their names. Academic work doesn't have to LOOK like work. It can be fun! :)

We have measured our growing dinosaurs several days/weeks, and it looks like they are as big as they are going to get. Good bye dinosaurs, we had fun measuring, counting, and predicting with you!

We made noise makers a week ago, after we read about different dinosaurs and their noise making abilities. It was fun pretending to be dinosaurs, and talking about what those dinos might have been saying to each other. The noise makers went home in Friday's backpacks.

It was this dinosaur's birthday, and the kids picked how many presents to give to it, glued them on, counted them up, and wrote the number on the tummy.

Jeff took building with Color Clix to a whole new level during free choice. Wow! The first picture was a bird (which later changed to other things), and the second picture was an airplane. The kids LOVE taking pictures to send to their family.

More building, this time with blocks. Ryan built a dog (and he's panting while I snapped the photo), Hawken built a bat, and Jeff built a rhino (who was later a dog too).

More and more and more blocks, and block creations. They took over the room! I know each of these pictures looks similar, but they worked hard on every creation and wanted to show you! So take a look, and tell them how amazing their building skills and imaginations are!

After reading a few versions of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff, we ate like goats and tried out lots of different fruits at snack time. The kids then tried to eat without their hands (you know billy goats only use their mouths!).

Quiet self-reading, using a Tag pen.

During table time, the kids tried out the stamps pads and dot to dot number stamps.  Each stamp has a number on it and a corresponding amount of objects. After they stamp it on their paper, they say the number, or count the objects if they are unsure, and then trace over the dot to dot number.

The lowercase abc maze was fun for the kids to try out, and pretty tricky. Ryan sure is persistent though. He stuck with this activity until he figured it out, even when it got frustrating.

Matching rhyming words, another fun activity. Hawken tries to find a rhyme for nearly ever word that's ever said, so this activity was right up his alley.

Team build activities, like this puzzle, are a favorite for this group of kids. They work so nicely together!

Also, we made our first MOVIE! Acting out the stories we read is a favorite activity, so this time, I prepped them and told them I would film it! They were SO excited. Here is the masterpiece! This video is on Youtube, and is public, but not able to be saved. I will make copies for the parents of all our videos at the end of the year in DVD format. Enjoy!

NO SCHOOL WEDNESDAY

**IMPORTANT REMINDER** No school on Wednesday September 24th! HISD has a 1/2 day, and that means we don't have class at all. See you on Thursday! Please reference the calendar for additional days we have no class.

Week 3 (Sept 17, 18, 19)

This was a fun week! I'll start with this picture from our favorite thing at the end of the day, our QUESTION OF THE DAY! The kids eat it up! I have questions for them to answer, that cover nearly every preschool category, ever. When they answer correctly, they choose a sticker. This is a major highlight and a fun way to end the day.

The table time activity one day, which is usually more creative and less concrete, was so fun for them that it spilled over in to the time for our next activity.  They sorted and did some beginning reading. Each mat has space on it for certain objects to go. Some are very easy and straight forward (purple fish go in the purple fish bowl), but other require the kids to sound out the words (which pasture do the horses go? the one that starts with the 'h' sound!). They worked alone and together for a lot longer than I thought they might be interested in the activity. Good job boys!

I brought out a few new toys for free choice and kept a few old favorites. It's been fun watching them to see what their interest are. 

Free choice, building a dinosaur floor puzzle together.  This puzzle was hard to do! They worked and worked and worked at it. It glows in the dark too, but we couldn't get the school room to be dark enough, so we pushed in down the hall to another room to try to see if we could make it glow. We did! But the pictures didn't work (sorry Ryan!).

The rhyming cards have been fun for free choice and circle time.  The words are printed on the back and it's been interesting to see that some of the kids are getting interested in looking at the printed text to compare. Why does key and tree rhyme? If key ends in 'ey' and tree ends in 'ee'... Some very forward thinking conversations have come from using these cards. 

Free choice was BUSY this week. I think the school room got the messiest I've seen it, although the kids are always good to help clean up when we're done.  Dressing the new magnetic doll was a hit.  They played together as a group, passing the doll around so everyone could have a turn. Their problem solving skills are advanced for their age. They are so good to include each other and take turns.

This table time activity was very concrete. They were to look at the instructions and figure out which color went with which number on the dinosaur page. Their grasps on the pencil was what I was looking for. They all switched and modified their grasps, from developing grasps, palmar grasps, to 5 or 3 finger pencil grasp. It's important not to push changing their grasp, this will change into a proper grasp as their muscles are ready to support it. Read here for more info on grasp development.

The kids tried out a new toy this week. It has two magnetic black boards and several tiny colored wooden cubes with magnets on one side. The kids were allowed to play with it however they liked. They made patterns and pictures and seemed to enjoy it.

Fine motor game of lacing shoes. Easy and simple but it works out those tiny hand muscles!

Small group was very independent this day. The instructions are in pictures and they understood what to do. First, they matched all the letters, to build simple three letter words, then they would say each letter and "read" the word. Then they take the letter tiles off and put them on their paper to practice writing the words. They were so proud that they wrote words! Later on in the year we will begin working on spacing and writing smaller and more legibly, right now they are all doing a great job!

Small group time often includes choices for the kids. They can pick out any 2 worksheets to do before they get to play, but they usually end up staying at the table until they complete them all. Worksheets include math, number sense, upper and lower case matching, completing patterns, practicing letters and numbers.

We were still doing the dinosaur theme, but are beginning to start on some new things too. They all really love reading books, and listening to me read books, so we have started reading some folk tales and comparing the different versions. We started with the 3 little pigs story and read 2 different versions, then we listened to yet another version.  We talked about how they were similar and how they were different. Then later on they integrated it into their play. Recess was outside only once this week, because of the nasty weather. The other days were spent inside playing three little pigs or bean bag toss. 

Our table time artwork took two days to complete. We looked at several books with mixed media illustrations and talked about an easy way to do that ourselves. First the kids colored pictures with crayons, even using white (on white paper), then the next day they painted with watercolors over the top. The paint doesn't stick to the waxy crayons, and makes a great piece of art. I felt like these deserved to be framed, so we put them all in frames before they went home. The kids were so happy to show off their artwork.