Here is the link to our class book that Miss Roberta helped us produce using our iPads. It is worth reading!

We LOVE the Holidays!
by Mrs. Bridgman's Pre-K Class

To read the book online, click on the folllowing link:
Read Book Online

To read the book on your iPad, install the bookPress app and click on the following link:
Read Book on iPad

Thanks very much to Miss Roberta, and the Patten Free Library!

Dear Pre-K Families,

In light of this holiday season, preschool has been focusing on reindeer this week (we've had two reindeer visit our classroom!), and next week, we will explore a few Hanukkah traditions. If you would like to join us for latkes and applesauce on Wednesday, December 17th, at 11:40, we’d love to have you. (The kids will be making the applesauce on Wednesday morning.) 

We will not be exchanging gifts, other than our happy smiles and generous hearts, during this busy time.

Thanks as always, for all you do to make preschool a happy place for us. Happy Holidays!

Mrs. Bridgman and Mrs. Peavey

Visit to the Dike Newell School Library

Mrs. Hernandez invited Pre-K to visit the school library today. Dike Newell School PTA generously paid for a new book for each student, and we had a great selection to choose from. The kids were very well behaved during our visit, too. Here we are back in our classroom with our new books.

Stone Soup

Dear Families,

To celebrate this feasting time of year with a literacy connection, Pre-K will be making Stone Soup tomorrow. If you are able to send along a vegetable to add to the soup, or can stay for a few minutes at drop-off time tomorrow morning, and peel and chop vegetables with the kids, we'd appreciate it. We'll be assembling the soup on Tuesday and feasting at snack time (10 ish) on Wednesday. You are welcome to join us then as well - please give me a heads up, if you think you can come).

Thank you!
Mrs. Bridgman

Tuesday update ... Many, many thanks to the families who sent in vegetables and/or were willingly conscripted into peeling and chopping vegetables with the kids this morning. 

At 11:30, we gathered around the tables with each student having an ingredient of the soup in front of them. We reread Stone Soup and assembled the soup as we read. 

The soup is bubbling away on the stove as I post this tonight ... It smells wonderful. We'll serve it (minus the round gray stone) at snack time on Wednesday, around 10. Student families are welcome to join us!

Wednesday update:

Many kids tried Stone Soup today. Two asked for seconds... We had several parents join us for the "feast". Thanks for the multifaceted assistance to make this celebration happen. Soup from a stone, fancy that!

Upcoming dates

Dear Families,

Several upcoming dates to keep in mind ...

November 11th, Veteren's Day - No preschool.

Parent Teacher conferences for pre-k will be on Thursday, November 20th. We'll have a sign up sheet for the 20 minute time slots next week.

There is no preschool on November 25, 26 or 27th (Thanksgiving week).

Our dramatic play theme of "Family" will end this week. Next week we'll choose and play in our regular centers, and also include some theme building and prop making for our next play theme, "Restaurants."

Your kids are doing a nice job with their play plans. Those are the half sheets of paper that come home with a self drawn picture of the student pretending to be a family member (like a mom or the brother or the aunt or grandfather.) Planning on how one will play, then following through with that plan is a step down the road to the all important self-regulation which is a major focus of our curriculum. It would be great if you'd ask your student to tell you about the picture and what center they chose that day. There may be student drawn lines that indicate spaces for words of their message, and some beginning sounds of words on those lines for some (all kids eventually), as well as teacher written words that indicate the student's message.

We've enjoyed family volunteers in our classroom lately. Joining us any day during dramatic play time (usually 9 to 9:30 ish), or on Tuesday and Thursdays from 11:30 to 12 ish for creative art and story time, is helpful. Or give us a heads up for other times you wish to come. 

Thanks for helping us make preschool a great place!

Mrs. Bridgman

Enjoying fruit snacks, cookie dough exploration, and painting with cinnamon enhanced paint!

Hi Families,

Our school receives grant money that provides free fruit or veggies at snack time for us. Your kids are welcome to bring their own snack and/or partake in this as well. Most of the kids enjoyed the orange wedges one day this past week!

With our dramatic play theme being "family" at the moment, partaking in elements of baking by playing with molasses cookie dough (as if it were play dough) seemed appropriate and engaging. We read the favorite kid's book,"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," rolled dough into balls and other shapes, placed them on cookie sheets, and had baked molasses cookies and milk for snack the following day. (No need to read this sentence aloud to your student, but you might be reassured to know we used different cookie dough when we baked the ones for eating ...)

 Also on the following slide show are a few pictures of the kids painting a paper plate for an apple shape, using cinnamon enhanced red paint. They really enjoyed this activity, and painted up to the very last minute of preschool time that morning.

 

Dramatic Play - Family Theme

The curriculum we use in pre-k at Dike Newell School is called Tools of the Mind. There is a link that connects you to their informational website on the right side of this page.

