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Pre-K: A Week of Name Exploration

director908
Sep 22, 2018
3 min read

Hello Pre-K Families!

We’ve had another wonderful week in Pre-K. This was our time to focus on names: our own, our friends', and how many letters are in each. We used the name board extensively!

Language:

Pre-K completed its classroom alphabet this week! Using lower case block letters taped onto sheets of paper, the children painted the entire page (including the letter itself). Once the paint dried, we were able to remove the letters and see our letters left in white.

We also worked a lot with our own names and faces. Whether we were writing (and signing) thank-you notes for the team who keeps our school clean or looking in mirrors to create self-portraits, Pre-K got lots of practice working with both the letters in their own names and using prompts we created (such as “thank you,” “room,” and “from”) to write with pencils, markers and crayons. This class is already so familiar with the alphabet; we are excited to start our letter of the week on Monday with the letter "p."

We incorporated some silliness into our days through reading Ketchup on Your Cornflakes and having the children mix and name their own paint colors. During snack and lunch children came up with their own combinations, some of which include:Do you like: jello in your bath, ketchup on your toy, ice cubes on your french fries, toothpaste on your head? And some paint colors include: tiara, teeth, purple berry, soy blue.

Finally, we looked again at our Classroom Agreement and each child signed it. We talked about how signing it meant that they would follow the rules of our classroom! It is up on a wall in the meeting area for reference as needed.

Math/Science:

We started off the week by using unifix cubes to build towers and compare height, quantity and length. As the week progressed, we used 10-frames for the first time to count the letters in our names. Our bear counters were extremely helpful in practicing counting on, as were our 10-frame counters. We ended the week by creating a name graph: children found their names in our columns and matched the number of letters in their names with the appropriate number in the correct row. Our graph is on display in our classroom.

We also worked on different ways to represent a number. We practiced writing cardinal numbers, using counters, using thumbprints, q-tip dotting, stamping…Everyone was very comfortable using different ways of showing numbers.

Art:

In addition to creating our classroom alphabet, this week we painted with some natural materials such as leaves and sticks, as well as our usual paintbrushes. With the beginning of our “p” week, we will be incorporating Picasso and Pollock into our classroom work.

Specials:

Coach Brian was so impressed with how well the children listened and kept their bodies safe during our first Creative Movement. Next week will be our first session with Miss Paula, and we are going to work on song about pancakes for her and the rest of the school.

Some of our favorite quotes from the week include:

I can help Evan [collect books].
Do you want to play Diggity Dog?
I like the way you’re making that.
So I need one more, right?
Is 9 taller than 10?
Hey is any one of you guys strong enough to open my thermos?

Books we loved:

Can I Play Too?

The Hidden Alphabet

The Dinosaur Expert

My Name Is Not Isabella!

Ketchup on Your Cornflakes

We are a very prolific class! If your child has a backpack, it would be very useful if they could bring it for extra layers they may take off at the playground and for artwork and classwork they are bringing home and want to keep together and safe.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Emily and Martine