Busy Week

This week we had a super busy week at school. Monday night we had our cookie decorating with families event. I didn't even take any pictures! I am sorry about the chair situation and not having enough chairs for everyone to sit and relax. We live and learn! I hope that you enjoyed coming out and decorating a cookie with your family.

We also had pajama day at the end of this week. On Thursday afternoon we watched "Up" in our classroom with just our little group. Friday morning and Friday afternoon we watched "Surf's Up!" with Miss Jen and Miss Erin's classes in the room next door projected on the wall. It was like being at the movies. We all had fun in our pajamas and enjoyed seeing each other's pajamas! Friday afternoon we also celebrated Ella's birthday.

Make sure to read your newsletters and the attached schedule about changes to transportation on January 14th and 15th.

Have a safe and relaxing holiday break!

This week and last!

I just realized that I never posted pictures from last week! So you will get two slideshows this week. First, we have pictures from last week when the TTH class and M-F AM class made crayons and then used them. There are also some pictures of our stoplight activity.

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This week we started the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. We did several fun activites to go along with the story. But before we did that, we went on a picture walk. I went through the book with the class and didn't read any of the words. We talked about the pictures and what we thought could be happening in the story and why. This is a great skill to develop because it will help with inferencing skills later.

For example:
-Me "What do you think is happening here?"
-Child "The mouse will eat a cookie."
-Me "Why do you think that?"
-Child "Because the boy is holding a cookie in his hand and the mouse is getting it".
-Me "Oh! I see that too. I also see that in this next picture there are crumbs on the ground. That must mean he ate it".

This is just an example of questioning skills to use when reading with your child. I took some dictation during our activity (one sentence per page) to allow each child to inference what could be happening in the picture.

Below is a slideshow of some pictures from work time this week. There are also some videos of our snack song! You will notice that before we sing the "Open Shut Them" song, we do the "Gobble Gobble Crunch Crunch" with "silly 3s"....holding up the thumb, first finger and middle finger. That is actually the number 3 in sign language.

Using those fingers is very important for hand stability when learning to write. Anything you can have your child do using those three fingers will help with writing. They can use them to pick up popcorn when you are having a snack or use them to pick up little toys when playing...you can make a game out of it...no body can eat snack without using only those fingers! We practice opening and closing them every day before snack.

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Work time and Melting Crayons

This week we continued participating in Community Helper activities. On Monday afternoon the MWF class even got to see a policeman come visit the school and talk to us! Check out the weekly newsletter for details about our other Community Helper activities. On Friday afternoon the MWF class broke crayons and put them in a mold to make new crayons. We waited patiently while they melted in the oven and then cooled. Then we got to draw with our crayons and everyone got to bring home 2 in their backpacks.

Enjoy your week with no school!

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Community Helpers

We kicked off our Community Helpers unit this week. We began by going on a search of the school to find out who works in a school. We each had a list of possible people and we searched the school. We found a teacher, a speech teacher, a secretary, a principal, a custodian and a nurse! At the end of this week, we talked about mail and the post office. We practiced writing and addressing letters. We learned about stamps and return address labels. We even took a walk to the mailbox in the neighborhood!

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End of Recycling Unit

Last week we completed our recycling unit. We read the book "Michael Recycle" and then became recycling superheroes ourselves. We flew around the school like superheroes cleaning up parts of the town. Every place in the town we visited, we had to remove a picture. Then we decided if it was recycling or garbage. When we got back to the room, we reviewed everything we found! Please enjoy the pictures!

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Go Away Big Green Monster Party and the Week

This week we participated in a fun recycling/garbage clean up activity. We in extra room and saw that someone had left garbage and recycling all over the place! We picked it all up and sorted it into the garbage can and recycling bin.

The other exciting thing we did this week was go outside and find pumpkins! The pumpkin fairy left some pumpkins in the grass outside of the school. We each got to find a pumpkin and then bring it inside to decorate it.

Here is the slideshow of those two activities:

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Also this week we had a Go Away Big Green Monster party on Friday. We rotated around the school participating in different activities. Our class moved around the station with Mr. Keating's friends. It was fun to meet other friends! We read a story and used the Go Away Big Green Monster puppet, we played "Pin the Nose on the Big Green Monster", we did a monster obstacle course, we made Go Away Big Green Monster faces, we decorated monster cookies and moved with some gross motor activities to the Monster Mash. It was a fun day filled with learning and movement as well!

Enjoy the slideshow!

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Family of the Week Schedule

The new family of the week schedule for new students has been added on the right sidebar!

