A Colorful Week of Learning and Exploration in Early Pre-K!

4 days ago

3 min read

Dear Parents,

This week was filled with opportunities to learn, explore, create, and discover through engaging hands-on experiences. Our class enjoyed learning together, practicing new skills, and using a variety of materials to explore the world around us.

Large Group

We began our Large Group time by coming together in a circle and talking about our classroom rules and how we can follow them throughout the day. We shared about our mornings and what we had for breakfast, sang our Good Morning Song, and took attendance. After counting how many friends were here and how many were absent, our students practiced writing the numbers on the board by counting the friends who were present and absent. We also reviewed the 2D shapes we had discussed previously and talked about their names and features.

We counted together up to 15 and enjoyed reading Little Lion Shares, which gave us an opportunity to talk about sharing and kindness. We also practiced our Zoophonics sounds and continued making connections between letters and their sounds.

Small Group

Math

In Math, we first discussed the meaning of long and short and looked at examples to help us understand the difference. After learning the definitions, our students explored the classroom to discover different materials that were long or short.

Our class found many creative ways to explore the concept. Some students compared objects they found around the classroom, while others cut ribbons and tape into different lengths. Some students also used blocks to build structures and explored their length and size. Through these hands-on experiences, our students developed a better understanding of long and short while making their own discoveries.

Science

In Science, we first reviewed what we had learned about heavy and light and discussed which materials we thought might sink or float. Our students then became little explorers and collected different materials from the classroom and the school environment to test their ideas. Each student placed the materials they wanted to test on their own plate before beginning the experiment. We then tested the different materials in water and carefully observed the results. Our class enjoyed making predictions, experimenting with different objects, and discovering whether their predictions matched what they observed.

Art

For Art, we continued exploring the shapes we had previously discussed during Large Group and Math activities. We reviewed shapes such as the rectangle, oval, circle, square, heart, and star, and some of our students also chose to use a flower shape. Our students used the different shapes to create prints on paper. They enjoyed choosing the shapes they wanted to use, applying paint, and printing the shapes onto their papers to create their own colorful designs. This activity encouraged creativity while helping our class recognize and remember the different shapes we have been learning about.

Music

During Music time, our class explored a variety of musical instruments and enjoyed discovering the different sounds they could make. We also played songs chosen by our students, allowing them to enjoy and participate in music they selected themselves. As our students explored the instruments, some became curious about what was inside the shakers and asked questions about what made the sounds. Others noticed and talked about the different shapes of the instruments. This gave our class an opportunity to connect our music exploration with our previous learning about shapes while developing curiosity, observation, and language skills.

Literacy and Language

In Literacy and Language, we began by reviewing the Zoophonics letters we have been learning. We then sang the Zoophonics Song together. Afterward, our students worked with ribbons and paper as they created their own name activities. They practiced tracing their names and then cut and glued the materials onto their work. This activity helped strengthen name recognition, letter awareness, fine-motor skills, and hand-eye coordination while giving our students an opportunity to express their creativity.