Getting to know our friends

We have been having fun getting to know each other. Our greeting songs and activities at the beginning of the day help reinforce names of the children. We have been talking about feelings and reading books about sharing, saying your sorry, and what to do if you are mad. We also encourage children to ask for a toy by saying " Can I have it after you?" This is more positive that "Can I have that?" 

This week the children had fun exploring shaving cream. Some of the descriptive words they used were smooth, sticky, cold, soft, like whipped cream, and slippery.

We were also able to enjoy the outdoors with the sun shining and warm weather.

First weeks of school

Here are some pictures from the first days of school. We have been busy learning how to care for our equipment, meeting new friends and trying new activities.

We have been learning how we are the same and how we are different. We measured children with blocks to see how big we are. We also made Mat Man to help us understand body parts. 

Floating boats graphs

Today we were learning about Thailand's  festival Loi Krathong. Part of this festival is the floating of boats down a river. The boats are made from leaves and have candles on them. In our class activity, we made boats from foil. Then we put marbles on the boats while they were floating to see which design held the most marbles without sinking. We also made graphs to show the amount of marbles for each child. 

Fireman visit

The firemen from East Montpelier came to school and talked to us about kitchen safety. Then we were able to go outside no see the trucks and go through the ambulance.

Future architects and builders

Block play is a valuable learning experience for young children. Children learn math skills such as color, shapes, sorting, ordering, counting, size, and one to one correspondence. Blocks also provide opportunities for problem solving, sequencing and patterns. The open- ended nature of blocks can encourage creativity and socialization. Children can develop an understanding of cause and effect, balance and stability through experimentation of spatial relationships of blocks. Representation and logical reasoning are also concepts children learn through block play.

Pumpkin fun

Today we had fun guessing how much yarn was needed to go around a pumpkin. It is a great way to use comparison words such as too long or too short. We had 3 children that guessed the exact amount needed.

We also used Halloween pattern cards and the children completed pumpkin puzzles.

School fun

Yesterday we had a visit from the the Kellogg Hubbard Library's Nicole. She read two stories about monsters and then we made monster pictures with paper and glue.

Learning to recognize our names in fun when you can slap the letters.

We have been learning to count using dice.

During our study of bodies, we traced our bodies and then colored them and we made drawings under a table with the paper attached to the bottom of the table for a different view.