Little Roadrunners

Here’s what the Little Roadrunners have been up to lately…

We got a light table and have been enjoying working with it.

One of our students asked to be an “art leader” and got us all thinking about leadership and how we might be able to be leaders in different areas of the classroom.

We drew portraits and answered interview questions about our moms for Mother’s Day.

We are cruising right along with our alphabet project (u is for underground and v is for vegetables).

 Ava’s Mimi Sue came to visit and told stories and shared gingerbread cookies.  What a treat!

The little roadrunners learned to play hopscotch in PE on Monday.

Step one: Choose a rock.

Step two: Mr. Sherwin tells and shows us how to play.

Step three: Find a partner and start playing.

Hopscotch: Gross motor, number recognition, taking turns- FUN!

This week I introduced working with hammers as a way of discovering one’s strong hand (writing hand).  When you give a child a hammer and ask them to hold it with one hand they usually feel much more comfortable with one hand over the other.  This is more than likely their writing hand.

One of our friends brought his stuffed Angry Bird toy to school.  He and his buddies built some really clever Angry Bird structures at choice time with blocks and Kid K’nex and threw the toy to knock down the structure.  There were peels of laughter and lots of rebuilding.

This week we colored O’s orange at circle time.

Then we got slightly silly with them.

Finally we counted them, 11 O’s!

At little glimpse of choice time today.  There was some…

dapper dressing,

puzzle doing,

store playing,

and “M is for mouse” making.

Once a month Jack’s mom, Giuli, comes in to the Monday/Wednesday class to teach the Four Winds science program.  Every month there is a new theme.  There is a puppet show and usually an indoor hands-on activity and some outdoor time connected to the theme.  This last time we talked about animals in winter and how some  have tunnels where they store their food and escape from predators.  We made some neat dioramas and did lots of exploring outside.  We looked for evidence of tunnels (pretty tricky with the lack of snow) and left some seeds for the animals.  Thank you so much Giuli, we love Four Winds!

We’ve been reading books about mail and letters.  Last week I introduced letter writing paper in the writing center.    As I introduced the center, there was a mysterious envelope in our clementine box (aka mailbox).  It was a letter from a leprechaun!  We wrote back to the leprechaun and he ended up hiding some chocolate gold coins in the classroom for us!  He told us there was actually a little group of leprechauns hanging out in our room at night.  They were super mischievous with green glitter and definitely lacked clean up skills.  Now the kids are blaming the leprechauns when anything is missing or out of place!

The kids were wide-eyed with the magic of it all and ended up searching for leprechaun evidence during outside time.

Searching…

and more searching!

The writing center is open at choice time.  We have special writing paper with “Dear” and “Love” on it and a place to write or draw a message.  Classmates’ pictures and names can also be found in the center for easy access.  We talked about how kid writing sometimes looks like letters, sometimes words, sometimes squiggles  and sometimes pictures.

A play based preschool screening for the 2012-2013 school year will be held on Tuesday March 27th.  There will be NO SCHOOL that day for current preschoolers.  Anyone who has a child turning 3 by August, 31 2012 can call the office to set up a screening appointment.  Let me know if you have any questions.

I’m so glad to get to see the Little Roadrunners tomorrow.  I hope everyone had a relaxing break and some fun adventures.  Here are some pictures from the last few weeks of school.

Our Valentine’s day celebration was so much fun!  It was so sweet to watch the kids exchange cards and express heartfelt gratitude.  Teachers were teary for sure!  The yogurt parfaits we made were so delicious.  Thank you for sending in the ingredients.

Mrs. Downing brought some Magna-Tiles over from Calais.  We had SO MUCH FUN with them.  They will definitely be on our order for next year.

We’re making progress on our alphabet project.