Pre-K: Tangrams, Tallying and Tiffany

Despite the short week, Pre-K accomplished a whole lot during the 4 days we were at school…

Language and Literacy

Know any good tongue twisters? Pre-K does! Here they are:

Two tiny tigers take two tiny taxis to town.
Two toads are totally tired.

Try saying those two times fast!

In addition to reading The Tea Party in the Woods and painting with tea, Pre-K also created letters from tangram patterns in order to combine both math and literacy into one activity. We have mats with each letter of the alphabet (upper and lower case) created out of tangrams in our classroom; feel free to have your child show you which ones they used most and which shapes they found the most useful in creating their letters. As we continue to work handwriting into our curriculum, we are finding ways to ask children to practice letters in ways less intimidating than pen/pencil and paper might be. This week, we introduced q-tips dipped in water on chalkboards, and the children got a kick out of watching their letters dry up and wiping them off with a paper towel. Each Friday we practice our letter of the week in journals with colored pencils and other implements, but during the week we will continue to introduce chalkboards with chalk and tiny sponges, dry erase markers and white boards and other options that are less scary than pencil and paper!

Math

This week, math was all about triangles and tallying. We started by reading the book Triangle by Mac Barnett and ended with Tally Cat Keeps Track. Our group work on Tuesday included creating fall trees (trunks and leaves) from lots of different triangle shapes. On Thursday, after reading about Tally the cat, we talked about how tallying is a way to keep track of numbers by grouping them and we practiced a bit. We, then, headed to the big room and gave each child a card with either the number 1-7 or a card with tally marks 1-7. On “go!” they had to find their matching pair. We switched their cards a number of times and loved watching the kids ask each other, “Do you have a 6?” “How many tally marks are on your card?” And, then finally, “We made a match!”

Science

Martine’s Science Friday this week revolved around towers. Children revisited the ideas of gravity and tension, talked about tripods and triangles, and tore newspaper to build towers that might hold tennis balls! Here are some ideas we overheard:

I’m using tape to make it stronger.
I’m using tension!
I’m making it smoother.
I’m making the Eiffel Tower!

Dramatic Play and Building Area

Children held elaborate tea parties with teddy bears in the dramatic play area and built towers and train tracks in the building area. We have been so pleased to see children move seamlessly from one area of the room to another and to welcome each other into their play no matter what they’re doing.

We wanted to give a huge shout-out to Coach Brendan (Emersyn’s dad) for leading the class in some fun, new games (relays, ball-passing, and more) outside on Monday. He even managed to work in our sound of the week!

Pre-K has loved showing things brought in from home during our meetings, and Martine and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to create a Share Schedule. This way each child knows when they get to be an expert and will also have time to take questions, comments and compliments on their shared item, after explaining what it is. Each share should only take a few minutes. Our schedule is below, but, if for some reason that day doesn’t work for your child, please let us know and we can adjust.

Expert Share Schedule

Lucas: 10/15/19

Zafi: 10/17/19

Hazel: 10/22/19

Marie-Sophie: 10/24/19

Emersyn: 10/29/19

Hope: 10/31/19

Ashwin: 11/5/19

Nate: 11/7/19

James: 11/12/19

Madeline: 11/19/19

Rowen: 11/21/19