Pre-K: The Ocean, Origami and Georgia O'Keeffe
"Oo" week was full of opposites, the ocean, owls, ovals, octagons, origami and Georgia O’Keeffe. Children got lots of practice using their fine motor and reasoning skills, and it was so much fun to see them work together to solve problems and create stories.
Language and Literacy
Your children are wonderful at reasoning out opposites. They loved both our opposite puzzles and generating their own; we were very impressed. Because they also enjoyed working on our Pre-K Animals book, this week we created a Pre-K Ocean book! Based on an ocean scene set up on our literacy table, children drew, traced and dictated a story about the sea creatures they saw. Keep an eye out for the completed tome!
Math and Science
We learned about “paws and claws” with Miss Melissa from Puddlestompers, which fit perfectly with our conversation about owls later in the week! After reading the book Hoot and Peep about brother and sister owls who learn how to compromise on owly activities, Pre-K started an owl craft that they completed over the course of two days. After talking about how many wings, eyes, beaks and feet owls have, children collaged their own owls, but used painted hands to create the wings. We also asked the children to sort items from around the school into “soft” and “hard” piles, which led to great conversations about which of our five senses we could use, besides touch, to determine what items belonged where and whether we should add a third pile of “in between” (which we did).
Art
After reading about Georgia O’Keeffe and her desire to see what others didn’t and to transform the small things into the big, each child got his/her own flower that they looked at through magnifying glasses. One day they simply looked for a few minutes before outlining what they saw in pencil. The next day, they used watercolors in the hues they observed to fill in their flowers. We carried that theme into our December self-portraits: children chose one feature of their face to look at in a magnifying mirror and draw. Children were so patient and attentive in their observations, you will be amazed at their work, which is on view on our hallway bulletin board as well as on our classroom bulletin board.
We also had fun trying origami for the first time. We created a Pre-K ocean with fish folded by the children and are eager to decide on our next origami project after the holidays.
Finally, a big thank you to 3-Day for introducing Newton Fire Department's firefighters and Engine #4 to us. We felt so lucky to meet some of Newton’s community helper heroes, and your children had great questions and comments for the three firefighters who visited Bowen with their truck.
Stay warm this weekend!
Emily and Martine
Books this week included:
Mae Among the Stars (a continuation of last week's Galaxies theme)
Eye Like Opposites
Hoot and Peep
Owen
Georgia O’Keeffe
My Name is Georgia
