One More Week!!

It’s hard to believe there are only 4 days left of school.  Everyone has been working hard on some end of year projects in the classroom. 

Wednesday was our last lunch bunch and we talked about the 5 food groups and all the Blue Whales sorted their snack and lunch to fit in to the food groups.  Pastor Lee joined us for our last lunch bunch.

Ms. Debbie read the bible story about the miraculous catch of fish and showed a short clip about the story from the show The Chosen.  The children really enjoyed seeing the story come to life.  Ms. Debbie will join us one more time next week to read a bible story to the Blue Whales. 

We had Guess-n-Tell and Ivy did a great job with three clues about her item and calling on friends to guess her item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Ivy’s item because of her great clues.

We ended up with four butterflies and released them on Thursday.  It was very exciting because a few landed on the children’s hands and they got a chance to hold a butterfly.

The Blue Whales discovered acid can dissolve seashells.  The lemon juice worked better than vinegar. 

Isobel, Leland, Molly and Oli did a wonderful job this week as Circle Time Leaders. Everyone enjoyed their facts, questions and impressive moves.

On Monday, May 19th. we are going to walk around Southern Village and go on a letter hunt.

I hope you can join us on our last day of school, Thursday, May 22nd for our End of the Year Celebration from 9:30 – 10:30 am in Ascension Hall.  Please drop off your child in the classroom at the usual 9:00 am in the morning and you can take your child home with you after our celebration. 

Here are some important dates and times for our last week of school:

Monday, May 19th – Walk around Southern Village

            Pick up at 12:00 pm (no lunch bunch)

Wednesday, May 21st  – Pick up at 12:00 pm (no lunch bunch)

Thursday, May 22nd  – Last Day of School

                                    9:30 am – 10:30 am End of Year Celebration in Ascension Hall

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Boats, Pastor Lee and Bible Stories

Our caterpillars are growing quickly.  We are hoping they make their chrysalis over the weekend.  We will do some fun activities with the life cycle of a butterfly next week.

We worked with clay this week and will paint our clay creations next week.

Blue Whales were hard at work on Thursday creating their boats out of recycled materials.  Everyone is looking forward to seeing whether their boat will sink or float next week, there have been many predictions regarding their boats’ fate.

The Blue Whales learned a new song to teach us about the characteristics of insects.

Ms. Debbie joined us on Wednesday and read a Bible story to the class about Abraham, Sarah and Isaac.  Ask your children if they remember what the name Isaac means.  The children were excited to have Ms. Debbie as our surprise guest and she will be joining us each week in May to read Bible stories.

Our class has made a lovely connection with Pastor Lee who leads Chapel time.  Pastor Lee loved our rainbow that the class made and thought it would look great in his office.  The Blue Whales decided they would like to present it to Pastor Lee for him to always remember our class.  All the Blue Whales signed the rainbow and then presented it to him after Chapel on Thursday.  Pastor Lee has joined us in the classroom to teach us a song and will continue visiting us in May. 

We continue to talk about the letters in our first and last names.  We just finished up T on Thursday.  The Blue Whales are doing a fabulous job of thinking of words besides our names that have the letter sounds we talk about. 

The Blue Whales are taking turns leading Circle Time.  They have been doing a great job and we love to watch their confidence grow.  On your child’s day they will 1) Ring the Triangle to transition from Table Top toys to Circle Time, 2)They will choose how they would like to seat the children in Circle Time, 3)They will make sure all the morning jobs are completed, 4)They can choose to make up a Question of the Day or a Fact they would like to share (some of the children may prefer to tell us something rather than ask us something). Below is the schedule for our Circle Time Leaders.

Circle Time Leaders Schedule

Monday, April 28th:  Autumn

Tuesday, April 29th:  Bo

Wednesday, April 30th:  Cailan

Thursday, May 1st:  Eden

Monday, May 5th:  Emmy

Tuesday, May 6th:  Griffin

Wednesday, May 7th:  Isabelle

Thursday, May 8th:  Ivy

Monday, May 12th:  Isobel

Tuesday, May 13th:  Leland

Wednesday, May 14th:  Molly

Thursday, May 15th:  Oli

Monday, May 19th:  Enoch

Please let me know ASAP if your child has a conflict on their scheduled date so I can adjust the schedule. 

Here are some important dates in May for your calendar:

Wednesday, May 14th – last Lunch Bunch

Monday, May 19th – pick up at 12:00 pm (no lunch bunch)

Wednesday, May 21st  – pick up at 12:00 pm (no lunch bunch)

Thursday, May 22nd – Last Day of School

                                    End of Year Celebration in the morning (more information to follow)

Next week we will be talking about caterpillars, butterflies, insects, Mother’s and Father’s Day and sink/float. 

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Caterpillars & Circle Time Leaders

Thank you, parents, for joining us on our field trip to the Planetarium.  From the bus, the planetarium show, the weather and the best Blue Whales and Yellow Ducks we could not have asked for a better day.  And I am happy to say when we discussed what we liked about the field trip the Blue Whales did not all just say the bus.  The Blue Whales enjoyed the whole day. 

