Hello Pre-2 Families!
This semester surely has flown by. Our last day of the semester is May 14th, which is only two weeks away! We will have parent-teacher conferences on May 18th and 19th, so please make sure to sign up for those. The signup sheet is located above the attendance sheet on the shelf outside of the classroom. These conferences are important so we can address any questions you may have regarding your child’s learning experience or their transition out of the program, especially for those moving up in the fall. Please also be prepared to take home any items your child may have here at the school including clothes, art, and family pictures over the next few weeks.
To help strengthen our childrens’ letter recognition and print concept skills, we have been encouraging each child to print their name when they come into the classroom on the attendance board using a dry erase marker. Print concepts like these are important because it is one of the earliest achievements in reading. Children who are given knowledge about print earlier typically have an easier time learning to read in the future.
We have transformed our dramatic play area into a florist this past week, and as a special treat to wrap up the end of the semester we are going to walk the kids to Glidden Florist for their last field trip! The children will get to see the inner workings of the floral shop, different kinds of flowers, and even make their own floral arrangement while on the trip. This will also allow the children the opportunity to make connections and ask questions about what we have been learning while in our own dramatic play area. We will be heading to the florist on May 12th, and would appreciate any and all parent volunteers to tag along with us. Please let us know if you are interested!
In the past few weeks, we have also been learning about various kinds of insects and spiders. Discussing insects and spiders has allowed us to touch on many different areas of learning. We covered science by learning about the different life cycles of insects such as ladybugs and butterflies and discussed the similarities and differences between insects. We covered math by using a bug stew in which the kids chose a card that told them how many eyes, legs, and wings to put in the bug stew, then the children would make their bug. We also did spider web counting and other similar activities. We worked on letter recognition with insect letter cards which enhanced and evaluated the children’s recognition of both upper and lower case letters. We covered literacy concepts by reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Tall Tall Grass, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and The Very Busy Spider during our read-aloud. For art, we made coffee filter butterflies, paper plate ladybugs, our own bugs by decorating styrofoam balls, and made marble paint spider webs.
Over the past month, we have discussed the Pyramid Models “Peer Mediated Steps of How to Be a Friend” which includes getting their attention, sharing, making a share request, and making a play suggestion. Nearly every day we talked about each of these concepts and applied them to real-life scenarios to help the children understand the concept. We also talked about the ways we could talk to friends to make them feel better such as giving them comfort, asking if they’re ok, including them, and more. It was great to see the children use these skills in their daily situations and we hope to see the use of these skills grow and get carried with them as they move into other classrooms or onto kindergarten.
We are looking forward to the last two weeks of the semester, and are excited to watch the children progress whether that be onto kindergarten, home for the summer, or another classroom. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.
Much love,
Xena, Hillary, and Hailey
