Beginning of the year!

Hello, and welcome to the blog! It is here that you will be able to take a peek into the life of our class. Each day your child's notebook contains information about our daily activity, but in the blog, you'll get to see the kids in action. I hope you'll use it not only for the enjoyment of seeing your child at school, but also as a tool to help your child tell you about their experiences. I also use it as a way to inform you about what we do and why we do it!

The first week of school, we participated in a scavenger hunt. Each child had pictures on a board representing different areas in the classroom. These pictures would be used throughout the year in individual schedules for center rotations. The purpose of the activity was to let them become familiar with the pictures and find where each center is in the classroom.

In these pictures, Audrey and Shamont put their housekeeping pictures in the housekeeping pocket.

The second week of school, our theme was Body Parts. We learned about body parts with Mat Man.

We sang a song and built Mat Man, one body part at a time.

You can see an example of the song and Mat Man assembly here.

Jannath added Mat Man's feet.

Mitchell added his ears. 

Ben added Mat Man's legs.

Angello added his nose.

Every day we rotate through centers. 

There are many different skills addressed through the use of centers: social skills, following directions, and task completion are just a few.

Ben and Jannath at the painting center.

 Angello, Mitchell, and Shamont working with Mrs. Headden to build a train track. 

 We have also created some pretend play kits for the housekeeping center.

Sometimes too many materials can be overwhelming, so we gathered materials for specific pretend play activities. Here, Shamont is using the "set the table" kit. 

 With the telephone kit, Audrey can use the "phone book" to pretend to call her friends in class.

 Ben and Jannath are using the placemats to set the table with Mrs. Sageser. 

 One new center we started using this year is the workshop. The purpose of workshop is to teach students to be able to work independently. Each child has a work station which is a 3-drawer storage cart. Here, Angello and Mitchell were working.

 Above the work station is a work system strip. The work system is an organizational tool which tells the student what tasks they have to do, and the order in which they have to do it. 

Angello is working on a matching folder.

 Working from left to right, they pull the number, color, or shape off the strip and match it to the same number, color, or shape on the drawer.

Mitchell is completing his first task.

 Inside each drawer is a task to complete. The tasks are all skills at the child's independent level, not their instructional level. Instructional level skills are taught in a one on one setting at a different time.

Jannath is completing her second task.

Once a task is complete, it gets put in the "finish box" to the right of the work space.

In this picture Ben had completed one task, was working on his second task, and had one more to go.

Developing the ability to work independently will be an important skill as the children move beyond preschool, so we are starting now to create those good habits.

Hope you've enjoyed these pictures. I'll update with new pictures in a few weeks!