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!)