Venger Collage

Dear Families,

One of our Tools of the Mind math activities is called Venger Drawing or Venger Collage. The kids look at a geometric shape on a piece of paper and brainstorm aloud with each other. "This triangle could be part of a ..." Then they proceed to make it into their idea with crayons or collage materials.

This activity helps us practice identifying shapes and making pictures by combining shapes, thus learning that a shape can be placed within another shape. In addition to understanding shapes, the Venger activity promotes creative thinking and asks children to pretend that the shape is something other than the shape. It also involves self regulation ... the child cannot create just any picture, but must incorporate a specific shape into her or his drawing, which requires monitoring of the picture he or she intends to make and planning the drawing or creation. (And did I mention that using glue and scissors and collage materials are really engaging activities for pre-k kids?)

The results of today's activity are proudly displayed on our bulletin board in the hallway.

Recent happenings in Pre-K

Big news. All of our students can get on their winter clothing (that is snow pants, boots, jackets, hats and mittens - phew!) independently. We made a batch of Kick the Can ice cream to celebrate this huge accomplishment. In the following slideshow, you'll see the kids rolling the cans on the rug with Mrs. Ricciardone to make it cool down and thicken. It was delicious!

Mrs. Vose came to read to us this past week, part of the Read to Me Challenge event. We brainstormed what to do to make her feel welcome in our classroom. Smile, listen, use inside voices, sit quietly and .... flowers! Pre-K kids were determined to give her some flowers, so we made a bunch of the coffee filter variety, and they were lovely.