Week of September 26

Hello from South Africa 

We have been super busy little bees this week.  Monday we flew from India to South Africa. After we landed Miss Sara greeted us and shared pictures and stories about her time there. She brought in so many books for us to read. We have learned our seasons are opposite, they drive on the opposite side of the road, Table mountain, the animals that live there and that there are over 500 species of birds and 11 official languages just to name a few! 

This week we all mastered our uppercase alphabet letters. We will soon be starting our lowercase letters.  The class is beginning to fall into their daily routine as whole notes. We have observed them breaking up into small groups, playing cooperatively and choosing different friends to play with , including one another and sharing. 

We painted African Masks and sent home postcards from Table Mountain! The children each wrote their own message on the postcard for their families. They have loved traveling to another new country. Miss Sara shared her experiences about hiking it and showed us picture. She also read several books about it and talked about the animals that inhabit it. 

On Thursday and Friday we talked about Rosh Hashanna read some books dipped apples in honey and sang some songs.  Nect week we will Travel to South Korea. 

 

  

Swagathan to India

Namaste 

We have been very busy this week. On Monday we made our passports and boarding passes. We went through TSA security and boarded out flight to India. We had a nice flight, hit a little turbulance, enjoyed some good books and snacks while on our flight. We arrived in India just in time for Adamantis's mother Prarthana to come visit with us. We were so fortunate to have her read several books and answer questions. She shared with us some yummy snacks from India. We had Parleg and Atta biscuits, potatoes snacks like French fries with mint and Mamak Paras. They were yummy and well enjoyed. 

As we continue to study and learn about India we were very lucky to have Radhika, Sandhya's mom come in on Thursday and talk to us some more about India and answer our questions. We have learned so much already. Ask your children about the list of "what we know" and "what we want to know". We will continue with this format in all of our countries. Thank you Radhika for the delicious Pakora ( vegetable) snack and the Samoasos (Potato) treats youmade for us!  As well as the children's names in Hindi for them to trace .   

We have been enjoying the beautiful weather while it lasts. The children have been beginning to form friendships and  include one another. This is something we will continue to instill in them.  

We read lots of books this week some about India and others about friendship and sharing. We read Llama llama and the bully goat ,llama llama time to share, I is for India, food and festivals. And the children of India.            

 

 

Some of our yoga poses 

 

This Wednesday we used a colorful abacus to learn how to count to ten in Mandarin. Since the abacus has blue, yellow and red beads, we reviewed those colors as well. We also learned how to say the color of green in Mandarin, the pronunciation for green is "Lǜsè".

Have a great weekend ! See you Monday  Susan and Sara 

 

Week of September 16

This week we dove right into our curriculum . Monday we started to talk about friendship and what makes a good friend . We will continue with this theme for the next few weeks. We discussed talking to our friends, whole body listening to them when they have something to say. Also respecting their feelings. We talked about when sometimes we want to play alone it's okay however there is a correct way to say it so we do not hurt our friends feelings. We encouraged your children to first try and work things out with their friends then if they need our help we can help but we would like them to try to solve the problem first that part of being kindergarten ready. On Monday, Adam brought in cupcakes for welcome back to school. On Tuesday, we celebrated Hugo's Birthday with a special visit from Mom and Dad and a favorite book about a  zimpa rompa zoo _

          And of course cupcakes! Happy Birthday Hugo!

We have been reviewing our capital letters in our morning work and everyday we practice our names as we sign in.  I started to introduce lower and uppercase case "c" and will be working on writing the number 1.  

 

 Making play dough with miss Sara

Sasha being silly 

Morning math

 

 

We worked on  writing the mumber one and explored the concept of up ,down .in ,out and on . Happy to report everyone passed with flying colors. Welcome back to Noah amd Sandahya. Wednesday we learned about and celebrated the moon festival.  We heard a story wore the hat and enjoyed moon cakes.  

