Wild animals are alive in Pre K this week!  We are studying and discussing different ones and the lion seems to be the most popular.  We talked about what role the male and females play within their animal families, whether they are herbivores or carnivores and what types of habitats they live in.  Soleil asked many questions and was impressed that the lioness is the one who hunts.

The letters of the week were Yy and Zz.  We quickly realized that brainstorming these two letters is quite a challenge.  See how many you can come up with at home, it is not as easy as you might think!  We now write entire words daily and are so proud of Charlie who has mastered his name.  Many of the children are now writing their last names and are always so proud of the results.

The sensory table was filled with macaroni and wild animals with chopsticks.  The kids enjoyed role playing with the animals and building "habitats" with friends.  We played Letter Bingo and matched upper case letters with lower for letter recognition, and Lego creations are out of this world!  We are starting to move past the 'Star Wars' ships and on to construction equipment and animal habitats.  A new magnetic set is the hit this week and everyday the kids ask to use it during Stations.

Art was messy and after all, if you can't get messy in Preschool, when can you??  We assembled wild foam animals and then put them into an illustration.  We are focusing on details right now, not just the minimum asked in a project.  Cash was so excited to hear from all of the children how much they loved his monkey drawing.  Our zebra collages are adorable and can be seen hanging in the middle of the room.  Zoi really wanted hers to be perfect so she copied the example perfectly!!  During Art we use "teachable moments" to discuss what we are working on and why it is important.  Pearl was amazed to hear that no two zebras have the same stripes pattern.  This moment was important to explain that just as the zebra is unique, so are we as people and friends.   We are all important in our own way and that our differences actually make us beautiful.

Science was a blast, literally, as we used different items to melt ice cubes.  The hairdryer was the favorite, especially for the girls as it was hot pink.  We talked about how heat and cold not only change the weather but how we feel as well.  (we need sun, already!)  Leah loved "painting" with the colored ice cubes. 

We are practicing kindness and respect daily and the most effective way we have found is in role playing.  I give the kids a scenario and have them tell me what they would do in the situation to resolve it peacefully, and without hurting anyone's feelings.  They like to play this "game" and it has been helpful in resolving issues that occur throughout the day. 

Kristin was our Star Student and took a lot of pride in the fact that she could set up the calendar by herself without any help and would always finish before we could end our "Days of the Week" song.  Jack did a great job at counting the days in the week and helping me with the wipe-off board.

Spanish continues to grow daily.  I now speak to the children throughout the day interchanging Spanish and English and you would be amazed how much they understand!!  They don't even blink an eye when I ask them to get something for me or put something in the trash in Spanish.  It was fun to see Ashleigh's mom's reaction to me asking her to put something in the trash (basura) and Ashleigh running right over to do it!