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Miss Wende's Class

April 2008

Themes: We will be talking about Spring and baby animals this month. We will be presenting the letters E, and J as well.

Art activities: During E week will be drawing elephants and emus to go along with our books. For J week the children will be making jack-in the boxes, a jar with jellybeans and jam sandwiches. Books: A few of the books for E week are Emma giggles, But No Elephants, and Edward the Emu. For J week we will be reading Just me and my Babysitter, and Bread and Jam for Francis.

January 2008

Themes: We will be working on the theme of Winter this month as well as the letters I,B,T and W.

Art activities: During I week we will paint with colored ice, make igloos, and ice cream cones. During B week, the children will do bubble painting, help with an experiment about animal blubber, and make a blizzard with white paper snowflakes. For T week we are making wintry trees, turtles and a class train on tracks. We will also talking about animals tracks in the snow.

Books: A few of the books we will read this month are Footprints in the Snow by C.Benjamin, The Snowy Day by E. Keats, and A Tree Can Be by J. Nayer.

The Benefits of Integration: The children in this group participate fully throughout the daily schedule with their peers from the Play and Learn preschool. It is very exciting to observe the friendships developing within the group. We are noticing that all children benefit from accepting each others strengths and needs and a spirit of teamwork is the goal. There are six teachers, (Wende, Cynthia, Shira, Patty, Susy, and Julie) who each take turns planning and leading groups throughout the day.

Daily Schedule: Arrival and Free play: Every morning as the children arrive and get settled with book bags and notebooks etc. they come in the room and are encouraged to choose an activity. The teachers select a variety of table toys to encourage pre academic skills. The teachers interact and supervise their play encouraging social skills, and assist in guiding them on learning counting, shapes, alphabet, etc. They have access to art supplies to work on their coloring and cutting during this time as well. The children are able to choose among three connected rooms during this play time with different choices available in each room.

Snack Time: At this time all the children share a snack together and practice their social and language skills as they sit together at the tables. As each child finishes and cleans up, they then choose a picture book to look at and relax until everyone is finished.

Circle Time: During circle time the children practice their counting skills as we briefly discuss the days of the week, the month and the weather for the day. Each child has opportunities to speak in front of the group as weather person, calendar person etc. throughout the month. Circle time is an excellent opportunity for the children to practice asking and answering questions relating to the topic. We also introduce our weekly themes, review vocabulary, read a theme related book and discuss the art project for the day.

Project Time: As the children create theme related crafts, we are working on following directions, fine motor skills such as coloring, cutting, gluing, etc. The children take pride in their individual creations and project time gives us one more teaching opportunity related to our weekly concepts and vocabulary.

Gross Motor Time: At this time the children are encouraged to use their muscles to practice running, ball skills, bike riding and climbing on playground equipment. We have several different spaces to select for gross motor time including our gym, the playground and a room with large blocks and some climbing equipment.

Lunch: During lunch the children sit next to different friends each day and relax and chat with their peers. This is a good time to practice using our muscles to open all kinds of lunch products like pudding cups, yogurt, juice packs, etc. and asking for help when needed. The teachers sit with the children as well and encourage verbal interactions. The children clean up their leftovers, put their lunchboxes away and select a book or toy until everyone is finished.

Quiet Time: After lunch the children take a rest on their individual mats. Some of the students enjoy the short nap and seem to really need it after a busy day. For the children who are restless and not too tired, we set up quiet activities at the table to work on their goals and finish any projects etc. that are incomplete.

Special weekly groups: On Mondays we have dance with Miss Elizabeth. On Wednesdays we have music with Miss Penny. On Fridays the children have a movement class, Creative Kinections with Miss Colleen in the morning and a dance activity with Miss Dorothy. We also have Show and Tell on Fridays when we try to have the children send in things to go with the letter of the week when possible.

December 2007

Themes: We will be focusing on the December holidays as well as the letter G this month. Some of our special events will include making potato pancakes, spinning dreidels, and counting Chanukah candles. We will also be discussing what nice presents we would like to give to our family members and making cards depicting the presents. We will be donating gently used toys and clothes to the Salvation Army. We will be focusing on the words gifts, grandparents, and generosity to correlate with the letter G.

Art activities: Some of the projects this month are making surprises to send home, decorating a paper gift box for our G page in our alphabet book, making cards for grandparents, and painting different types of trees to correlate with the book, The Giving Tree.

Books: A few of the books we will read this month are Sammy the Spider’s first Chanukah, Latkes, latkes good to eat, The Giving Tree, My Grandson is a Genius, Grandfather Buffalo, and Grandma Tells a Story.

November 2007

Themes: We will be focusing on the letters H and F this month. H will be highlighted with activities about hibernation and animals preparing for winter. We will also be discussing families and feasts.

Art activities: Some of the projects this month are creating little bear dens, adding a hat page to our alphabet book, creating Native American and pilgrim decorations for our Thanksgiving snack, and adding a family to our alphabet book. We are making an effort to relate our art projects and letters so the children learn the alphabet letters in relationship to our current units.

Books: A few of the books we will read this month are Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, The Hat by Jan Brett and A Bed for the Winter, by Karen Wallace.