Our space unit continued this week.  Everyone is enjoying the imaginary play that is sparking their curiosities and knowledge about space. 

The Blue Whales have been working on their own personal solar system mobiles.  We hope to finish them up on Monday. 

Our solar system hangs from our ceiling as we use that and planet squish balls to talk and sing about the planets each day in circle time.  Ask your child about our planet song, it is helping us all remember the 8 planets.

Our caterpillars joined us on Wednesday.  We are looking forward to observing the caterpillars grow, make their chrysalis and metamorphosize into butterflies. 

Starting next week, the Blue Whales will be taking turns leading Circle Time.  We asked how they felt about leading Circle Time, and everyone was excited.  On your child’s day they will 1) Ring the Triangle to transition from Table Top toys to Circle Time, 2)They will choose how they would like to seat the children in Circle Time, 3)They will make sure all the morning jobs are completed, 4)They can choose to make up a Question of the Day or a Fact they would like to share (some of the children may prefer to tell us something rather than ask us something). Below is the schedule for our Circle Time Leaders.

Circle Time Leaders Schedule

Monday, April 28th:  Autumn

Tuesday, April 29th:  Bo

Wednesday, April 30th:  Cailan

Thursday, May 1st:  Eden

Monday, May 5th:  Emmy

Tuesday, May 6th:  Griffin

Wednesday, May 7th:  Isabelle

Thursday, May 8th:  Ivy

Monday, May 12th:  Isobel

Tuesday, May 13th:  Leland

Wednesday, May 14th:  Molly

Thursday, May 15th:  Oli

Monday, May 19th:  Enoch

Please let me know ASAP if your child has a conflict on their scheduled date so I can adjust the schedule. 

May will be here next week and the Blue Whales can tell you we only have 16 days left of school, as our mathematician works on subtracting and counting down the days left of school.  Here are some important dates in May for your calendar:

Wednesday, May 14th – last Lunch Bunch

Monday, May 19th – pick up at 12:00 pm (no lunch bunch)

Wednesday, May 21st  – pick up at 12:00 pm (no lunch bunch)

Thursday, May 22nd – Last Day of School

                                    End of Year Celebration (more information to follow)

Next week we will be talking about space, caterpillars, butterflies and insects. 

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Space

This week in the classroom we have been exploring space.  NASA headquarters is set up in our housekeeping center with many Blue Whales overseeing the lift off, exploration and landing of many rocket ships to all different places in our solar system.  Boxes have become different rocket ships with much thought into what needs to be included on the rocket ship and how many children can fit in each one.  It has been a joy to watch the enthusiasm and collaboration among our Blue Whales. 

The Blue Whales have been working on their own personal solar system mobiles.  We hope to start assembling them to take home later next week. 

Our solar system hangs from our ceiling as we use that and planet squish balls to talk and sing about the planets each day in circle time.  Ask your child about our planet song, it is helping us all remember the 8 planets.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Oli did a great job with three clues about his item and calling on friends to guess his item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Oli’s item because of his great clues.

The Blue Whales were so kind during our Egg Hunt.  Each child was allowed to find 7 eggs.  The teamwork and caring for each other was a joy to see as everyone made sure each Blue Whale had 7 eggs in their bag. 

Important Information about the Planetarium Field Trip on Tuesday:

On Tuesday, April 22nd we will be taking the city bus and leaving preschool promptly at 8:30 am to walk to the bus.  In order to catch the bus, we will not be able to wait for any late arrivals. Please meet in our classroom by 8:25 am and we can all walk together to the bus stop.

Please pack your child a snack and drink.  After the Planetarium show we will be eating snack as a group outside.  Eating and drinking is prohibited in the Planetarium.

During the next few weeks, we will be talking about space, caterpillars and butterflies. 

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend and a Happy Easter.

100 Days!!

Our windows are covered with bean seeds in plastic bags, and we are hoping to observe them sprout.  So of course, we had to read Jack and the Beanstalk.  The message we all took away from the story is honesty and how important it is to tell the truth. 

The Blue Whales planted seeds for cucumbers, flowers and various seeds from snack, lunch and home.  They have been watering them each day and they will go home with everyone on Thursday.  We talked about the plant life cycle and the parts of a plant. 

We used eye droppers and watercolors to create flowers on giant coffee filters.  The Blue Whales had so much fun using those busy fingers and mixing colors.

Cailan and Eden had birthday celebrations this week.  The Blue Whales enjoyed listening to their favorite books with Cailan’s and Eden’s families and eating the yummy treats.

We celebrated 100 Days of School.  The Blue Whales had to find 100 numbered lollipops hidden throughout the classroom and then match them to the number on our 100 chart.  Everyone did a great job searching and matching their numbers and we found 98 lollipops.  So there will be a mystery to solve the where abouts of the other two lollipops on Monday.  Every Blue Whale filled a bag with 100 snack items.  There were 10 different snacks and they had to count 10 pieces from each snack.  They enjoyed their snack bags.  At the end of the day, they enjoyed ice cream cups with cherries, sprinkles and gummy worms.  Within the classroom there were opportunities to make crowns with the number 100, use stickers with numbers and beads with numbers. And the decorations, just wow, included balloons, streamers and stickers.  Our room looked fabulous. 