Fun with Recycling

This week we did several activities with the pieces of recycling everyone brought in. First, we counted and sorted the recycling by type. Then we graphed how much of each type we had (plastic, paper, glass, and metal). We had the most pieces of plastic!

Another day we weighed the recycling to figure out which pieces were heavier than others. We dictated sentences to Miss Stephanie about what we found out.

Check out our slideshow!

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Recycling and Fall

This week we participated in recycling activities and fall activities!

We have spent quite a bit of time discussing the difference between recycling and garbage. It is a great topic for home! When you are throwing something away, think outloud about whether it is recycling or garbage before you make your decision. This will help your child make the decision by himself/herself.

We also talked about reducing and reusing. The MWF/M-F classes learned that donut holes used to be just thrown away instead of sold and eaten! We learned about it by having leaves cut out of paper. We used the outside pieces as stencils to draw pictures of leaves and the inside leaf shapes to make patterns. Then we ate donut holes! We have been talking about using all parts of items and not wasting.

There are some videos included in the slideshow of the fun we have dancing at circle time. Please excuse the shakiness of the video....Miss Stephanie was dancing while recording!

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Playing Go Fish and Recycling

This week we started our recycling unit by reading several books that taught us what we can recycle and why we should recycle. We are looking forward to getting involved in more taking care of the earth activities!

This week we also played Go Fish with letter cards in the M-F and MWF classes. It was a lot of fun and Miss Stephanie was very impressed with how well we did. This would be a great game to continue playing at home.

Don't forget to that we will be recycling ink cartridges, batteries, and Elmer's glue bottles and glue sticks at school. Please send them in your child's backpack!

Also, don't forget to go to Miss Erin's page and leave a comment on her 3-a-day post. You could win a $25 gift certificate!!!!

Miss Stephanie realized that she didn't take a lot of pictures this week, but here ya go!

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3-A-Day Dairy Giveaway

Miss Erin (one of the other teachers at our school) was given the opportunity to give away some free stuff on her classroom blog. She is opening it up to all of the classrooms with classroom blogs at our school!

Lucky us!

You can visit her website and read her post about nutrition for preschools students. There are directions at the end of the post to enter the giveaway! All you have to do is leave a comment on the post. Make sure to include your child's name and my name as well!

www.MissErinsClass.blogspot.com


Click here to visit the post directly!

Brown Bear Videos and Pumpkin Patch

This week we took turns reading our Brown Bear books that we made. We were VERY excited to have our very own books to bring home and read to our families. Also this week we visited Miss Stephanie's Pumpkin Patch! It was so exciting! We saw these great big green things that looked like huge watermelon! But Miss Stephanie told us that they are pumpkins. We didn't know pumpkins were green before they were orange. There are so many pumpkins and cute little gourds! We can't wait to go back at the end of October and pick some pumpkins for ouselves.

Here are some videos of us reading at school.
T/TH

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MWF

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Here is our slideshow of the visit to the pumpkin patch (and birthday fun!).

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School Library

We are very excited to announce that our Independence School Library is almost up and running! We cannot wait to be able to head there for story time and to check out books. Right now, we are looking for parent volunteers to help with running the library. We are hoping to get volunteers on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, for both the morning and afternoon sessions. Ideally, volunteers would need to be able to say for the entire 2.5 hour session. Please let me know if you are interested in helping out with the library on a regular basis!

Also, keep an eye out this weekend for a pictures post of our visit the pumpkin patch as well as some video of the classes reading Brown Bear!

Brown Bear Activities and Story Time

This week we continued to participate in Brown Bear activities. We also finished up making all of the pages for our very own Brown Bear books!

One of our favorite activities this week was making our Brown Bear crowns. We listened to Miss Stephanie telling the story and as she read about each of the animals, we placed them on our sentence strip. She said she was very proud of the way we listened carefully and followed along.

Another fun activity this week was with the /b/ sound pictures we brought from home (The T/TH class will do it next Tuesday). We talked about the pictures and the sound they start with. Then we put them on a poster, wrote the names of the words underneath and put the poster in the hallway to share with others in the school.

Enjoy the pictures in this slideshow!

Also, there is a video at the bottom of Miss Stephanie reading her own version of Brown Bear. It is a little like the books we made because each page is textured! We are excited to watch the story on the computer as Miss Stephanie reads it to us! Miss Stephanie would love to know if we look at it at home with our parents and what we thought!

Here is the slideshow:

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Here is the story:

Untitled from Stephanie Atwell on Vimeo.