 

  

We continued to talk about what makes a good friend Miss Sara read Rainbow fish and at the art table we made our own Friend ships they are proudly hung in our window on the door.   

Next week we will be traveling to India! If you have anything about the country that you would like to share please send it in. On Tuesday Adamantis's Mother will be coming in to the class to share some of their family experiences traveling to India. Stay tuned for a fun week! On Monday we will fly out and Tuesday we will arrive.

Have a great weekend! See you next week.

Susan and Sara

Whole notes first week of school

We had a great first week of school. We spent this week getting familiar with our classroom, new friends, schedule and routine as well as what it means to be a whole note and what is expected of us. Some of the things we discussed were whole body listening, "listening Larry". Ask your children about him, they all did a great job learning and remembering what whole body listening is! We introduced our "chip" many of which were earned already.   

We have a red chip to stop what you are doing and make a better choice, a blue one to cool down in our cool down corner, and a green smiley face with thumbs up. It says " I like what I see, you are doing the right thing ! Return this to me later for a special treat".  

At the end of our day we have a meeting to talk about it. This is when the children turn in their chips. As well as possibility of earning a Pom Pom for the entire class . This week we earned 3 Pom poms as a class and many green chips were earned. We are very proud of your children .  This week we made placemats to use during lunch and created our classroom rules. You can find them written out by the children on the orange wall. We recite our good behavior pledge every morning at meeting when we do calender and our story.  Your children had Mandarin, piano and daily music. The children quickly learned to sign in and do their morning work.  They enjoyed the playground and after school projects. Miss Dana is teaching about Dental health this month. Happy Birthday to Noah !! We had lots of fun and are off to a great start. 

 

 

 

This week in Mandarin your children learned their colors 

Blue- Lan se. Red- Hong se.   Yellow- Huang se 

The greeting  how are you?  Ni hao 

The new song was If your happy and you know it clap your hands    Pai pai shou.   Stomp your feet duo duo Jiao 

We recorded where is my friend and read hands and fingers. 

 

 

 

 

week of November 15

This week your children continued working on our Thanksgiving theme unit.  They worked on  their fine motor skills by tracing their own hands then cut them out to create our beautiful hand and foot turkeys.   They continued to work on these skills by baking pumpkin cookies we mixed , counted and measured as we made these delicious treats.  After the baking was done it was onto the decorating process each child frosted and sprinkled their cookies.  We made so many we shared them with the half note and whole note classes for snack the next day. Your children were so proud of the treats they made! We sang many Thanksgiving songs and finger plays as well.  We read books about the solar system and stories about family. In music this week we continued to learn new songs practiced our galloping to music and played the drum and xylophone . The weather was typical this week some days we played outside for long periods of time and others we stayed out as long as we could then continued to play inside.  Have a great weekend see you Monday Misss Susan

Week of November 8

This week I introduced the children to Thanksgiving.  They made beautiful hand print turkeys each one unique as they chose their own feather colors.  After which they had a blast painting their hands over and over again.  The song "Mr. Turkey Struts Around" was introduced as well as the book Thanksgiving With Me by Margret Willey.  Your children also loved the book Angelina and the Princess by Katherine Holabird.  We also spent time sorting buttons to make fall trees.

Many of the parents from the summer may remember Miss Alanna, a young student.  She volunteered over the summer and your children and the teachers got to know her and enjoy her company and creativity.  Well we are happy to say that she is back to help us in the preschool.  She comes one to two days a week to help out in the afternoon and we are very thankful to have her!

Halloween week

 This week your children made lots of scary and fun crafts along with different types of slime, goop and flubber.  We mixed glue, starch, borax and food coloring to make our creepy gooey creations.







They made and baked cookies for our special Halloween celebration that we had on Thursday.  We read lots of Halloween books, sang songs, painted many pictures and enjoyed the bootiful weather.








 Have a great weekend see you Monday.
-Miss Susan