Christmas Concert Rehearsal

Congratulations everyone!!! Please give yourself a firecracker for such a good performance. (Ask your child what a firecracker is and see if they can show you)
Thank you to everyone for such a great job at our rehearsal today. Remember to wear all black clothes-the black light is stage quality so it shows everything-even very white teeth =:-)

I would like to share a website with parents that allows you to enter your childs name and get traceable letters so they can write the letters in their name correctly.
The url is: http://www.kidzone.ws/tracers/none/tracer-form.asp#
Have fun practicing these letters with your finger, driving on them with a toy car (like a highway) or writing them out with a pencil or shaving cream and fingers.
Have fun!

Baking Gingerbread Cookies and Christmas Concert

  Today we were talking about gingerbread cookies. We painted our own gingerbread cookies and added a sprinkle of cinnamon to make them smell freshly cooked. Please check out our painting pictures!!!

We have been practicing for Christmas cocert and have been doing a great job. Keep practicing at home!!!

Family Day

  Thank you to everyone who attended the family days this week. We had a lot of fun creating "Mini Me's" which were a small representation of your child. I would like to note that sometimes the student that you see on family day is different from the student we see everyday in the classroom. Students often act differently when there is a change to routine or extra adults in the room. I hope that you and your child were able to have a positive family day experience!

Here are some pictures from our great day...

Snowflake movers...

Today we started to talk about snow. What is it? Where does it come from? What does it move like?
We determined that it moves in a swirly pattern. It can blow in the wind. It falls down and covers up the ground with snow.
We then moved how a snowflake would move.
Go outside with your child, throw some snow into the air. Talk about how it moved?

Open House

Thank you to all of the parents who attended our open house on Wednesday, November 24 from 4:15-5:15. The theme of our Open House was families. We made a portrait of our family that explained how "Families come in all shapes and sizes. We also had our kitchen open so you could cook a meal for your family and then serve them. We had a puppet show for entertainment but the hit of the night was the paint center where different sponges were used to create a representation of yourself.

Thank you for coming. I hope you had a great time!

All About Me!

On Monday, November 15 we opened a new center in the pre-k classroom-a puppet theater!!! We had lots of fun arranging chairs and watching puppet shows put on by puppeteers in our classroom.
We also chose the shapes that we wanted our windows and doors to be on our mouse house. We will get to move in very soon!

Today Tuesday, November 16 we learnt about portraits. We looked at two different kinds of artwork and learnt that a portrait usually has a picture of a person in it. We learnt about the different body parts on our face such as where our eyes, ears, nose and mouth are. We learnt that if you run your finger from the corner of your eyes to your ears that your eyes are usually centered in between the middle of your ears not up high on your forehead. We had a lot of fun making our own self portraits and drawing our eyes, nose and mouth. We then ripped up paper for our hair. It was lots of fun!

On Wednesday, November 10, we attended the Remembrance Day ceremony held at the school gym. We did a great job of pinning the poppies to the cross and standing for a moment of silence. Lest we forget. Happy Remembrance Day!

Remembrance Day and Friendship

Tomorrow at 10:45 the pre-kindergarten students will be taking part in the Remembrance Day Ceremony at the school gym. We practiced for this celebration of remembrance today by practicing what it will look like tomorrow.
We also have been reading a story about "5 Little Poppies" and how they can tell us what Remembrance Day really means.
We have been making a wreath that celebrates our friendship in the classroom with handprints that join together. Check it out!

Building a mouse house

Today we reread the story if you take a mouse to school and as an initiative from the story, have decided to build our own mouse house. We used a graph to help us decide on the color that we would paint our mouse house. We then put up our picture over the color that we wanted. The color red won. It had six people over top of the color. Three people wanted the color orange. One person wanted green and one person wanted blue. We had a lot of fun painting the mouse house red.
Since our theme was building today, we also had a lot of fun building with different materials during center time. Check out our creations!

Halloween Haunts, Pumpkins and Spiders...

