Back Together & Learning Strong: A Week in Pre-K

Dear parents,

Welcome back! We hope you and your families had a wonderful and restful holiday season. It has been such a joy welcoming our Pre-K students back to the classroom and seeing their excitement as they reconnected with friends and settled back into our daily routines. This week was filled with meaningful learning experiences across large group, literacy, math, and science as the children continued to build skills, explore new concepts, and share their ideas with enthusiasm. We are excited to share some highlights from our week of learning with you! As a reminder, this coming Monday (January 19, 2026) will be closed for Timket.

Large group

The children were excited to reconnect with their classmates and quickly settled back into our daily routines.

In math, we reviewed the 3D shapes we have learned throughout the past semester. The students practiced identifying and naming shapes such as cylinder, sphere, cone, pyramid, and triangular prism, showing growing confidence and recognition as we revisited each one.

For literacy, we continued our work with digraphs, focusing this week on the “oo” sound. The children learned that double “o” comes together in the middle of words, not at the beginning. We explored words like moon, boots, good, and book, and students enjoyed listening for and identifying the “oo” sound during group activities.

We also discussed the change of the year, learning that 2025 is finished and we are now in 2026. This led into exciting conversations about our upcoming 100 Days of School celebration. The students eagerly shared their ideas and are looking forward to this special milestone.

During our morning message, students actively participated by coming up to the board to circle digraphs, sort words, and identify larger numbers, strengthening both literacy and math skills in a hands-on way.

Additionally, we talked about the upcoming art auction, where students shared creative ideas about what they would like to bring to life on canvases. Their imagination and enthusiasm were wonderful to see.

Literacy 

For the first literacy group, students worked on two different worksheets during the first session. The focus was on reading CVC words and coloring the matching pictures, helping strengthen letter-sound recognition and early decoding skills. In the second worksheet, students practiced their fine motor skills by cutting out CVC words and matching them to the correct pictures, combining literacy learning with hands-on practice.

For the second literacy group, the first session focused on a review of Zoo-Phonics. Students revisited letter sounds and motions, reinforcing their understanding through movement and repetition. During the second session, students completed a beginning sounds worksheet where they looked at pictures, identified the correct beginning sound, and circled the matching letter. The students did an amazing job demonstrating their knowledge and confidence with phonics skills.

Math

This week in Math, our Pre-K students participated in hands-on activities that supported number sense and fine motor development.

For the first math group, the focus was on learning about the number that comes in between. During the first session, students took turns coming up to the board to identify the missing number by placing number flashcards in the correct order and choosing the number that belongs in the middle. This interactive activity helped strengthen counting skills and number recognition. In the second session, students completed a worksheet using the same concept, allowing them to practice writing numbers while also developing their fine motor skills.

For the second math group, the focus this week was on tally counting. Students worked on identifying numbers and understanding how tally marks represent quantities. Through guided practice, they learned how to count tallies accurately and connect them to the corresponding numbers.

Science 

This week in science, our Pre-K students began exploring a new and exciting topic: shadows. During the first session, we started by asking students to share their own understanding of what a shadow is. We then observed our hand shadows inside the classroom, which sparked curiosity and discussion. Afterward, we went outside to the playground, where students explored and discovered the shadows created by different play structures, noticing their shapes and sizes.

In the second session, we recalled what we learned from the first session and reviewed what a shadow means. We discussed how the size of a shadow can change depending on the size of the object and how the light is shining on it. Students compared the shadows of different objects, observing which were big or small. We also visited our dark room, where we turned off the lights and noticed that without light, there are no shadows. When a small amount of light entered the room, students excitedly observed shadows appearing again.

The students had a wonderful time exploring, observing, and making discoveries. Their curiosity and engagement helped deepen their understanding of how light creates shadows.

Art

This week in art, the Pre-K class had a delightful time exploring painting! They did free painting using a wide variety of shades, which was a chance for them to fully direct their own creativity. Since our students have been back following winter break, our students have been incredibly excited to be back in school and creating. We encouraged them to express their feelings and refresh their minds through this process. After finishing their individual paintings, we provided them with chart paper to paint again as a group.

Our annual art auction will be happening in May, where families will get a chance to bid on our student's artworks for charity. Throughout the year, we have been working on various canvases where students express their ideas, interests, and inspirations. We've started discussing the art auction as a class, and the students are eagerly anticipating it! These activities help teach the students collaboration, creativity, and confidence!

Next Week’s Schedule:

Small group

Tuesday:- Library, Math

Wednesday:- Science, Literacy

Thursday: - Math, Journal

Friday:- Music

Thursday: - Literacy

Our Special

Tuesday:- Library

 Friday:- Art

Reminder

Every Tuesday is our library day, so we will be sending a book that your child picked from our library, which will be returned after a week on library day.

Every Friday is our art day so please send your child with art-appropriate clothing.

Thank you for your time!