Sunday, September 20, 2009

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!



Friday, September 11, 2009

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.

Friday, September 4, 2009

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!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

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.


Tuesday, September 1, 2009

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!

Monday, August 31, 2009

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!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

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!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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:
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:
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!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

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

Thursday, June 4, 2009

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


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

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





AM Class

Monday, June 1, 2009

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.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

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!

Friday, May 22, 2009

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).


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!



Monday, May 18, 2009

9 Butterflies!

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

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

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!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

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:








Friday, May 1, 2009

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:

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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!