Each Blue Whale shared their 100th Day Museum bag with the class.  It was fun to see what each child chose and how they counted 100 items. 

We did 10 different exercises 10 times each, so 100 exercise moves.  The Blue Whales really enjoyed it and did a great job.  They brought home the list so they can challenge their parents and siblings to the 100 workout!

We had Guess-n-Tell and Autumn did a great job with clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Autumn’s item because of her great clues.

Important Upcoming Dates:

· Thursday, April 17th:  Picture Day - Individual and Class Photos

· Monday, April 21st: Preschool closed - Easter Monday

· Tuesday, April 22nd:  Field Trip to Morehead Planetarium.  We will be taking the city bus and leaving preschool promptly at 8:30 am to walk to the bus.  In order to catch the bus, we will not be able to wait for any late arrivals.

During the next few weeks, we will be talking about Easter, space, Earth Day, plants, caterpillars and butterflies.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Rainbows!!

The Blue Whales had so much fun with rainbows the last few weeks.  The children made all the items needed to produce a rainbow which we used to decorate the classroom (cloud, rain drops, sun and a rainbow).  They were so proud of their work.  There were opportunities to make rainbows all over the classroom in the blocks, at the easel, in the art center, with legos on the light table and necklaces and bracelets.  We talked about the order of the colors and danced to some rainbow songs. 

The Blue Whales worked together to paint an amazing giant rainbow that we hung on the loft.  It was wonderful to see the cooperation, organization and collaboration among the children.  They were so excited to see their rainbow hanging up in the classroom.  We added some rain drops, a sun and a cloud made by our Blue Whale friends. 

On the rainy Monday we had an impromptu yarn party.  The Blue Whales had so much fun with a big box of various textures and colors of yarn.  There was so many different skills and schemas being explored all through the fun and play.  Even more impressive all the children helped clean up the mess.  Check out the photos of the before in our Blue Whales album and you will see that involved a lot of work where the children became resourceful using their busy fingers, brooms and tape balls. 

We did the Rainbow Walking Water experiment and introduced color mixing and allowed the Blue Whales to see what happens when they mix primary colors.

We had fun with the Rain Cloud in a Jar Experiment and incorporated some fine motor practice using the droppers.  The shaving cream represents the clouds and the water represents the air. The colored water represents rain. As the colored water saturates the “cloud”, it gets heavy and eventually is so heavy that it can no longer hold the water. We also continued are color mixing work.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Bo did a great job with clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Bo’s item because of his great clues.

Important Upcoming Dates:

· March 31st through April 4th:  Preschool closed for Spring Break

· Thursday, April 10th:  Happy 100th Day Celebration

· Thursday, April 17th:  Picture Day - Individual and Class Photos

· Monday, April 21st: Preschool closed - Easter Monday

· Tuesday, April 22nd:  Field Trip to Morehead Planetarium.  We will be taking the city bus and each child is allowed one chaperone.  This is such a fun event to extend our learning about space.  More details will follow as we get closer to the date. 

A huge heartfelt thanks for an amazing Teacher Appreciation Week.  Ms. Beth and I felt so appreciated and loved.  And we had a wonderful day celebrating Ms. Beth’s birthday thanks to your sweet children.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a wonderful spring break. 

Rhyme Time!

Which animals migrate, hibernate and stay active in the winter? The Blue Whales are curious learners with great questions.  We answered all these questions and more through books, songs, door display, circle time discussions and some good old google research.  We will continue our investigation throughout this month with circle time activities and look forward to any new questions that send us on a quest for answers.

Our loft turned in to a cave and there were many smiles as they played with flashlights and stuffed animals. 

Busy fingers were put to work with clay to make bears.  They painted their beautiful creations. 

The Blue Whales have been working hard on rhyming words.  We played a matching game and unlocked some locks all using rhyming words.  We have also read some great rhyming books that have led to discussions about all things rhyming.  We also talked about opposites and positional words.

There is some form of order everywhere we look.  We talked about it in our visual schedule, in our favorite books and in simple tasks.  We practiced story order using nursery rhymes and sequencing cards. 

The Blue Whales met Mat Man again this week.  Mat Man is a song with pieces that help children learn how to draw a person using shapes.  The Blue Whales built Mat Man as they listened to the song

We had Guess-n-Tell and Eden did a great job with clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Eden’s item because of her great clues.

Molly’s family read her favorite book to the class to celebrate her half birthday.  Molly treated her friends to popsicles.  The Blue Whales enjoyed our birthday celebration. 

Ms. Beth and I look forward to talking to our parents at conferences on Wednesday, March 12th and Thursday, March 13th about all our wonderful Blue Whales and strengthening our school/home relationship.  These conferences are for adults only. 

