"Z" Party

One of the kids' favorite activities has been working with fun learning apps on iPads once a week with Roberta Jordan of the Patten Free Library. We culminated our time with her today, by having a "Z" Party. Miss Roberta files these great apps under alphabet letter names and today was her 26th week working with our class, hence the letter Z for our celebration. It has been an amazing collaboration with the library and technology.

To prepare for the party, the kids grated zucchini yesterday, and Mrs. Ricciardone made it into wonderful zucchini bread for today. They also made a bouquet of newspaper flowers, signed a card and made little zebras to bring to the party.

In addition, Roberta authored a book especially for our class, Who Stole the Z?   You can find the book by following this link. http://www.bookemon.com/book_read_flip.php?book_id=497767&check=44007c74872beb8a15fad56f1dc0755e

Here are some pictures of our joyful learners - the kids were so excited about the celebration!

Nature Supports Right Action

Pre-K had beautiful weather to go for a hike at Sewall Woods, a special nature preserve practically around the corner from our school. The bus ride was a highlight for many kids (thank you Mr. Charles, our bus driver), and we met our friend, Miss Becky, from Kennebec Estuary Land Trust in the parking lot at the woods. She had a neat homemade nature kit for each student, that encouraged us to use all our senses, except for taste. You will see the kids using the various items in the following slideshow. We had an hour long walk through the woods! The kids were great - everyone stayed together and hiked happily. Thank you very much to KELT and the families that joined us, as well.

Pre-K Friendship with Kennebec Estuary Land Trust

KELT (Kennebec Estuary Land Trust) has a talented naturalist who does community outreach in some of the local pre-k classrooms, including Dike Newell School. Miss Becky came to meet us today, and teach us some cool stuff about local birds. She'll come back next week to review and build upon that information. Then in May, KELT will fund a pre-k field trip to nearby Sewall Woods, where we'll hike, observe nature, and enjoy this lovely land preserve. 

Here are some pictures from today. Notice how Becky has every student's full attention.

Spring Lamb comes to visit!

First hand experiences are one of the hallmarks of quality Pre-K classrooms. We are in the midst of our Pets and Vets dramatic play theme, and Mrs. Ricciardone arranged for us to have a visit with Moses, a 2 month old lamb, with his sheep farmer, Willow. Moses and Willow delighted each of the children with patient answers to questions and allowing kids to gently pet the lamb, and sink their fingers into his thick black fleece.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day in Pre-K

To my very humble understanding, the Very Hungry Caterpillar Day is on or around the first day of spring. We celebrated it today with Eric Carle reading to us (on you-tube) on the big screen in the PD room. Pretty exciting. Just by chance, school snack was pears, which that hungry caterpillar gobbled up on Tuesday in the book. And then we created a wide assortment of caterpillars with play dough which you can enjoy during the following slide show.

Graphics Practice

Here are some pictures of a Tools of the Mind activity we do every week. It is called Graphics Practice and it gives kids a venue for practicing their pencil grasp, components of letter formation, and self regulation. We use white boards and classical music. I give a quick pretend scenario (today's was that we were at a park and ordering lots of snow cones.) Then I demonstrate how to make the cone shape using private speech. "Down, up, across," is what I'll say aloud to help my dry erase marker form the triangles. We'll go back and add in the snowballs, saying, "Around and close." As soon as the kids hear the music, they can use their private speech and start drawing the shapes on their own boards. If I pause the music, they have to stop drawing. Look at what we are asking the kids to do -- the fine motor work as well as a self inhibitory step. Holding more than one thing in your brain at the same time is tricky and a vital component to self regulation (a major goal in our program). We get a lot of bang for the buck from this 10 minute activity, and your kids can do it nicely.

Wacky Hair Day in Pre-K

Wacky Hair day, an extension of Dr. Seuss's Wacky Wednesday book title, was celebrated throughout Dike Newell School today. In addition, Pre-K enjoyed homemade wacky pretzels at snack time (the dough was mixed and shaped by our class) and got to go on a winter hike with Ms McCauley during PE. (Several kids were busy on the computer with Mrs. Perkins during this photo, so no worries if you don't see your student here -- we'll get a whole class picture soon!)