School Tools

What a busy and fun second day of school!  Today we talked all about the school tools that we'll be using in class, but before that we talked about being SUPER FRIENDS!  Can you believe it?  I turned all the preschoolers into Super Friends today.  They learned that super friends do some important things: 1. STOP 2. Think of a solution 3. Act.  We talked about our super powers being solutions to problems.  The four main super powers we have as super friends are: 1. Use Nice Words 2. Share 3. Walk Away 4. Get the Teacher.  I heard so many nice words and witnessed so much sharing today, it was fantastic!  Of course we all got to make and wear super hero masks to show our Super Friend abilities.

 We also got super hero pointer sticks.  We talked more about reading today and how good readers (and Super Readers) do four main things: 1. Look at the Letters 2. Point at the Letters 3. Make the Letter Sounds 4. Listen to the Letter Sounds.  We practiced these skills with our super hero pointer sticks all around the room.  For art today we explored many school tools.  The biggest hit was the scissors and the hole punch.  PLEASE let your preschooler cut scrap mail at your house as often as possible.  Have them sit at the table with a pair of scissors and some junk mail and cut it any way they would like.  Don't guide them to do anything, but let them explore it on their own.  Letting them cut often improves the muscles in their hands and will help them gain dexterity which will help with handwriting, too!

 During math time we talked about the quantity of 2.  We had a super fun math game where we had to match pairs of socks.  We also practiced our super friend abilities while playing with the blocks and toy cars and trucks.  It was a fantastic second day of school!

This afternoon I turned our second bunch of preschoolers into Super Friends as well!  It's so fun to give them a task like making their masks and watching how the tackle (or don't tackle) the project.  They loved the masks and practiced finding words around the room with their pointer sticks.

 We spent the majority of time in reading today.  As I sorted through what each child already knows and is ready to learn I was able to get a better idea of what and how I should be teaching reading in the coming weeks.  I'm so excited about all these little learners!  I worked in small groups and one-on-one with almost every child during reading while the rest of the group practiced their Super Friend abilities while playing blocks.  We also read to our sock monkeys again, I have a feeling the sock monkeys will be WELL loved by the end of the school year.

Art was a lot of fun as we talked about the primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and what would happen if we mixed the colors.  We got to find out with finger paints.  As our first painting experience it went really well!  Thanks to all the parents for being patient at pick-up today.  We were so crazy busy all day and running behind.  I do appreciate when the kids help clean up after class.