Brown Bear Painting

This week we have been doing activities centered around the story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. We are all making our own Brown Bear books by decorating the characters from the story. We have had a lot of fun painting, gluing, and ripping the characters from the book this week! Check out our pictures in the slideshow to see what we did!

We are really working on using two words to describe the characters. Not just "bear" but "brown bear" and not just "cat" but "purple cat". It is a great skill to practice at home! Use those descriptive words this week!

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Work Time

An important part of the preschool classroom is Work Time (or Centers Time). The last 2 weeks we have spent Work Time learning about the various centers in our room.

These are our centers:

Pretend Play (kitchen, baby dolls, dress up)
Construction Zone (blocks, tools, animals, doll house, cars)
Library (books)
Small Toys (small manipulatives, puzzles, Mr. Potato Head, math manipulatives)
Creation Station (art)
Literacy Lane (writing instruments and paper)
Discovery Center (sensory table filled with various items, science table, magnets)
Computer (only occasionally open!)

The last two weeks we have been making our way around the room to learn about the various centers. We have learned the rules, where to put things away and how to play at each center. Miss Stephanie has pictures for everything! We learned very quickly that she expects everything to be put back where it was found and we did a great job of doing that!

Check out the slideshow of our fun and learning this week during Work Time.

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First Day for T/TH Class

The T/TH class had a great first day as well! We learned about the centers and worked on some Back to School activities! Enjoy the slideshow!

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First Day of School M-F and MWF

We had a great first day of school today in the M-F and MWF classes. Luckily we had a beautiful day which put everyone in a great mood! Check out the slideshow of our pictures from today.

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Helping Hands

Thank you to all of you who were able to help out our classroom by grabbing a "hand" at Open House from our Helping Hands bulletin board. I will also include a section for this in our newsletter and on the blog here in a list (look to the right!). When we receive the items, they will be removed. I will update the list as needs arise.

Thank you again for supporting our classroom!

Scholastic Book Orders

Just a reminder... Here is the link to order from the Scholastic book orders online: www.scholastic.com/parentordering

User Name: MissStephanieInde
Password: MissStephanieInde

You can place your order online and use a credit card! You can also fill out the hard copies I gave you on our home visits and write a check to Scholastic if you prefer to do it that way. Orders are due by September 17.

Click here for step by step screen shot instructions for placing orders online:

http://stephatwell.googlepages.com/Blog-Scholasticbookordersscreenshots.pdf

Family of the Week Information

The Family of the Week letter and schedule are posted on the right. Please check it out and note your child's week. The Family of the Week bag will come home the week before it is your child's turn. Your child is Family of the Week either his/her birthday week or his/her half birthday week (if your child has a summer birthday). Please let me know if you have any questions!

Open House!

Check our our first slideshow of the 2009-2010 school year!

We had 8 families come to see our classroom and meet each other at Open House last Thursday. We saw the room, played with toys, made an art project and ate some snacks. It was great to meet each other and see the room.

We are so excited about this school year!

Also, don't forget to pass this on to family and friends and feel free to leave a comment!

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Welcome Back!

Welcome back families! Or just welcome in the first place if you are new!

First Day of School

The first day of school for M-F and MWF students is Wednesday, September 2.

The first day of school for T/TH students is Thursday, September 3.

Check out our school website for more info:

Independence Website

Back to School Afternoon

Our classroom will be having its Back to School Afternoon on Thursday, August 27th from 2:30-4:00. This is an opportunity for you to drop in, see the school, see the room and meet the staff. You can also drop off school supplies in a marked bag at that time! It is an informal meet and greet, no need to stay the whole time!

Misc.
If you are new to my classroom, please feel free to view older posts on our classroom blog to get an idea of what we did last year. We are in for a lot more fun and learning this year!

Check out our school supply list here:

http://stephatwell.googlepages.com/SchoolSupplyList.doc

This year I am encouraging families to leave comments when you view posts. I would love to know what you think about the posts and it is a great opportunity for families to share with one another. It can be a simple "I love those pictures" or "How did you make that?". It is a great way to stay in touch!

End of the Year Sing

Here are the videos from our End-of-the-Year sing. The kids all have this video on the DVDs I sent home along with all of the photographs from the entire school year. Enjoy!

AM Class

MWF Class

TTH Class

Goldilocks and the Three Bears Movies

Here are the compressed versions of our "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" videos. Each child brought home a higher quality DVD with the movie, however, this can be easily shared! Enjoy watching my budding actors and actresses perform!

