Explore our world

Explore our World is our current theme for preschool. We are learning about how the Earth is round, we are looking at globes (even playing catch with a beach ball globe!), looking at maps, making a pretend map and much more.

Each class time we also go on a treasure hunt complete with a map of the backyard & playground where students find the numbers 1-7 hidden in spots that coordinate with the map. They turn in their numbers for a tresure of the day from the treasure box.

We are singing about the 7 continents and will be also learning another ocean song. We will be introduced to a United States map and Arizona map as well.

For fall fun, we painted pumpkins and finished them with glitter - they turned out so cute! We also read about Spookley the square pumpkin and made our own unusual shaped pumpkins. We did an activity to practice rhyming words and have started to use nursery rhymes and our favorite stories as part of our puppet theater.

Children brought in mystery items (starting with a previous letter of the day)and gave 3 clues for the other children to guess the mystery object for show and tell for October. It has been a busy month!

We also took a class picture! Look for the pictures to be in a finished format soon. Thanks Ivonne for taking them!

Picture Day - this FRIDAY!

Ivonne has agreed to take our preschool pictures. YAY! I am planning to have our class picture and an individual picture of your little learner on our first FUN Friday in October. That is THIS Friday! No cost to you...just send your usual adorable child and a big smile :) We will take pictures in the beginning part of class so their hair/outfit can be "just right" for you.

In the meantime, here are a few past pics from some recent explorations. Students investigated how tall in blocks they were, stacking the blocks independently to an impressive tower as high as they were tall.

Students covered up the letter "r" in masking tape on the carpet with small blocks.

Students wrote the lowercase "r" on the easel.

Students explored the magnetic tell your own story book about transportation.

Some students matched clothes pins with letters on each one to the correct corresponding letter on the letter strip.

Looking ahead for fall

October and November will have many opportunities for history and geography themes. We will introduce the globe, maps including the United States, the American Flag and saying the Pledge of Allegiance, Christopher Columbus and the first Thanksgiving.

Things to look forward to in October include new labels in the classroom (door, table, bathroom, etc) and a race against the clock game to go with the labels. We will also bring out the puppet theater as we get ready to add more core stories every preschooler/kindergartner should know.

Show and tell for October will involve you helping your child make a book/draw a picture of states she/he remembers visiting and what he/she did there (or add some photos). You may also include a list or picture of family or close friends who live in another state. We will add these important adventures and people to a class map and use the homemade books in a book nook. If you have friends in other states, contact them over break and ask them to mail you a postcard from their state to add to our class book.


I also hope to take time from our busy schedules to meet with you to share more about your child's progress and discuss how we can work together to achieve the goals you have set with your child this year.

I remind everyone (especially the pre-kinders) to keep practicing the letter rings. 5-15 minutes a day of attention from you where you can work on the sound(s) each letter makes is an invaluable pre-reading skill. Your little star will be reading phonic words and phonic/site word stories before you know it!

Some parents have been curious which letters of the day are around the corner. I plan to teach the following sequence which will lead us through October and November: b, h, k, d, v, j, e

I remind you to check out my links and favorites on my blog for great websites to reinforce phonic sounds including starfall.com and my you tube page which will have our class abc chant updated as well as short clips of the phonic sounds including the upcoming ones.