January 27-February 2
Irvington Pre-K Newsletter, January 30- February 2, 2012
Hello Pre-K families! We had a fun, short week learning about transportation- how people get to the places they want to go! We talked about our favorite ways to get around, including skateboarding, biking, driving, skiing, taking a train, a hot air balloon, and more! There are so many fun books about transportation, making this an enjoyable literary week! Our letter of the week was O, and we found that O is a fun letter because of the way it sounds at the beginning of words! Thanks to Lucia and family for bringing all the healthy and delicious snacks!
Next week our letter will be P, and we will be learning about rocks, crystals, and volcanoes! Your student is welcome to bring in some of their rock collection to show at any time in the week. Please have them limit it to six rocks. We suggest an egg carton cut in half- each rock gets a section, and their name goes on the top. We will do our best to make sure no rocks get lost, but please do make sure your student realizes that they must be responsible for their collection, and to not bring in any rock too special to replace. Thanks, we are excited to see what our young geologists have collected!
Just a quick note about Valentine’s Day, as your student may be getting excited for this already: we will be celebrating Friendship Day, and making each other notes and pictures that day. Please do not bring in Valentines, but rather encourage your student to make things at school for their friends. Thanks for your help!
To promote pre-reading skills, we have begun to encourage the students to ‘read’ to one another, simply by looking at the pictures and telling the story they see- we have explained that even though they don’t know what the words say, they can still look and think, and that that is a big part of reading. This is a great step in reading and one that is appropriate for pre-k. We recommend having your child ‘read’ to you, its fun too!
Our person of the week was Netta! We loved to learn about her. She is five years old three feet five inches tall. Her eyes are brown and her hair is blonde. Netta likes mac and cheese, pasta, and broccoli. She wants to be an eye-doctor when she grows up! Netta wishes she had a baby unicorn, and likes her “first kiss from my brother when I was a newborn baby,” and her cat Molly. She does not like when her brother hits her. Her favorite part of being the person of the week was getting to be the line leader. Nice job Netta!
Monday we talked about what transportation means and started our chart, “How I Got to School Today,” which we added to every day. We read Ok GO!, This is the Way We Go to School (two different books with that title, actually), and What Wheels Do All Day. We talked about our favorite forms of transportation and the different ways people travel all over the world. We made person of the week pages for Netta, and focused on giving compliments. Lily shared a picture of herself boogie-boarding in Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean! Brady shared a photo of him and his grandmother, whose name is Opal. They were eating delicious cupcakes! Lucia brought in an orange, and we talked about the color and the fruit! Ben showed us a cool Union Pacific locomotive, to go with our transportation theme, and Helen Colletti told us some great O words: Oregon, Owl, and orange.
Tuesday we talked about buses and trains as ways to get a lot of people where they need to go! We brought down sturdy cardboard boxes that students ‘drove’ around the room, and many had fun utilizing our traffic signs for this purpose as well. We read The Bus Stop, The Bus for Us, I’m Your Bus, The Little Engine That Could, and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (always a fun read). We made our own bus passes for a special project, using paper, stickers, markers, and string to make into necklaces. For share, Netta brought in a book about Barack Obama, which we skimmed through, and a book about a little boy who lives next door to the Obamas in Hyde Park. Turns out that Netta’s cousin Cora is friends with the little boy, and she is in the book! Zachary shared a photo of his dog, whose name is Oliver P. Varooneyhead! Odessa brought in herself for share “cause my name starts with O,” and Phoebe showed us her ostrich stuffed animal, named Lionna. She informed us that “they do not fly even though they have wings, their wings help them run.” Tessa wrote out Olivia’s name with a heart next to it, and Leo brought in Oh the Thinks You Can Think, which we had fun reading together!
Wednesday we celebrated Netta’s fifth birthday! We looked at her cute pictures growing up, made her a birthday book, sang to her, and admired her lovely crown. Happy Birthday Netta! We also sang goodbye to January and hello to February during our calendar circles. We talked about planes as a form of transportation, and the students were really interested in the idea that a plane is faster than the fastest racecar in the world! We read Always Got My Feet: Poems about Transportation, Toot Toot Beep Beep and The Last Train. We talked about how the plane came from bikes, and for our special project we made paper planes that we flew outside. For share Aidan brought in a wooden airplane that he built and painted with his mom! Dane shared two books: A Good Night for Ghosts and Oh the Places You’ll Go! Helen CU showed us her passport from when she took a plane to Nicaragua, and Isa brought in a beautiful origami flower and cup she made with her mom and brother. Darwin showed us an orange, telling us that he would NOT eat it for snack, and Mary shared an octopus hair clip that she got and the aquarium.
Thursday we talked about bikes, and why they are a great form of transportation: they are fast, you can ride them to school or the store, they are fun, they don’t hurt the Earth, and you can use a bell to get people to stop! We designed our dream bikes and dictated words about them- they are magical! We also made salt-dough volcanoes so that they will be dry and ready for our explosion next week. We played transportation bingo and everyone got a sticker, and we read Netta’s Person of the Week book and interview. We finished the O-bag as well. Whew, busy day! We read Vera Rides a Bike, Oh The Places You’ll Go, Riding a Bike, and Red Truck. For share time, Jaden brought in a book of poems called Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks from which we read “Kansas City Octopus,” and Kate shared a book called I Love You Mommy, showing us the three O’s and her favorite pages in it. Willem brought in an octagon-shaped piece of paper, special because “I colored it myself.” Liam told us about a word he made up: “Opidia-my new way of saying super fast.” Olivia shared herself and There’s No Place Like Space, showing us the picture of the Earth orbiting around the Sun. Quinn told us the words open and OK and that his favorite form of transportation is the car “because you go faster than any other kind of thing except race cars and planes.” Finally, Paxton showed us a US map with Oregon and Oklahoma circled, and told us that his aunt lives in Oklahoma.
Friday-no school. Enjoy the sun!!
Thanks for a great week pre-K! Have a nice long weekend!
The Pre-K Team