MWF

AM

T/TH

AM and TTH Last Day

Today was the last day of school for the Morning M-F class and and the T/TH afternoon classes! In the morning, we were unable to go to the park due to rainy weather, however, we had a lot of fun in the gym and then watched a movie. The rain stopped and in the afternoon we were able to head to the park! I hope everyone has a fabulous summer! I will miss you!

TTH Class

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AM Class

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Goodbye MWF Kids!

Today was the last day of school for the Monday, Wednesday, Friday kids. We watched our DVD of the "3 Bears" and the "End-of-the-Year" sing, opened our bags with our goodies and then enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at the park. I hope everyone has an enjoyable summer and I will miss you all! Enjoy the slideshow.

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Goodbye Butterflies

This week we had to say "goodbye" to our class butterflies. We let 3 go in each class. We went outside and unzipped the garden and let them fly away. However, we did have some exciting news! We found lots of teeny tiny green eggs in our butterfly garden. And then.....a TON of tiny caterpillars hatched (there is a video in the slideshow). We decided to hang on to them a little while and see them grow! Miss Stephanie is a little worried because the caterpillars are smaller than the holes in the side of the butterfly garden and she doesn't want them to get out!

This week we also had our End-of-the-Year sing with several other classes. We did a great job singing and using the sign language we learned. Miss Stephanie is hoping to post video soon, so please check back over the next few weeks!

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Almost the End

As the school year winds down, we continue to do fun activities in our classroom. We have had several May birthday celebrations as well as summer birthday celebrations. We are finishing up our The Very Hungry Caterpillar unit and getting ready to let our butterflies go out in the world. Don't forget to join us for our End-of-the-Year sing on Wednesday and Thursday (when you are sitting on the bleachers, we are the last class on the left).

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In addition, the morning class went this week to visit Horizon Elementary School where the deaf and hard of hearing elementary school classes are. We got to visit with other big kids who wear hearing aids and use sign language as well as tour the school and even eat lunch!

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9 Butterflies!

We have 9 beautiful butterflies in our classroom! Check out the slideshow below to see them all!

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And out came a beautiful butterfly!

We have 3 butterflies!

On Tuesday at lunch time our first butterfly emerged from its chrysalis! We sat down for circle time and Miss Stephanie looked over and noticed a butterfly moving around! After all of the kids left at the end of the day, Miss Stephanie came back in the room and saw another one! The butterflies were quiet all night and then during music time in the morning another one emerged. We anxiously watched all day hoping to see one come out of the chrysalis, but they must have stage fright, because they just won't do it in front of us!

The first butterfly that came out. He is letting his wings dry and harden. It takes about 1-2 hours. It stretches and strengthens its wings by forcing blood into its veins.

The first butterfly after he opened his wings (about 2 hours later)

The first butterfly likes to hang out at the top of the butterfly garden!

The empty chrysalides.

The red stuff is called Meconium.

It is waste product left over from the butterfly's metamorphosis.

One of our beautiful butterflies.

They are starting to fly all over the butterfly garden.

Now we just wait for the others!

On Monday He Ate Through One Apple

This week our caterpillars finished eating and eating. Then they crawled to the top of the cups, hung upside down in a J shape, and their bodies began to change. We learned after they are changed it is called a "chrysalis". Although, in the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, the caterpillar builds a cocoon, we learned that butterflies change into chrysalides (the proper plural form of the word). Moths build cocoons around themselves. A butterfly caterpillar's body changes and hardens and it is called a chrysalis. After they had changed for 24 hours, Miss Stephanie carefully lifted them out and hung the disks they are hanging from to the side of the butterfly garden. Now we wait about a week for our butterflies to come out!

Monday:

Tuesday:

Thursday:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We have new visitors in our classroom! They arrived after school on Friday last week and Miss Stephanie explained to us they were so teeny tiny she could barely see them! She is bummed that she forgot to take a picture. By the time we arrived at school on Monday, they had grown a great deal! Those caterpillars were very hungry!

Monday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

We have to wait until the caterpillars crawl to the top of the cup and turn into chrysalis. Then Miss Stephanie will lift them out and put them in the butterfly garden. We are going to start reading the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" next week. We finished up our 3 Bears unit and are very excited to learn more about caterpillars!

Here are some other pictures of us looking at the caterpillars:

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This porridge is too hot!

Here are some pictures from the last 2 weeks. We have had a lot of fun with our "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" activities. We are super excited for our plays this week and next!

In addition, stay tuned for pictures of the new additions to our classroom....caterpillars for our "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" unit!

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