Filling our Toolbox

Over the past few weeks, the children have been learning different problem solving strategies to use to fix their own problems. We focus on two strategies each week and then add them to our 'toolbox' in our 'Safe Place.'

To learn to use the new strategies, we role play and also talk about problems we have encountered during playtime and discuss and suggest different strategies that might work in those situations the next time they occur to help us work through the problem. 

The children are really using the strategies with and without encouragement and are beginning to help each other choose a strategy when in need.
I want the children to learn that God gave us all different emotions and all of them are ok. We can learn from every mistake we make. When we can examine what makes us sad, anxious, afraid, or angry we can learn to adjust our behavior going forward to possibly eliminate arriving at that same result in the future. Of course, along the way it will also help in our social interactions with peers.
These are strategies or "tools" that we have learned to use thus far:

For those times when anger gets the best of us, we have a 'Safe Place' to go to in our classroom to work through our emotions. This is a place where no one will judge us or get angry at us because we don't know quite what to do. It is a 'Safe Place' to breathe deeply, calm down, and then think things through more rationally and decide how we can handle the same problem in a better way next time. Perhaps practicing using the strategy in the 'Safe Place' will help us in the future to feel more confident.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

It's all good!

Roll-a-Dough Letters

This week we have been enjoying another Handwriting Without Tears tool... Roll a Dough Letters!

The children use their little fine motor muscles to roll the playdoh into long worms and then build a letter on the letter mat one line at a time.

They are learning that each letter can be produced by using these various combination of lines.

Math Tub Exploration

During the month of September, the children have engaged in exploring our math tub manipulatives.

Allowing children the freedom to play with these materials as they wish gives us a great deal of information on where the children are functioning with early math skills.

The children have been sorting by shape, size, and color attributes. They have also engaged in extending patterns, and lining up and counting the manipulatives both vertically and horizontally. Exploring math tubs is really fun!

We are also very fascinated with beginning to collect some loose parts during lunch. Kennedy asked if we could save her fruit pouch tops. 

Well, the enthusiasm spread to first grade due to her big sister and now the entire first floor lunch period is saving tops for us. They even pop in during morning snack time with tops for us that we actually put a collection basket near our door. Collaboration at its finest:) Can't wait to see what the children will do with these once we have a nice amount.

Other collections have started to come in as well. 

Thanks to all for joining in the fun!

Light Table Exploration

Over the past few weeks, the children have been enjoying playing on our light table. It's been perfect for exploring colors using glass gems, color paddles, and transparent pattern blocks.

We were even able to explore some real body part x-rays. That was so cool! The kids did an awesome job identifying the body parts.

Another fun thing we did was  a color experiment. It was the same experiment we did with our big buddies, but this time, we did it in a clear glass pie plate. So pretty!!

Names Are Special

It is very important to teach letter identification using children's names because a child's name holds a place of supreme importance. 

Research tells us that teaching letters one at a time, one per week and/or in isolation is NOT an effective teaching method. However, using names to teach letters of the alphabet is a VERY powerful tool. 

Names are so meaningful to children that they provide the spark to engage children in the identification of the letters in their own names first, and then the letters in the names of friends and family members. 

A child who is eager, motivated, and feeling empowered about his/her own learning is going to learn more quickly and retain more than a child who is not.

We are now embarking on many activities involving names. For those children who are already able to name the letters in their names, they will branch off into learning the letters in friends' names and also become peer teachers during center time activities. Children learn a great deal from peer mentors.

We have also been honing our listening skills when we are saying words, especially our names, so we can hear how many word parts or syllables they have. Four-year-olds love clapping out the words parts in their names. You will begin to notice your child clapping out many words as they talk... this is a VERY good activity and one that can even be done while driving in the car:)

Here is a graph we made of all the names in our class:

We published our first eBook and you guessed it, it has to do with our NAMES!!

Open the link on an eReader device, NOT a computer! Enjoy!!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5non009j5yydby/What%27s%20My%20Letter.epub?dl=0

Pre-Fire Drill Practice

This week the children have been practicing what to do if we have a fire drill. We are all set and have talked through the procedure and what the fire bell will sound like and look like when it is ringing. 

It IS very loud and startling, so for the first drill, we will be told prior to the bell ringing to help us prepare ourselves a bit for the loud siren. The fire alarm also flashes with white lights to help get our attention (as if the siren isn't loud enough to do that!)
The children know just where to stand and how to wait outside until we get the all-clear to re-enter the building. Such good listeners!

Block Builders at Work

We have some great little engineers in our class this year. Check out this collaborative effort the children constructed Friday afternoon. Amazing!!

Though Mrs. Flynn suggested a different way to put the blocks away, the kids thought THIS was a better idea!!  YIKES!!

Never fear... believe it or not, these little people got the job done, despite my suggestion and I did NOT help at all!! Unbelievable!!

Wow!!

It's Buddy Time

Today was the first time we split into two groups for buddy time. The 'leaves' went upstairs to 4th grade and the 'apples' stayed in 4K. Next week we will flip flop and repeat the same activities with the opposite group.

In our room, we continued with our color exploration by learning a really fun and silly poem called 'Rainbow Hair!' 

The children drew faces and their big buddies helped them make rainbow colored link chains which were then added for the hair. So silly!!

We ended out time together doing a really super cool rainbow experiment which got oooo's and ahhhhh's from all... including the big buddies:)

 Whole milk (or 2%) with a few drops of food coloring.

Add a drip or two of dish soap onto the food coloring and watch a rainbow appear!

 Sit back and watch the rainbow swirl... so cool!