Important Upcoming Dates:

Wednesday, March 12th & Thursday, March 13th: Spring Conferences.  Preschool is closed on both days.

Wednesday, March 26th:  Spring Music Program – Ms. Vicki invites all parents/special adults to come to Ascension Hall after drop-off.  Ms. Vicki will have some light refreshments for adults and the children will sing several songs for you to show what they have learned in music class. It will last about half an hour.

Monday, March 31st – Friday, April 4th:  Spring Break, Preschool Closed

Friday, April 18th & Monday, April 21st:  Good Friday & Easter Monday – preschool closed

Tuesday, April 22nd:  Field Trip to Morehead Planetarium.  We will be taking the city bus and each child is allowed one chaperone.  This is such a fun event to extend our learning about space.  More details will follow as we get closer to the date. 

Next week we will be using recyclables to make leprechaun traps.  We would love to have any recyclables and please bring them in by the morning of Tuesday, March 11th.  Anything goes, the Blue Whales love to use their imaginations. Thank you in advance for any contributions.

I read this quote that Rae Pica shared from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and it really spoke to me.  "The lifelong success of children is based on their ability to be creative and to apply the lessons learned from playing." Your children work hard every day through their play, and we feel privileged to be an eyewitness to their growth and development.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Happy Valentine's Day

The Blue Whales had a fabulous week.  A huge thank you to all our parents for your donations, support and time in helping make this week so special.

On Monday Cailan’s sister and mom introduced us to Frida Kahlo.  The Blue Whales created their own self-portrait collages that included their favorite places, animals and activities.  We are thankful to Davenne and Ainara for taking the time to help the Blue Whales tap into their creative side.

On Wednesday we celebrated Bo’s real 5th Birthday.  The Blue Whales make us laugh because they have been calling the half birthdays, fake birthdays.  Bo’s family read some great stories and brought some delicious treats to share with the class. 

We worked on problem-solving skills, cognitive skills through visual-spatial awareness, fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination and accomplished all of this through a heart puzzle activity.  They are decorating our hall outside the room, and it is wonderful to see all the different configurations.

On Thursday the Blue Whales exchanged Valentines with their friends and teachers.  We celebrated the day with some pampering of our Blue Whales.  Our Spa Party was a huge success.  The children were heard saying how much they loved it and really immersed themselves in the spa vibe.  The Blue Whales were treated by our fabulous parents to manicures, tattoos, fairy hair, face paint, face masks, pedicures, feet soaks and leg rubs.  The photos in our Blue Whale album show you what a good time everyone had.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Enoch did a great job with clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Enoch’s item because of his great clues.

Preschool is closed Monday, February 17th for a Teacher Workday.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice long weekend. 

Home Addresses

The Blue Whales made a special surprise Valentine for their families that will arrive in the mail.  They challenged themselves with their cutting and writing.  We took a walk to the mailbox and each child mailed their Valentine.  It was very exciting, be on the lookout for something special in your mailboxes.

Our home addresses have led us to informative and meaningful discussions about numbers, streets, cities and states.  We are practicing saying, identifying and writing different parts of our address. 

We used our house numbers to find a spot at circle time and to practice writing and identifying numbers. 

We went on a walk around Southern Village on Monday and were searching for numbers, street signs and shapes throughout the marketplace buildings, townhouses and homes.  We also stopped and played on a playground in Southern Village.  It was an exciting and busy day.

The children are working hard on a house project and using many skills to complete the project.

At circle time we started a question of the day (ex. Do you have an “Aa” in your name?).  The Blue Whales are enjoying this new activity.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Griffin did a great job with clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Griffin’s item because of his great clues.

The Blue Whales worked on some dances for the Valentine’s Dance.

Items for your calendar:

Monday, February 10th:  Art Project with Davenne & Ainara (Cailan’s mom & sister) – If you have not brought in your images answering the questions about favorite places, activities and animals please do so by Monday morning so we will have all the needed materials for the project that morning.

Thursday, February 13th:  Valentine Exchange and Spa Party – please help your child distribute their Valentines in the bags in the hall before they enter the classroom.  The children will not go through the bags at school.  Below is the list of names for everyone in our class:

Autumn

Bo

Cailan

Eden

Emmy

Enoch

Griffin

Isabelle

Isobel

Ivy

Leland

Molly

Oli

Ms. Missy

Ms. Beth

(Kyle sent out a Sign-Up Genius with more information about our Spa Party)

Monday, February 17th:  Teacher Workday/Preschool closed for children

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

What a week!!!

What a great week!  The Blue Whales were busy with classroom activities and alumni visitors that taught us exciting new things. 

On Monday we wore our favorite socks and took off our shoes to show them off.  We talked about fiction and nonfiction stories and read a nonfiction story about how Band Aids were invented.  We had fun with Band Aids in an art project.  Our busy fingers were hard at work trying to open all those Band Aids.  Levi, Isabelle Z.’s brother and a former Blue Whale, visited the classroom and did a science experiment.  He was able to blow up a balloon just using vinegar and baking soda and then he gave all the Blue Whales a chance to see what happens when you mix baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring.  We really enjoyed having Levi visit and thank you to Isabelle and Levi’s mom for setting up this fun science experiment for our class.

