Our first full day of PreK for 2014-2015

First of all,it was wonderful to have all of the kids arrive before starting time, so a Thank you to parents for that accomplishment!!
We had our usual little happenings, before they settled down, but they were minor and we moved on with the day!!As usual, I made name tags for each one of them and each one had little tiles with the letters of their name so that they can learn the letters and their order.  It is easy to match letters, but not so easy to know that this child, for instance, has a name that starts wit the letter "J' and the following letters are a n e.

 Each child has their picture on the left side and a picture of their house on the other.

 I told them the story "The day a monster came to school" and they helped make some rules for us to follow They were each given a little monster and we wrote things like Being Quiet, Keep hands to self, sit on our chair.

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We looked at the map and I showed them the state of Pennsylvania, where I was born.  Then we talked about the state that we live in and I got right answers from everyone.  ARIZONA

 We talked about the red white and blue flag and that there are 50 stars, one to represent each state

 I was side tracked when they wanted to know when they were going to go to the play room to play.  I told them what to look for on the clock so they can help me when it is time.

 
 

We worked with the calendar and named the month of August.  We then sang a song about the days of the week.  In the even that you do not know it, it goes like this (to the Addams family tune)  Days of the week (clap, clap) Days of the week, Repeat claps, Days of the week , repeat the claps.  There's Sunday and there ='s Monday, there's Tuesday and there is Wednesday, there is Thursday and there is Friday, and there is Saturday.   I have a Cat in the Hat light up pointer stick and they each got a chance to use it.  I reminded them that the days that we come to school are the two "T's" Tuesday and Thusday.

 Then we talked about the weather outside--no snow days, ha ha

 Jane got to use the pointer so that we could see the numbers from 1-10  and above the numbers are the alphabet and each of the children used the pointer to sing the alphabet song and tap each letter.

 Our rules

On the first day of school I usually read the book "The Kissing Hand" to the kids.  I have this little hand puppet "Chester" and I put it on my hand to start the story.  Of course each one of them wants to hold the raccoon or put it on their hand.  A cute story and a set up for the activity after their snack time, and while they are still at the kitchen table.

 Here we are mixing the pink flesh color for the hand

Chase is still eating his fishes and working on frosting the hand and Tripp is starting to frost his, too

 And after they finished their hands with the little heart in the middle, they frosted  a heart of their own and guess who couldn't wait to get a bite of hers??

After we finished frosting and eating cookies, we went down to the basement to play.  Since they had gotten out toys on Thursday, the first thing we did was put things away.  They all pitched in and found out where the toys belonged as they put them away. 

 From that, to this!!  Looks pretty good!!

 When we got back upstairs, We went back to tidy up the preschool room and then found our shoes, put them on, and listened to the bells.  Each one was to find their own bell and watch it so that they could tell when their sound was made. 

I love looking at the kids when they are so enthralled by the bells!!

Then the cars started to arrive and the kids were loaded into the car.

Trip was the last one standing--listening to the bells

 

Other things we talked about today was our Value, which is Respect  I introduced Austus the Lion and we talked about how we can show respect for each other this coming year.

 This message tells it all--we want to treat others aw you would like them to treat you.

We got out some puzzles to see what the kids could do and after some instruction on how to do it easier, the frustrations melted away and they knew that they could do it!! 

 June worked on this one and on the second try, she was amazing.  Just a hint when you have a number of puzzles going at the same time, on the back of the pieces have a particular code you can use to find all the pieces.  For instance, I put CI on Cinderella so if the pieces got mixed up we could just look on the back and know where they go.

 

All in all, we had a great day and I think they were busy enough to keep them happy  What was their favorite thing they did today??  You ask them.