Pre-1 Families, we can’t believe that the end of the year is right around the corner. We have enjoyed teaching and watching your children grow and learn every single day. We will miss our friends that are heading off to Kindergarten in the Fall, but we know they will do great things. In April, we celebrated The Week of the Young Child and learned about insects.
Upcoming Dates/Reminders
A reminder the last day for our PFAE program is Friday, May 14th. We will be holding parent-teacher conferences on May 18th and 19th from 8:30-3:45. Please sign up on our sign-in clipboard outside our classroom. We look forward to meeting with each of you to discuss your child’s development and share about all of the learning that has taken place in our classroom. Please reach out with any additional questions.
The Week of the Young Child
One week out of this month, we celebrated the Week of the Young Child. This week consisted of activities from Pajama day to Wacky/Tacky hair day to celebrate all of our children. For music Monday, our classroom had a marching band outside. On Tuesday, we wore our PJs to school and made real fruit smoothies! Work together Wednesday was a hit. We worked together to assemble and decorate a horse made out of a wooden stick and oven mitt as a class. We named him Clip Clop and he got to race in the horse races held on the playground. On Thursday, the day was filled with art activities. We brought paper and paint materials outside and let the children’s creativity unleash. On Friday we wore our favorite sports team or NIU spirit wear. The children cut out pictures from magazines and made a collage that was unique to their personalities. We had so much fun celebrating the Week of the Young Child.
Science Exploration & Insects
This month we focused on the different types of insects that live in our world. We introduced the cycle of how caterpillars turn into butterflies. We introduced new vocabulary words like chrysalis, antennae, thorax, and cocoon. For one of our read aloud’s, we read the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The children were able to actively engage with felt board pieces during the story. We added different types of fruit counters in our math area. Often, the children would take The Very Hungry Caterpillar book and use the fruit counters to follow along in the book as they read it to themselves. One of our new favorite things to do outside is digging for worms. The children search for sticks and then begin digging in the dirt to find worms. One day we found over twenty worms. The children made a home for the worms out of grass, dirt, and leaves.
Meet Tamieka
As always, we are encouraging the children to make green choices in the classroom and with their friends. We are still using the fill your bucket to reward the children when they make green choices. This month we decided to introduce another technique to encourage children to make green choices. Meet Tamieka! Tamieka is a puppet in our classroom. Tamieka likes to come out when her friends are making green choices in the classroom. She even has a choice board picture just like all the other children. Tamieka loves to give her friends hugs and high fives. Tamieka also rests with her friend during rest time. Sometimes, she even wakes up next to friends who made super green choices in the morning and rest time. Tamieka is a great asset to our classroom, and she is encouraging our friends to make green choices every single day!