Team Tuesday had a lot of UNC fans but there were other college and professional teams represented.  We even had a Team Earth fan.  We talked about our home addresses and practiced writing our house numbers.  It was so exciting to learn that other friends had some of the same numbers in their addresses and that we all lived in North Carolina.  We celebrated Emmy’s half birthday and enjoyed a great story and tasty snack with her mom.

The Blue Whales came in strong on Wacky Wednesday.  It was so fun to see everyone’s interpretation of wacky.  Liam, a former Blue Whale, and his mom came in to talk to us about Chinese New Year.  They told us the story of how it began and taught us a few Mandarin words.  This is the year of the snake, so Liam helped us make a paper snake.  And they sent home a red envelope with pretend gold money that was chocolate.  It was so fun and informative to spend the morning with Liam and his mom.

And to end the week on Thursday everyone wore their cozy jammies and some fun slippers.  We continued working on our home addresses and it was amazing what our Blue Whales already remembered about their addresses.  The highlight of the day was our snack of pancakes, syrup and fruit.  Thank you to all the wonderful parents for all of your help with this special day. 

Next week we will continue with our home addresses and have a few special projects focusing on our addresses and houses.  We also will start investigating and discussing the letters in our first and last names. 

We have some fun events coming up over the next few weeks.  Below are the ones with scheduled dates to add to your calendar:

Monday, February 3rd:  We will be taking a Southern Village Walk to further explore house numbers, house features and street signs.  Please wear comfortable shoes for our walk.

Thursday, February 6th:  We will be taking another short Southern Village walk for a special surprise your Blue Whales will tell you about on that day. 

Friday, February 7th:  Valentine’s Dance (6:00 -7:30 pm). Join us for a fun night in Ascension Hall.  The Blue Whales will be practicing their dance moves in class all week.

Monday, February 10th:  We will have another art project with Cailan’s mom and sister.  This one will not be messy but be on the lookout for another email on how you can help contribute to this fun project. 

Thursday, February 13th:  Valentine’s Exchange and Spa Party (I sent an email with more information about how we exchange Valentines in the Blue Whales last week and Kyle sent out a Sign Up Genius with more information about our pampering spa party).

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Fun with Letters

The Blue Whales are learning each other’s last names.  And talking about the letters in our first and last names.

Letter stickers and letter beads were used to practice learning the letters in our name and in what order they belong.  And then we practiced writing the letters in our name in order.

We did a journal page of a snowman and practiced writing our first and last names.  The Blue Whales were quite proud of themselves for their ability to try hard things and surprised themselves on how well they did with their names. 

We have letter games, letter magnets, letter playdough stamps, letter ink stamps and letter stickers out for the Blue Whales to explore letters through play.

Shaving cream and glue make a fun puffy paint which the Blue Whales used to make snowy artwork.  They really enjoyed painting with the puffy paint and using their busy fingers to add the little details of eyes, noses, buttons and sticks. 

All the Blue Whales helped take down our New Year decorations and some made art projects with the left-over decorations.  It was a fun way to practice using scissors.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Isobel did a great job with three clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Isobel’s item because of her great clues. 

We celebrated Griffin’s half birthday on Wednesday and enjoyed a great story and tasty snack with his family.  For our summer birthday friends we are celebrating their half birthdays.  We have two more half birthdays to celebrate next week. 

We have some fun events coming up over the next few weeks.  Below are the ones with scheduled dates to add to your calendar:

Monday, January 20th:  Preschool closed – MLK Day

Monday, January 27th:  Favorite Socks Day

Tuesday, January 28th:  Team Tuesday (wear gear from your favorite team)

Wednesday, January 29th:  Wacky Wednesday (wacky clothes, hair, the wackier the better)

Thursday, January 30th:  Pajamas and Pancakes (wear your PJs to school and we will enjoy pancakes – Kyle will be sending more information about our fun Pancakes and PJs day)

Thursday, February 13th:  Valentine’s Exchange and Spa Party (I will send more information about how we exchange Valentines in the Blue Whales and Kyle will send more information about our pampering spa party)

In a few weeks we will be talking about our home addresses and going for some walks through Southern Village to further our discussions.  Please send me an email with your home address so I can verify I have it correct on my class roster. 

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Happy New Year!

Although we didn’t have the healthiest start this year in the Blue Whales class, it sure was a very happy start! We started the week off with almost a full house and lots of fun dancing, singing and reconnecting with friends. There was a disco ball, decorations, karaoke microphone and balloons to add to the fun.

And to finish off our first week of school in 2025 we were down to 5 students and ended up going to La Vita Dolce for some hot chocolate to warm up after our walk around Southern Village.

We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas and talked about the similarities and differences in the two books.  The Blue Whales enjoy story time and it leads to some thoughtful discussions

Throughout the room we had many games and toys with a literary focus as the Blue Whales work on letters, letter formation and letter sounds this month.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Ivy did a great job with three clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Ivy’s item because of her great clues. 

