On Thursday we played with more snow inside but it was quite icy, we added stars to the black paper we painted, used our new library cart and continued to learned a lot about Dr King (FUN FACT: Grandpa Norm taught in a school in Atlanta when one of Dr King’s daughters was a student there and he didn’t meet Dr King but he did meet Dr King’s dad, Martin Luther King Sr. Incredible!). In the morning class we had a Golden Letter friend Max H. In the afternoon class we Golden Letter teacher friend Grandma Mona. We wished our Golden Letter friends Malcolm and Max W well who are gone on a fun trip.
At Story Time Ms Kristin read Mae Among the Stars. This is the true story of Mae Jemison who always wanted to work as an astronaut and she did it! Notice how the earth is used for the letter O….perfect for our conversation of outer space.
Mary the M was ready to play today since she got all covered with mirrors. Friends took her around to see all the other mirrors in the room and practiced our Coping Skill with her. She came to snack time and peeked under the table. We talked about the fact that she is made with mirrors so if she gets stepped on or bent some mirrors could break. Tell a teacher so we can stick with our safety plan for broken glass. No one will be in trouble. So far she has not had any breaks and we like to pretend she is very happy to be in our classroom with the others.
We finished our All School Graph today on things about the wintery weather. I’m sorry for all you parents and grandparents and siblings who have slipped, had your vehicles stuck or were in “car accidents that were more like bumps and not crashes” over the last week, we heard all about it. Props to Ms Emily for being the only teacher who made a snow angel over the last week. Maybe the streets will be clear next week?
It was our last day to clean up to Frosty the Snowman. As usual, children could use wipes to clean surfaces or brooms to sweep. Everyone helped today…find out what your child did! It is a sweet time of team work. Next week we’ll have a new clean up song!
Here are more Conversation Starters to use with your child:
Morning friends: What part of our snack could melt? Ice cream! We also had celery and pretzels and made a spontaneous list of other things that can melt (clarifying that it is when a solid turns into a liquid).
Afternoon friends: What part of our snack could melt? Cheese on the mini pizzas from Malcolm! We also ate rocks today (be surpirsed!).…chocolate rocks from Owen which led to a conversation about Prairy where they are available for purchase. We left them on the floor for Grandma Mona to find hoping she’d think there was a bag of rocks on the ground!
Who went in a rocket ship? Dr Mae Jemison. After adding stars to the black paper, we added pictures of Dr Mae in her rocket ship! Singing Twinkle Twinkle we changed the last line to, “...Twinkle, twinkle little star, Dr Mae you went so far.“ It was so sweet watching the children act out her rocket ship voyage that I got a little teary.
FYI: Dr Mae was not on the Apollo 11 where this audio is from, I just chose this because it sounds like our rocket counting. Mae Jemison went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992 and became the first African American woman in space.
Here are some Big Body questions where all the answers are yes:
Since we did not play outside this week we are brought the active play inside:
Could you climb up the slide?
Could you make a train on the slide?
Could you throw dancing scarves off the loft? Could you throw them on people?
Could you put dancing scarves in the wind tunnel?
Could you put little balls in the wind tunnel? Could you reach in to get the stuck balls?
Could you run on the track? Could you play tag on the track?
Could you use scooters? Could you use more than one at a time?
Could you go down the slide with a friend? Could you lay down on each other if you both wanted it?
Could you yell but do it kind of quietly?
Coping Skill: Smile in the mirror
This week we are smiling at ourselves in the mirror and telling ourselves “I love you.” These practices are shown to encourage self-compassion and remind us of our inherent worth which allows us to better handle challenges and build healthier relationships with others.
Remember to be impressed with your child’s mirror disco ball: every child independently cut their mirror sticker strip into pieces and transferred them to their cardboard circle. Pretty cool and exciting for me to see!
newcreationpreschool.com 