FRIENDS, FRIENDS, 1…2…3…

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE HERE WITH ME!

Young children typically anticipate holidays with great enthusiasm and envision a day filled with surprises and sweets. This year’s Friendship Day celebration at Richmond Elementary School, A.K.A. Valentine’s Day, surpassed Preschooler’s expectations. Vermont Writes Day provided an additional bonus to the February 12th festivity and a perfect venue to showcase student learning with a

7-Minute Writing Challenge!

Over the past five months, RES Preschoolers have prepared for Friendship Day (a day renowned for sharing student made notes with peers) by participating in cooperative play activities that promote the development of fine motor muscles needed for paper and pencil tasks. Hard work and engagement with various materials and mediums have resulted in strong fingers and hands ready for WRITING!

This week, Scholars counted out twenty beads and added them to a spiral wire! The “magic, good wishes wand” works like a roller coaster…

Loop de loop, round and round the beads go!

  

To warm up strong fingers for the writing challenge, writers created MAPS OF THEIR HEARTS. Each writer wrote about People and Things They Love!

 

After fueling their bodies with sweet, Friendship Fruit Salad and receiving a festive writing tool, the timer was set and confident WRITERS started their seven minute challenge. With ease a six-foot banner came to life depicting portraits of FRIENDS each labeled with individual names.

  

Seven minutes later when the timer sounded…. Writers asked,

“Can we keep writing?”!

       

    

The response, “WRITE ON PRESCHOOLERS!

Last Week's Learning - February 2nd -6th

BRAVING THE ELEMENTS

Recent FRIGID temperatures have forced us to BRAVE THE ELEMENTS on a daily basis. Simple tasks such as walking to the mailbox to retrieve mail and driving to the store to buy a gallon of milk have been challenging due to FRIGID winds, ice, and snow!

When Preschool Scholars returned to school this week after another big storm, they were hoping FRIGID temperatures would disappear so they could construct our planned CAIRN and experiment with “THE ELEMENTS!”

They had high hopes of building a CAIRN the height of our school flagpole and were curious why BIG dump trucks spread SALT everywhere after a snowstorm!

Is it true…does SALT melt ICE?

Using water, salt, trays, ice blocks and water droppers, scientists set out to test the possible SALT THEORY!    

   

After noticing AIR GAPS in ICE BLOCKS, BEN begins to drop his salt solution on floating ice chunks!

“IT’S WORKING!” After dripping many drops of SALT SOLUTION onto ICE FLOES, ice begins to melt and forms tunnels!

“HEY, WHERE DID MY ICE GO?”

“PEEK A BOO, I SEE YOU!”

ICE BLOCKS + HOT WATER + SNOW = A BEAUTIFUL R.E.S. CAIRN

Preschoolers believe they have the “COOLEST” school in town and enjoyed marking the entryway to R.E.S. with a bright and beautiful ICE BLOCK CAIRN.

Stacking various ice shapes was TRICKY, however TEAMWORK made the balancing challenge DOABLE!

   

TALLER than a PRESCHOOLER!:)

LITERACY SKILLS HAVE “A BRUSH” with THE ELEMENTS…

Last week preschool readers and writers experimented with a new writing medium… SNOW!

Scholars formed LINES and CURVES as they created letters and shapes!

SAM wrote his name…S A M

   

KAYDEN practiced writing the letter “K”!       Scholars add the final details to their writing        

                                                      pieces.  

TYLER proudly displays his name...TY!

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYES…

Paul Klee was a Swiss artist who used RED, YELLOW and BLUE in most of his paintings. Klee’s masterpieces included HIDDEN LETTERS!

In our art/writing project, see if you can locate the letters in each masterpiece and unscramble the letters to spell a scholar’s NAME.

Vermont Writes Day 2015

R.E.S. PRESCHOOL

Thursday, FEBRUARY 12

Friendship Pencils are ready and waiting for Seven Minutes of WRITING!

We have marked our calendars for this amazing, fun statewide day of writing! Our Preschool Friendship Celebration will include a writing challenge and scholars feel confident they will be able beat the challenge!  It’s the day we will stop everything for JUST SEVEN MINUTES and WRITE!

Our writing prompt will be…

Describe your PEERS by drawing a picture of them and label each picture with your classmate’s name!  

A large piece of mural paper will be rolled onto the floor and each WRITER will be given a class list and a Friendship Pencil to perform the task! A time timer will keep track of the seconds and minutes as they tick away! When the pointer on the timer approaches the number SEVEN… Preschoolers will celebrate their accomplishment!

  

Next Week’s Learning

February 9-13

NEW VOCABULARY

Valentine/Compass/North/South

Featured Book and Letter

“V”

MAP EXPLORATION

MY MAP BOOK by Sara Fanelli

Places aren't the only things that can be charted. In My Map Book by Sara Fanelli, the author explores everyday aspects of a child's world by charting various maps… A Map of a Neighborhood, A Family, A Heart and

even A Map of A Dog!

Creating MAPS OF OUR HEARTS

Diagramming People and Things we Care about and Enjoy  

FRIENDSHIP WANDS

Counting beads on a “MAGICAL” piece of wire!

FRIENDSHIP CELEBRATION

*Sharing and Reading Friendship Notes from Classmates

* Preparing and Eating FRUIT SALAD

*FRIENDSHIP MUSICAL CHAIRS

FIRE SAFETY with Firefighter Jamie (PM session)

 PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING ONE PIECE OF FRUIT TO SHARE ON THURSDAY!