An important part of the curriculum is dramatic play. Taking on pretend roles helps develop self regulation in kids in a really fun and engaging way. Our first dramatic play theme is "family" which kids inherently know a lot about. Our traditional centers (art, math, literacy, science, blocks, kitchen) have had an overlay of elements and props  that have "transformed" them (well, you have to use some imagination ...) into rooms in a house. (The art center has become the laundry room, the block center has become the garage, literacy has become the livingroom, etc.) The kids have been picking centers to play in and have started pretending to be family members in these rooms.The following is a slideshow of your kids taking on beginning roles of the mom, dad, the brother, sister, aunt, grandparent, cousin, etc.

Exploring centers in preschool

Hi Families!

Here's a slideshow from our beginning weeks of preschool, showing kids exploring the materials in our traditional centers ... Art, Literacy, Kitchen, Math, Blocks and Science.

More Pre-K particulars about drop off time...

The office has requested that I restate the procedure for morning drop off of pre-k students ...

The procedure for pre-k drop off is to park or walk to the large side parking lot, and enter through the covered side door between 8:15 and 8:30.  The front of the school is a bus drop off zone only, at the beginning and end of school. Do not park there.  If you come to school after 8:30, you will need to walk to the front of the building and get buzzed in through the door near the office. Stop by the office to say your child has arrived. Pre-k families will escort their students to the pre-k classroom.

Thanks a bunch for following our procedures to help keep kids safe.

Mrs. Bridgman 

Particulars for Pre-K Families

In Pre-K, on any given day, we are likely to use paint and glue and wonderfully messy materials, and play outside in the elements. Please consider having your child wear clothes daily that can withstand these activities. On Wednesdays, we go to PE in the gym, where Mrs. McCauley requests that we all wear sneakers. 

Wednesday mornings, Mrs. Peavey will be at the outer door to let you in. Adults dropping off the children should walk down the hallway and into our classroom with them, as on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Pre-K kids are not allowed to walk down the hall to our classroom unsupervised.

Any questions, problems or celebrations? We want to hear about them. I am at school for a bit of time before and after every pre-k school day.  My e-mail is abridgman@rsu1.org. If you choose to communicate by e-mail, and I don’t respond quickly, our school spam filter may have not recognized the importance of your message and bumped it into spam. Please let me know and we can fix that problem.

Thank you sooo much for the classroom donations of kleenex, paper cups and plates, and hand sanitizer. Your contributions help our classroom run smoother and cleaner, and are much appreciated.

Quite soon, I will be posting pictures of the kids working and playing during our school day here on the blog. Awaiting a few more permission slips before that happens. If you have not given permission for your child's picture to be on our blog (we never use names), I will respect that wish and be filtering which pictures we use accordingly.

 Thanks for a great start to our school year! Mrs. Bridgman

Bus Drill

All students at Dike Newell School are participating in bus evacuation drills this week, including Pre-K. "Why?" you ask, since our little ones are not on the bus to come to school. We will be going on one, maybe two, field trips this year, and it is required. So you may hear tell from your student that they went on a school bus this week. The whole truth will be that we practiced entering and exiting a school bus in our school parking lot, and had a chat with the friendly bus driver about bus safety rules. We also practice exiting out of the rear door of the bus, which is usually quite thrilling for the kids. 

First Day Went Well!

Dear Families,

I'm happy to report that the first day of preschool went very well! Your kids all participated in the activities, were kind to each other, and made good attempts at sharing. We walked in a line down the hall to recess quietly (the hall is our whisper zone -- we use pretend "whisper spray" to help us remember to whisper). Snack and creative art were favorites in our schedule.

I may not have mentioned to each family today, but pre-k does not have Late Start on Wednesdays as the upper grades do. We start at 8:30, the usual time, and end at 12:00, the usual time. 

Free fruits and veggies at snack time are available for all kids on our pre-k days at Dike Newell School. Yippee! We enjoyed crunchy apples today.

See you tomorrow!
Mrs. Bridgman

First Day of Dike Newell Pre-K is Tuesday, September 9th

Dear Pre-K families,

We're looking forward to officially starting our preschool year on Tuesday, September 9th. Families will bring their student into the building and into our classroom through the covered door that faces the large parking lot. Could you please send a small healthy snack with your child, until we find out the starting date of free fruits and veggies for snack provided through grant money? 

Thanks a bunch and see you soon!
Mrs. Bridgman and Mrs. Peavey

Welcome to Dike Newell Preschool!! (School Year 2014 - 2015)

We'd like to welcome preschool students and their families to our classroom for an Open House on Thursday, August 28th, from 5-6 PM. Come to the big parking lot on the right as you enter the school area. Our classroom is on the left of the building as you look at it from the parking lot. The usual entrance is under the covered walkway, but for Open House, you may enter and exit through our classroom door, which will have a sign..