This month we will talk about letters, hibernation, winter, MLK, opposites and last names. We have a Teddy Bear Picnic, Pancake & Pajamas and a theme week coming up this month. More information will follow about each of these fun events.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend and hoping we get enough snow that the kiddos can play in and enjoy.

Numbers and Christmas

Numbers, numbers and more numbers have dominated our last few weeks in the classroom.  We have been working with patterns, measuring, Venn diagrams, rote counting, subitizing, number formation, addition, and subtraction all in our play and daily routines.  Ms. Beth and I are so impressed with these smart and curious Blue Whales.

The Blue Whales enjoyed decorating our classroom for Christmas with lights, garland and stockings. The children know this is their classroom and were proud of their decorating abilities.

On Wednesday Bo’s mom, Kyle, joined us during center time to help the children put together their gingerbread houses.  And then the fun and creativity continued Thursday when parents joined us to decorate the gingerbread houses and gingerbread cookies to enjoy with their frosting, candies and sprinkles.  A huge thank you to our wonderful families for your donations, time, support and enthusiasm for this festive holiday activity.  It was a wonderful event.

 The children have been working on a special gift and card to bring home to you.  They practiced their patterning skills in small groups with red, white and green cubes and by creating a candy cane ornament. 

Christmas tree puzzles (a green paper triangle cut into strips) were available for the Blue Whales to figure out how to put the Christmas tree back together and decorate it with shiny gems.  It was fascinating to watch how each child approached the task and created beautiful unique Christmas trees. You can see their amazing work hanging outside our classroom.

We continued to rip a link each day on our green and red paper chain for our Countdown to Christmas. Every day a child rips a link off as we countdown to Christmas.  The children are talking about ripping the links on their chains at home too.

We are spreading kindness at our STEM table where we had boxes, gift wrap and small gifts.  The children can pick an eraser, tatoo and/or sticker to put in a box and wrap and then give to another child in the classroom.  We reused the boxes.  The Blue Whales are such kind friends and I’m sure you have seen the stickers, tatoos and erasers in your child’s backpack.  They are also practicing their measuring, estimating, cutting and fine motor skills and having so much fun.  I think all of you have some excellent helpers if you need assistance with gift wrapping at home.  

We read The Gingerbread Man and The Gingerbread Girl and talked about the similarities and differences in the two books.  The Blue Whales enjoy story time and it leads to some thoughtful discussions.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Leland did a great job with three clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Leland’s item because of his great clues. 

PRESCHOOL CHRISTMAS CONCERT - Please plan to join us for our concert on Wed, Dec. 18 at 9:30. Drop your children in the classroom at 9:00 and then find a seat in the sanctuary. This concert is our Christmas gift of love to you. After the concert, we will say goodbye for the holidays.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Thankful!!

We took a walk in Southern Village and found a fun photo op that we will display in the hall soon. The Blue Whales were wonderful safekeepers on the walk and enjoyed the change of scenery.  We went on a nature walk around the church to collect pinecones and any other items that caught our attention.  We used our nature finds for nature art. 

The Blue Whales were all about creating this week.  They made some adorable turkeys with pinecones and feathers.  It is so wonderful to see everyone’s turkeys look so different as each child adds their personality to their works of art.  Autumn led the class in making popsicle turkeys like the one she made at home.  It was a fun project and Autumn was so helpful to her friends.

We did another page in our journal where each child said what they were thankful for and that always makes us smile. 

We feel very lucky to be part of the Christ Church Preschool family and the Blue Whales family.  We loved hearing about each of our Blue Whale friend’s families.  Everyone did a great job with getting in front of the class and talking about their family photo.  We continued our focus on numbers and talked about how many people are in our families.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Oli did a great job with three clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Oli’s item because of his great clues. 

We had our first Blue Whale birthday celebration for Leland and we enjoyed listening to his favorite book. Leland’s mom brought in yummy popsicles to share with the class.

We do have school on Monday and Tuesday next week.  We will not be changing classroom jobs; each child will have the same job from this week.   

Preschool is closed Wednesday, November 27th through Friday, November 29th for Thanksgiving break. 

We understand some of our families will be starting their travels soon and may not be at school next week.  Ms. Beth and I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.  We are so thankful for our amazing and adorable Blue Whales and our fabulous families. 

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Numbers, Dogs and a Soldier!

We have immersed ourselves with numbers this week in many ways. There were been number games using our memory, dice and Zingo. Our scale was out using weighted cupcakes and numbers to try to balance each side. We read Ten Black Dots and the Blue Whales used their own 10 black dots to create art.

