Hello Pre 1 Families!
I can’t believe the semester is already almost over! Just 3 more weeks until the end of the fall semester. This month we started our new study on Water. So far, the children have really enjoyed having water in the sensory table, we add watercolor and soap for bubbles most days. We switch out the different items that we put in as well, we did ducks one day, gems, cups, pitchers, nets, and ice cube trays. We will add snow once we start getting some and ice as well.
This study has brought a lot of science activities that we’ve done during small groups. We did one with large bins of water, and added vegetable oil, and some drops of food coloring. We used a spoon to stir the bin so the children could see that oil and water do not combine. Some of the children hypothesized that everything would combine while others were not sure. Another experiment we did was based on germs, we did small containers of water with black pepper in them, we had each child put a finger into the container, and they were able to see the pepper attach to their fingers. We then had them wash their hands, come back, and added some dawn dish soap to a finger. The children then were able to put that finger back into the container and were able to see that the soap made the pepper move away from their finger. This experiment was used to help show that germs attach to our bodies quickly and that by washing out hands we can help keep them from spreading.
We had our first accumulating snow fall this last week. The first two days of the week were too cold to go outside but on Wednesday the children had a blast playing in the snow. Some used the sleds and went down the hill, while others made snowballs to through at the trees, and others attempted a snowman. This is a good time to remind everyone that we do go outside in the winter months, if “feels like” temperature is below 15 degrees. If you have winter gear, hats, gloves, snow pants, and boots please label them with your child’s name, or let us know you brought some so that we can label them for you. We do encourage waterproof gloves, as the knit ones get wet very easy and then do not keep their hands warm. If you need help getting any of these items, please let us know so we can see what we can do to help. We have a limited number of extras of these items.
Serenity’s mom, Stariesha, came in this month to do an art activity with the children in our class!
We have introduced a new system in our classroom called “Fill a Bucket”. The concept of this is that everyone has an invisible bucket that either gets filled up or withdrawn from. Our actions as people decides whether its filling or withdrawing from the bucket. For example, red choices withdraw from someone’s buckets whereas making green choices and following the expectations fills up buckets. Once we have filled up our classroom bucket, we will have a celebration. We have decided that we will vote as a class on what that might look like. In the past, we have done a beach theme party (in the classroom), pj party with a stuffed animal, and dance party.
Things to look forward to:
- Family Connection snack
- Last day before winter break is December 20th
Thank you for all you do! Jen, Sarah, and Sam