Preschool Screening for Dike Newell will take place on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 3rd, at the Family Focus Building located at 2 Davenport Circle off of Washington Street in North Bath. The 45 minute sign up times can be reserved by calling me on my cell phone (I've either spoken to you or left a message recently) or at our Open House. Preschool screening is highly recommended for every student.

The first day of preschool is Tuesday, September 9th. Drop off is between 8:15 and 8:30. Please walk your student into our classroom and say hello!

See you soon - Mrs. Bridgman and Mrs. Peavey

The final center comes to life for our camping theme ...

The kids have patiently waited for something to appear in our math center related to our camping theme. I have been waiting for the right cardboard box to show up ... I think this will get some kid-made wheels (or not) and be some sort of cabin or RV or camper trailer. Anyhow, it'll be fun to play with the last few days of preschool!

We have dedicated family volunteers that fill  a variety of needs in our classroom. Sometimes, one shows up magically at the exact right moment and knows just what to do to engage the kids. Like Jill ...

Thank you for all the classroom support, whether it is getting your kids to school on time, listening to reports of their days after school, reading their play plans, or coming in to the classroom and on field trips. We have all greatly benefited from it.

Beach Trip

To support our dramatic play camping theme, which includes a beach center, Pre-K went on a field trip to the beach today. The weather was stellar, with enough of a breeze to keep bugs away and to keep kids from wanting to immerse in the chilly water. Wading up to one's ankles was permitted, and kids and chaperones found some green crabs, lots of shells and beach glass, and quite a collection of deceased jellyfish that had been stranded on the sand. There was an old boat and lobster trap to explore. We enjoyed making s'mores around a campfire, and having cantaloupe and blueberries for snack. I think we all came home with sand between our toes. Lots of fun!

recent photos

This is a collection of recent pictures from class, including the amazing graphics practice session we had using shaving cream. Practicing letter formations was never soooo much fun!

A few pictures from dramatic play in our camping theme

The camping theme is our final play theme of the school year. Where has the time gone? Our traditional centers have transformed into the Ranger Station, 2 campsites, a camp store, the beach, and a hiking center. We'll add to this slide show eventually.

  .

More pictures from our dramatic play camping theme ..

Field Trip to Sewall Woods

The Kennebec Estuary Land Trust has some amazing properties under their stewardship. We were invited by one of their naturalists, Becky K., to go on a hike in Sewall Woods, and see the sights. It dovetailed nicely with our camping theme in class, and the sun was shining as well. Just getting on the big yellow school bus was very exciting. But the walk in the woods, with lovely accoutrements by Miss Becky was really fun. She invited us to use (almost) all of our senses to enjoy this walk. We listened to birds, sniffed wintergreen plants, matched textures and colors of man-made items with natural items, and observed bracken ferns, nurse stumps, star flowers, trail blazes, beech leaves, maple leaves, hemlock trees, a pond, collected treasures and walked across bog bridges.

Pre-K has been lucky to have several visitors recently. Becky K., a naturalist from Kennebec Estuary Land Trust, has been teaching us about some local birds, specifically the types represented by osprey, loons and sandpipers. The shape of their beaks and feet gives us clues as to what these birds eat and where they hang out. We made a bird costume (head and feet) illustrating these features - so much fun! Many kids proudly told their parents what they knew, as they met them at noontime.

Our other visitor was Miss Bethany from SASSMM. She brought Penny the Porcupine (a puppet), who helped us talk about safety issues around being touched. This was so age level appropriate and very engaging for the kids.

Cucumbers for the community garden

On Thursday, April 17th, our last day before April vacation, the class planted cucumber seeds, the seedlings of which will be planted in the RSU1 L.O.C.A.L. community garden. (The L.O.C.A.L. Garden is RSU #1's district garden where students, teachers, and community members grow organic fruits and vegetables for use in schools.) The kids did a great job mixing water into the potting soil, helping each other determine how much soil to use, and deciding whether to put one or two seeds in each little spot. The trays of six packs followed me home for tending over our time away from school, and guess what? They are starting to sprout today! Here's what they look like ...

Update from May 15th - those cucumber seedlings are doing well. The kids water them daily. We'll be transplanting them into the garden next week ...

Pre-K Block Structures

 Our students have been creating amazing block structures recently. Here are some samples, along with their architects...

Pets and Vets themed Dramatic Play

Prepare yourself for some cute pictures of the kids playing in our pets and vets themed centers. The block center has become the Dog Show, where kids build obstacle courses for the dogs and the judge awards blue ribbons. The math center is the veterinarian's office. Our kitchen area is still the kitchen area with the addition of a dog and cat, leashes, bowls for pet food, etc . Literacy has become the Humane Society, where kids are hoping to find their lost animal or adopt a forever pet. Art is the Pet Bakery - play dough pet cookies reign supreme here, as well as providing delivery service to other centers. And Science has become the Grooming Center ... Shampoos and ribbons for all types of critters, including spiders (!), are encouraged.

