Ms. Julie and Mrs. Horton's 4s!: Week of January 13th!

We had another busy and fun week in Ms. Julie and Mrs. Horton's Pre-K 4s class!

We started off the week with Music Class with Ms. Kathleen and our new jobs!

We had a fun sensory experience where we got to make snow by mixing "Insta-Snow" with 2 ounces of water in a cup and watched it grow! We then got to play in it with Polar Animals!

At Center Time, we made Igloos by stamping two shades of blue paper with the each side of a duplo lego dipped in white paint: one side made a snow storm and the other side made ice blocks of an igloo! Once these are dry, we will cut, glue one on the other and add penguin stickers!

We have a fun, new Ice Cream Shop in the Pretend Play Center in our classroom!

Chester had another fabulous weekend with one of our friends!

We had fun in all of our new centers!

On Tuesday we talked more about the Letter Ii and the sound(s) it makes. We finished our igloos: we cut out the ice block side into the shape of an igloo and glued it on our 'snowstorm'! We added some penguin stickers, so these polar animals could play in the snowy pictures!

We created Insects, practiced forming Ii and other letters with wiki sticks and made snowmen and other creations out of playdough!

At Circle Time, we had our Big Event Ii! We each got to crawl into an I-i-igloo that was in our I-i-ice cream shop and choose one I-i-nstrument to play! The rest of the class had to guess which one (from three: maracas, wooden sticks, tambourine) it was, and then the child came back to the Circle Time rug and marked which one they had chosen! This was so much fun! It looks like the wooden sticks won!

At Center Time, we had some new activities! At Art Center, we made icicles! We learned that icicles form when water drips and freezes because of cold temperatures! We practiced our fine motor skills by using droppers to drop small amounts of watery white paint at the top of a black paper. We lifted the tray and watched the paint drip down, adding more paint with the dropper when needed! When our icicles had reached the bottom, we sprinkled on silver glitter to indicate the the icicles were frozen!

We learned how to play the game "Don't Break the Ice". We played more in our fake snow, and we practiced our writing!

We read the book Tacky the Penguin about a very silly penguin!

We celebrated a Birthday, too!

On Wednesday, we practiced writing our names at Table Time and got to put a sticker next to the name we were the most proud of. We made insects, and practiced forming letters with Wiki Sticks.

At Circle Time, the Alphabet Bag for the Letter Ii was returned! Several items that start with the Letter Ii were shared: an ice cream cone, an Island, an I Spy Book, and an Insect! We read the book from the Alphabet Bag, "Iguana on Ice", and we thought of words that start with Ii to write on our pad.

At Centers, we mixed glue and shaving cream and used the mixture to 'paint' ice cream on 'Ice Cream I' cones! We added sprinkles and a cherry! Once dry, these become puffy! So cool!

We had so much fun at all of our ice/snow centers, and always love to practice writing at the Writing Center!

We read another book about Penguins before snack!

At Snack Time, Ms. Julie was VERY surprised by the special birthday party that Mrs. Horton and the kids organized for...ME! My birthday is December 31st, so this was and extra big surprise in January! I loved the card the kids made and thank you all for your generosity! We enjoyed ice cream with sprinkles as a special treat! Again, thank you SO much!

On Thursday at Table Time, we started to cut out pieces for our Plate Penguin Art Project! Some friends practiced writing words at Writing Center when they had finished cutting! Wow!

At Circle Time, we talked about how ice/snow melts, and that the use of Salt can speed up the process! At Centers we were able to use warm water, droppers, and salt to try to melt different ice and snow blocks (freeing the hidden 'frozen' animals inside!).

At Art Center, we made our Plate Penguins! They turned out so cute!

We read 2 more books about Penguins:

Penguins, Penguins Everywhere

This one, we can practice "reading" aloud at home with our parents!

On Friday, we completed the Ii page in our Journals:

And we had fun in our other Centers, too!

We learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a weekly reader!

We talked about how he believed in love, respect, fairness and togetherness based on what is on the inside (someone's character, or how they behave and treat others!), and how he made a famous speech about this in Washington, DC, called "I Have a Dream..." We also read a book with beautiful photographs of children of all different 'shades', and talked about how we should treat everyone with love and kindness.