McCullough's Pre-K Blog

We started off the week voting on snow or no snow for winter this year. The votes are in and 15 of us voted for snow and 3 for no snow. We had a great time with our dad’s at Dad’s Day! First we got to have some donuts with dad and then they helped us build snow machines. We had to make sure our machines had on and off buttons or a power switch. Some even had buttons to change the speed, safety kits, fans, and much more. We think if we all turn them on at the same time maybe we will get some snow.

In Science this week we talked about animal tracks. Miss Anna read us a book on how to identify different animal tracks. Good clues to look for are if the tracks have claws, the size, and the shape. After science we went to art. Two weeks ago in art we painted with ice on white paper to look like mud. This week in art we got to paint animal tracks on the mud.

We have started our Olympic unit. We got to pick our teams! The countries we are representing are France, United Kingdom, and Spain. Next week we will be learning all about France.

Winter is a wonderful time for children to experience our changing climate. As we brainstormed about winter the class thought of activities they enjoy in winter, and often these activities were inside. To adapt is a new word that has been added to their vocabulary. They realize we have to adapt to climate changes just like animals. We don’t hibernate like bears or migrate like geese but one way we can adapt to the colder weather is by wearing warmer clothes.
We all hold out hope that we will wake up to a beautiful snowy day. They all remember and recount interesting tales from the big snow last year. We have made a bar graph and 15 children predict we will have snow this winter! We may even resort to making show machines!!!!
In Science the children mixed oats, flour, raisins, and hot oil to make suet. They will hang the suet on the trees in Trinity’s Discovery Woods for the animals. What a nice treat for the animals. The children delighted in painting with frozen paint and the next Art class they will put animal tracks on their winter picture.
We are finishing our animal study of the Georgia native animals and our understanding of how they survive during the winter. As the children presented their winter animal reports it was evident they are learning and making connections to previous information. Reid noted that the short tailed meadow mouse lived in North Georgia because he thought South Georgia would be too hot. The animal videos added a special touch to their reports.
We heard from our friends at the Hall School in London. Jonathan’s cousin Noah and family visited Atlanta over the Christmas holidays. They brought pictures of Jonathan’s cousin and his classmates showing the autumn hedgehogs and the wonderful dinosaurs they had constructed. We will introduce our children to the Hedgehog during out Olympic study of The United Kingdom. The Hall School children had interesting questions for us. They wondered if we speak English, played Rugby, read Biff and Chip books, and how are our lunches? We will answer these questions and send our questions about England to them. This will be a special opportunity as we start preparations for the Olympic unit.

Jonathan’s dad kicked off the New Year as our Mystery Reader. He entertained us with a great story about the boy who changed the world. We learned how to use our knowledge to help the world be a better place and that little actions can make a big difference.

We finished our mittens just in time for some cold weather. They look great and we really want to wear them, but right now they’re decorating our room bulletin board. We discovered that symmetry takes a lot of patience and focus. The mittens had to match exactly. So whatever shape and color we put on one mitten, we had to make sure to use the same combination on the other mitten.

The animal reports are coming along nicely. The boys and girls have done such a great job on the presentation of their report. They are so excited to come up front and tell us all about their animal. Thank you so much for your help. We know they couldn’t have done it without you. This has been an excellent exercise in focusing on one particular subject, pulling the information together, recalling what they’ve learned and then sharing that information with the class.
We’ve been working hard on our fine motor skills this week. We love to trace and have been busy tracing animals. Tracing is good for our little muscles because we have to be precise to follow the outline. Play Dough is another fun fine motor activity. We use our hands to press down and make objects, in addition to cutting shapes with the Play Dough. Of course handwriting is an excellent fine motor activity and we have been very busy with our Handwriting Without Tears. We started on the Magic “C” letter this week. Ask your child to tell why the “C” is magic and what other letters you can make from the “C”.

It’s been a great week. But what week wouldn’t be great that starts off with cards, flowers, and cupcakes. Thanks so much for the birthday celebrations for Miss Shann and Miss Keith. What a fun day. Remember, we don’t have school on Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Day. Enjoy the long week-end. We’re hoping for some snow, but it’s not looking too good. We might have to do a “snow dance”.

We were all very excited to return to school after the holiday break. Many wonderful stories have been shared about Christmas happenings. We enjoy hearing the detailed descriptions of everyone’s favorite gifts.

We are off to a busy start in 2012. This week we have been talking a lot about winter. In art we are sketch painting pictures of bare trees. Check out our bulletin board to see our fabulous paintings. During open classroom we are also making our very own mittens. Miss Keith taught us about the word symmetry. We learned that mittens are symmetrical.

Continuing with our theme we have started to talk about animals in winter. We have each been assigned a different animal to research. We are very excited to do our very first reports and can’t wait to learn all about the animals!

It has been a short week but we are all excited to be back in the swing of things. Happy New Year!