Settling In

After 7 days we are beginning to settle into a routine. We are working very hard on continuing to learn, practice, and master the routines, procedures and rules. We also practiced 2 fire drills this past week and bus safety. Next week we will begin to talk more about consequences for our choices (both positive and reinforcement) and will practice our lockdown procedures.

We have been focusing on what it means to be "independent" this past week. We read a story about Franklin learning to ride his bike. We defined independent as being able to do something all by yourself and talked about how being able to be independent requires practice. These lessons are important for the children as we will begin to transition into small group and independent work time over the coming weeks.

As for our learning this week the children listened to stories and we practiced retelling the familiar story The Gingerbread Man. We worked on letter recognition through exploration of magnetic letters and making words with them. We also learned about words parts or syllables and worked on hearing rhyming words. The children were also introduced to their writer's notebook and were able to make their first entry!

In math we spent our week sorting by color, shape, and size. We also spent time with our "ketchup and mustard" partner playing a simple game called "Match It!". One child placed some shape blocks on a sorting mat and their partner had to "match it" by placing the same blocks on their mat. While the game is quite simple, it is helping the children learn to take turns, work together, and communicate with each other. We also practiced counting objects up to 5 and tracing numbers to 5. I introduced the children to math stations this week as well. This month the focus is on exploring some of our math manipulatives and again learning to work together with another child in the class.

We were also able to get to the outdoor classroom and do some leaf rubbings. The children were very engaged and excited to be able to select leaves and then make a rubbing using a crayon. We brought our leaves and rubbings inside and talked about the different parts of the leaves, texture, and that each tree has its' own unique leaf that helps us identify it.

We had a very busy week! Have a great weekend!