Here Comes Spring ... Right?

Mrs. Peavey let us know that The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day is on or around the first day of Spring, which fell on a Thursday, at least on our preschool calendar. We celebrated in cahoots with that caterpillar and ate four strawberries apiece (the exact same feast the caterpillar ate on a Thursday!) while watching Eric Carle read the book online. Also, the kids made caterpillars out of playdough ... Very engaging activities for preschoolers. But where is spring, I wonder?

Celebrating Rainbows (a nod to St. Patrick's Day)

St. Patrick's Day is certainly a fun one, but we were going for multiple rewards from some carefully chosen creative projects that would honor the holiday, without going over the top on the excitement factor. Rainbows created from colored cereal was a great fine motor activity, as well as a test of the self regulation strengths of our kids. (One student ate one piece of cereal - that's it - amazing!) We also made hand kites by slipping ribbons the colors of the rainbow onto plastic rings, then taking them outside and running, running, running with them. Here are a few pictures so you can join in on the kids' celebration.

President Obama goes to preschool ...

Tuesday, March 4th, President Obama visited a Tools of the Mind Pre-K classroom in Washington, DC. (That's the same curriculum we use here at Dike Newell School!) Here is a link to watch their Message of the Day activity that your kids also do every day in Bath, Maine.

  http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/president-obama-gets-schooled/

This Washington preschool was doing the hospital theme as well!

One group picture and lego play

At our normal recess time today, the wind chill was borderline, so we stayed in with our beloved legos. I took pictures of the lovely setups the kids made, and promised to post them on the blog, so here they are.

hospital theme play

During dramatic play time (we are now in the hospital theme), our pre-k students are getting adept at planning what center they will play in, who they will pretend to be, and what that person will do in the center. Here are a few pictures from last week ...

Pre-K Family Newsletter February 10, 2014

Dear Families,

We are just about to start our new play theme, which is “hospital.” New centers will be a doctor’s office, gift shop, optometrist, operating room, baby nursery and a medivac helicopter center. Expect your kids to be pretending to be nurses, doctors, patients, parents, customers, air traffic control, pilots and more.

We will be exchanging valentines on Thursday, accompanied by some low key, but special, Valentine activities.

We are finishing up our mid year CPAA online assessment this week. This is a progression from the first assessment we did at the beginning of school. Results will be available the week we come back from vacation. There will be one more assessment at the end of our school year.

School Vacation next week – no preschool on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

There will be no preschool on Thursday, March 13^th. It is a professional development day for the preschool teachers in the RSU1 Choices program.

Happy February!

Mrs. Bridgman  

More grocery store theme play plus some graphics practice

We are taking a week to do some "theme building" for our next theme which is "Hospital." The kids have brainstormed some ideas about centers we can create and props we will need. So we'll be working on those. In the meantime, students will continue to choose a center to play in (these will be the underlying centers, like science and math and art and blocks and dramatic play and literacy centers), and do a play plan about what they will do in that center. 
Here are a few pictures from our old theme, Grocery Store. Also from a graphics practice session. The kids were asked to draw boxes - we pretended the boxes had just been delivered to the loading dock - and then after, they could add a spider to each box (related to a social dilemma we pretended to have in our produce department ...)

Fingerpainting

Last week we had a run of frigid weather that prevented our going outside at recess. Extreme conditions called for extreme measures ... (and I admit it is something we've wanted to try with the kids). We had an "all in" finger painting session. Most of the kids enjoyed it a lot, some were really delighted with the experience. And one student told his family it was disgusting and revolting (how's that for vocabulary building?) The artistic results are on display in our art center, or you may have discovered a curled up spare in your child's back pack.

January news from Pre-K

January sees us nicely into playing in our Grocery Store theme centers. As usual, the underlying centers have transformed, this time into parts of a grocery store ...

Art has become the Bakery
Literacy - the Floral Department
Math - the Seafood Department
Dramatic Play-  the Produce Department
Blocks - the Loading Dock
Science the Checkout area

I was a little unsure as to how this theme would roll out, but so far, the kids seem to like all the centers. This is good news because the play in the various centers  is an important motivator for writing their play plans, as well as some of the self regulation we are going for in the pretend play.



With this winter weather, I'd like to state our "in general" policy, that if there is a one hour delay due to weather at the start of school, pre-k is in session. But if there is a two hour delay, pre-k will be cancelled.

There are days when the school office tells us it is too cold for outside recess. The kids have some free choice with the ever popular Lego sack and table activities, and today we included a walk throughout the school  to stretch our legs. I'm hoping that next week will include some outside weather, a great chance to practice our "getting dressed in winter" skills.