The Blue Whales had a special visit from Eden's Dad, Josh. It was so exciting to see a real soldier in his uniform and get to try on some of his equipment. Josh spent some time explaining what he does for the Army and granting the children's wishes of having a sticker to remember this special event. Thank you to Josh and all the men and women we honor on Veterans' Day. We had a wonderful discussion about the American flag, the branches of the armed forces and Veterans Day.  The children made their own version of the flag, and we had a Happy Veterans Day parade through the classrooms, around the building and on the playground as they waved their homemade flags. It was so much fun and pretty cute too! We also touched on the 50 states represented by the stars on the flag and that we live in the state of North Carolina.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Bo did a great job with clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Bo’s item because of his great clues. But Bo surprised them with a stuffed dog and his real dogs were outside waiting to say hello to the Blue Whales.  Everyone enjoyed meeting Hank and Cooper.

Be sure to check out the Blue Whales photo album and see our exciting week in photos.

Each child will have the opportunity to share their family photo with the class over the next few weeks as we talk about families and being thankful. And we will continue all things numbers next week.

The Southern Village community has a lot to offer to extend what we are learning in our classroom.  I will be sending an email to all families today asking for your permission to walk around Southern Village to explore their trails, playgrounds and other opportunities.  Please respond ASAP with a yes or no for permission to walk around the Southern Village neighborhood as a class and the best phone number to reach you. We will keep a list of that information with us whenever we leave the church grounds.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Happy Halloween!!

The Blue Whales continued to have fun with pumpkins this week.  We pounded golf tees in pumpkins.  Used screwdrivers to put screws in pumpkins.  And decorated pumpkins with push pins. 

Memories were challenged with a fun memory game using Halloween objects. The Blue Whales enjoyed the challenge and loved setting up the game for the next friend. Even though it was an independent game there was so much cooperation and support for each other.

There was sensory fun with shaving cream and make your own oobleck. A messy room is a sign of a productive day of fun and learning. And our room was quite messy this week!

In the classroom we sang songs about pumpkins and jack o’lanterns.  The Blue Whales designed our jack o’lanterns and took turns carving the pumpkins. 

We read a book that required an action when they saw something on the page and heard something I read.  The Blue Whales worked on listening skills, multi-step directions and working memory all while we laughed and enjoyed a book together. 

Thank you for joining us on Thursday for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village.  The children really enjoyed showing off their costumes and it was so nice to have so many families join our parade.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Cailan did a great job with three clues about his item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Cailan’s item because of his great clues. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 6th and 7th, we will celebrate “SCHOOL SPIRIT DAYS” at Christ Church Preschool! You can wear your CCP shirts or wear your class color - YELLOW Ducks, BLUE Whales, RED Ladybugs, GREEN Frogs. WE LOVE CCP!! (A special thanks to Carolyn Ziemer for organizing our shirt sales this year!!) We will have another spirit day in the spring, too. (Of course, you can wear your CCP apparel anytime!)

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Firefighters and Pumpkins

The Blue Whales had fun with pumpkins this week.  We used screwdrivers to put screws in pumpkins.  And decorated pumpkins with push pins.  And the children didn’t even realize that they were working on their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.  The children are always learning through their play.

We decorated our pumpkins this week based on the work by artist Yayoi Kusama.  We read her biography and learned that she is from Japan and saw the world through dots.  She translated that to her artwork and touched upon the concept of infinity.  It led to a wonderful discussion about the dots in her artwork and infinity.  The Blue Whales had various resources to make dots on their pumpkins, such as q-tips, tips of pencil erasers, dot gems and push pins.  They loved being artists and it was so fun to see how different each pumpkin turned out. 

The children were very busy decorating our classroom this week with spider webs, plastic spiders and bats.  They made amazing jack o’lanterns in a salad spinner. It was a true group effort, and they really enjoyed the ownership of decorating their classroom. 

We did some color sorting with buttons. And then counted how many of each color button we had and what was the smallest number and what was the biggest number. All the Blue Whales practiced writing the numbers for each amount of buttons on dry erase boards. They were so proud of themselves and each other for trying their personal best.

Cutting was a popular activity this week. Each Blue Whale cut out a circle and turned it into a jack o'lantern as we talked about the proper way to hold scissors and use our helping hand. There was cobweb fun with white yarn as they wrapped themselves in "cobwebs" and cut all different sizes of yarn. And our responsible and helpful Blue Whales picked up the many strings of yarn on the carpet with their busy fingers. They worked so hard on their fine motor skills and didn't even know it.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Eden did a great job with three clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Eden’s item because of her great clues. 

Important Information for October:

- Thursday, October 31st: - We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village. Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at 9:00 a.m. The Blue Whales will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. and start our parade with the Yellow Ducks class. Families are welcome to dress up too. Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade. If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

October Fun!

It was so wonderful to meet with each family to talk about your amazing children at conferences. Thank you for taking the time to strengthen our school/family relationship.

The Blue Whales enjoyed listening to The Leaf Thief and talking about wind. We talked about bats and what makes them special. We even practiced echolocation in the classroom. And to further their learning through play the Blue Whales pretended they were nocturnal bats sleeping upside down on the playground. Check out the cute photos in the Blue Whale photo album. We wrapped up our bat discussion with the book Stellaluna, that everyone enjoyed.