On Friday, October 29 we had our Halloween celebration in the pre-kindergarten room. We started the day by showing our boo-tiful costumes to the other classrooms in the school with the annual costume parade. We had little witches, cowboys, princesses, knights and ladybugs but the most popular costume had to be spiderman (4 regular spiderman and 1 black spiderman). We had so many superheroes in our room we knew that we would be well protected!
We proudly told everyone our poem about the five little pumpkins and showed off our counting skills with a show of our fingers in 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5!
5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said "Oh my it's getting late!"
The second one said "There are witches in the air."
The third one said "But we don't care..."
The fouth one said "Let's run and run and run"
The fifth one said "I'm ready for some fun"
Woosh went the wind
Out went the lights
And the 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight!
After that we played ghost beanbag toss where we had to toss the beanbag into the ghosts mouth and make him eat it. We had delicious cupcakes baked by Miss W. and we had some treats from fellow classmates.
November 1, 2010
Today we completed our spiders and our pumpkins.
We had a visitor who talked about what we should do if we get mad. We met Tucker the turtle who had some things that we can do when we might lose our temper.
Tucker the turtle doesn't hurt others when he gets mad.
Instead he tucks his hands by his side.
He tucks his feet to himself.
He tucks his lips together and takes 3 deep breathes.
And he remembers to ask someone for help like a teacher or another adult who is near.
And lastly Tucker the turtle thinks before he acts and likes to share with others.

Carving our pumpkins!

Today we opened up our pumpkins. Their insides looked like spiderwebs and were very stringy!!! The big pumpkin did not have very many seeds. The little pumpkin had lots of seeds. WE HAD LOTS OF FUN GETTING OUR HANDS DIRTY and dropping the ewey goey pumpkin guts into the bowl. Tomorrow we will make a pumpkin book using the seeds from inside the pumpkin! It will be lots of fun!

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Monday October 18, 2010

Yesterday, two students were very busy creating a mouse house for the mouse who lives in the story "If you take a Mouse to School."

I thought I might share different students mouse house designs. Enjoy!

Its Education Week!

We have been very busy in the pre-k room. We have been learning the poem the five little pumpkins. Please have your child show you the numbers on their fingers from 1-5. Where else in your house could you find one, two, three, four or five? How else could you show these numbers?

We also have been learning about how things can be different sizes. We have pumpkins in our room that are labelled "big", "medium" and little. We also knew other size words like tiny and huge. What can you find in your house that is big, medium or little?

We used leaves to make leaf rubbings with crayons. You can make your own leaf rubbings at home.

• collect some leaves
• take them inside
• place under a paper
• hold the paper still with whatever hand you don't color with
• rub the side of a crayon over top of the leaf under the paper
• when completely finished lift paper off and admire

Today in celebration of Education Week, we had a school wide picnic in the gym. We had a lot of fun listening to the grade sixes play their band instruments and Mrs. Piot as she drew names for draw prizes. There was free chocolate milk for all and the blankets spread on the gym floor enabled everyone to have a comfy place to sit. Parents, students and staff all enjoyed a friendly picnic in our school gymnasium. It was lots of fun!

Non-Pre-K Day!

I hope that everyone had a relaxing and fun thanksgiving long weekend.
Letters have been sent home regarding book orders so please look for them in your children's communication book.
We are also on the lookout for:

• small sour cream and yogurt containers
• large ice cream pails and lids
• small containers from applesauce or fruit bottom yogurts
• paper towel and toilet paper rolls

Hope everyone's eager to come back to school tomorrow!!!

Miss Boake 

Happy Turkey Day!!!

Today we read the book "There was an old lady who swallowed some leaves" and then she sneezed leaves all over us! AAAACHOOO!
We made a handprint turkey and read about 5 little turkeys sitting on fence!
We then enjoyed the beautiful day outside!

On the hunt for "Leaf Man!"

Today we read the book "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert. This book is about a leaf man who lives in a tree and when the wind begins to blow he is taken on an adventure. Since the wind is so unpredicatable, leaf man was unsure about where he would end up. We were sure that he must be outside Grenfell Elementary Community School so we went on a hunt for him!
We practiced our routine of using "lips and hips" and holding our partners hands in the hallway. Each pair of students got a basket so that they could collect their own parts for their very own leaf man. We had a lot of fun frolicing in the fall leaves!
We then came in and put together our leaf men using all of the leaves that we had collected. Our leaf men from the story turned out great! Here are the instuctions to try making your very own leaf man at home. Go outside and collect leaves, twigs, branches and pine cones. Bring them inside and assemble. Don't forget about arms, legs, feet, a neck, fingers, ears, a nose, mouth and of course some eyes! Use some white glue to glue the leaf man onto a heavy piece of construction paper. Let dry overnight. Hang up somewhere where you can admire him.
I hope that you have fun making your own leaf man. We sure did!!!