Excellent and exciting elephants elevated our childrens' education in Pre-K this week!  In case you haven't figured it out, "Ee" was our letter of the week.  Ellie loved that she was used daily as an "E" word and smiled from ear to ear each time we called out her name.  Everyone worked hard on writing our letter and figuring out what words begin with "Ee."  Your children were all exceptional!  Just a tip:  when practicing letters with your child we teach them the "hat line" - top, "belt line" - middle dotted line, and "shoe line" - bottom.  This method is taught in Lake Oswego Kindergartens and assists the kids with deciphering where to begin and end.  We highly encourage practice at home and love when they come in and give us new words that were talked about with the family. (great dinner time topic)

Math is always fun and this week included shapes and counting objects and matching the amount to the actual number.  Number recognition is solid to 5 now so next week we go to 10!  Please practice identifying shapes while in the car or at home.  We are working on the concept that many things are made up of the shapes we are learning.  (ie:  a stop light is 3 circles and 1 rectangle)  We also practiced writing the numbers 3 & 4.  These are tricky so patience is a must.  The children can become frustrated so if they start out writing backwards, no worries!  It always turns around, after all, how many adults do you know that write their numbers backwards?

Exploring our world was our theme this week and we passed the globe around daily and spoke about different continents and where we live.  They learned that we live in North America, the United States of America, the state of Oregon, and then they shared which city they live in.    Mac said he wants to visit the "big pink country" which was Russia and just so happens to be his favorite color.  We shared climates around the world and a little bit of culture.  Anna was fascinated with Japan and the architecture.  She liked how the buildings look like they are "stacked up."  (pagodas)

Keeping with our world theme we created a globe with our 7 continents and learned the continent song.  Make sure you ask about it but know that it will take a while before it sinks in completely.  We will work on it all year.

Milk and food coloring, who knew it could be so much fun?  Separation was the topic in Science and the children were fascinated with the concept, but mostly had fun making swirls.  Try it at home for an activity that can last and last!!

Welcome to Pre-K Saria and Sofia!!  The kids were fascinated about the concept of twins and we were happy to have the girls talk about what they knew about being a twin.  Saria knew one was older, but not by how much, (so cute!) and Sofia said they always have someone to play with!  Twins brought on alot of questions that we will continue to explore as the children ask but Parker could tell them apart right away and was calling them by their correct names on the first day!

Thank you again to Venus (Monica's mom) for cutting and finding volunteers for our Halloween Party.  Stephanie (Parker's mom) was the first to step up and help out, YOU ARE APPRECIATED!!!!  Thanks again to Alex, (Aiden's dad) for volunteering and playing with the kids at recess they love it!

Please don't forget to sign up for conferences on our classroom door.  It helps us immensely to speak with you out of the classroom and learn more about the child in your life and makes up better equipped to fuel your childs' need for learning, loving and development.

Warmly,  Ms. Stacy and Ms. Lindsi

Autumn is upon us and our toddlers kicked off our first week of October exploring cultures around the world.  From Africa to Mexico and back we read, decorated, colored and painted all about the terrific and vast world we live in.

Our week started off with the letter of the week, which was "D."  D is for many things like: dots, dad, dance, dinner, dessert and of course DOGS!  Dogs are a class favorite this year and Zoie, Jane, Hailey and Peyton can often be heard from class howling and woofing to their pals.  

While dogs were a favorite topic this week we also did art to represent various countries, like African Animal puppets and fun filled pinatas.  Oscar just loved sprinkling glitter all over his pinata and Piper had hers filled with various colors! The kids just LOVE art!  Getting sticky and messy with art is never an issue with these terrific tods!  

For story and music time we read "I am Black - I am Unique" and Luka strutted her stuff to our popular "Marvelous Me" music!  

We had a great week and we really want to say great job to Sam who has come so far in our class and is having such a happy time.  Also parents and friends, you have some of the most loving children; quite often in our class, at various moments the kids get up to hug their friends and tell them "I love you."  It is the sweetest thing to see and we just want you to know these kids are very lovable and kind to everyone in class!