There were lots of laughs as we read Press Here. It led us to a discussion and hands on activity about patterns. The Blue Whales tried to create AB and ABC patterns with different color unifix cubes. And later in the week we met in small groups to work on patterns with dot stickers.

Next week the Blue Whales will be decorating their classroom for Halloween. On Thursday they made a group spider web complete with handprint spiders, that should be a spooky addition to our Halloween decorations.

We had Guess-n-Tell and Emmy did a great job with three clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item. The Blue Whales were able to guess Emmy’s item because of her great clues.

Important Dates and Information for October:

- Monday, October 21st: If each child could bring in a small pumpkin by this date, we will be using them for an art project.

- Tuesday, October 22nd: FIRE TRUCK - The Chapel Hill Fire Dept will bring their truck for a visit. Usually, the fire fighters show us how they look & sound when wearing all their gear. Then they take us, class by class, to look at the truck!

- Tuesday, October 31st: - We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village. Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at 9:00 a.m. The Blue Whales will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. and start our parade with the Yellow Ducks class. Families are welcome to dress up too. Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade. If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day.

Thank you Kyle for creating the Sign Up Genius to donate large pumpkins for our classroom and thank you families for your pumpkin contributions. It is appreciated.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Shapes, shapes and more shapes were the focus of the week in the Blue Whale classroom.  We read some wonderful stories about shapes and explored shapes in different ways throughout the classroom.

We had Guess-n-Tell twice this week. Griffin and Isabelle did a great job with three clues about their items and calling on friends to guess the items.  The Blue Whales were able to guess Griffin’s and Isabelle’s items because of their great clues.

We had a messy, creative, exciting and informative day on Thursday learning about Jackson Pollock and experimenting with his process to create art. A huge thank you to Cailan’s mom, Davenne, and big sister, Ainara, who created this amazing experience for the children and shared their knowledege, enthusiasm and wonderful information about the artist. Ainara is a former Blue Whale so it was so nice to have her in the classroom. The Blue Whales really enjoyed painting with her.

Leland’s big brother, Fenton, joined us one afternoon to read The Gruffalo to the class.  Fenton is a former Blue Whale, and it was wonderful to have him in the classroom.  The Blue Whales really enjoyed listening to Fenton read to them.

I’m looking forward to meeting for Fall Conferences next week on Tuesday, October 8th and Wednesday, October 9th. The conferences will meet in the Music Room which is across from Debbie’s office. There will be signs in the hall to help direct everyone.  Ms. Jane will be joining Ms. Beth in the classroom on Tuesday and Wednesday while I meet with parents. 

Important Dates and Information for October:

·      Tuesday, October 15th – Individual Photos by David Gellatly (we will not have messy activities that day)

·      Tuesday, October 31st - We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village.  Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at 9:00 a.m.  The Blue Whales will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. and start our parade with the Yellow Ducks class.  Families are welcome to dress up too.  Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade.  If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day 

·      If each child could bring in a small pumpkin by Monday, October 21st, we will be using them for an art project.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend. 

Busy Fingers, Sleeping Fingers

What a busy week of school.  This was our first week of Lunch Bunch on Monday and Wednesday.  The children were so excited to have lunch with their Blue Whale friends and teachers.

We sang Where is Thumbkin and practiced finger isolation.  And that led us to our discussion about busy fingers and sleeping fingers.  Thumb, pointer and tall man are the busy fingers and ring man and pinky are the sleeping fingers.  Each child received a cotton ball for ring man and pinky to sleep on while the rest of their fingers stay busy.   This is helping your child develop a tripod grasp which will help them manipulate many things including toys, tweezers, glue and writing utensils.  We read books about a mouse and a squirrel that we had to take through an adventure in each book using our busy fingers. 

Our friends worked on prewriting activities by tearing paper and making paper plate self-portraits.  Each Blue Whale looked in the mirror trying to match paper strips to their skin color, eye color, lip color, hair color and any other important attributes.  They are hanging up in the hall and each one is so unique with added details that were important to each child. 

Enoch’s big brother, Simon, joined us one morning to read The Day the Crayons Quit to the class.  Simon is a former Blue Whale, and it was wonderful to have him in the classroom.  The Blue Whales really enjoyed listening to Simon read to them.

The Blue Whales met Mat Man this week.  Mat Man is a song with pieces that help children learn how to draw a person using shapes.  The Blue Whales built Mat Man as they listened to the song.  After they each drew themselves for their first journal page. The Blue Whales will bring home their journals at the end of the year.

Our friend Autumn helped us change our season this week from Summer to Autumn.  It was very exciting! We talked about what to expect in autumn and we even saw a few leaves falling on the playground. 

The Blue Whales have discovered the joy of glitter glue. During all the fun using many different glittering colors, they had no idea how hard they were working on using those busy fingers and strengthening their fine motor skills. We are going through a lot of glitter glue and I have added it to The Blue Whales Wish List, if anyone would like to contribute to our supply.

We have a few old flip style cell phones in the classroom that were a huge hit this week. If you have any collecting dust at your home, we would love to help you declutter.

We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends.   Hope everyone has a nice weekend.