Nov. 25, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew "taste" in our journals. We went to a special presentation with Pre-K provided by Zilker Arts in Education. We saw a play called "The Heron and the Crane" in the cafeteria. We made all kinds of sounds to go along with the play (buzzing bees, wind, rain, baby birds, frogs, etc.). It was a wonderful play about friendship. We returned to the room to do our fine motor work (bristle blocks, player piano, drawing with crayons in our bus safety coloring books provided by AISD, and creating pictures with plastic shapes). During circle time we determined that it's sunny today, counted to 25 and continued our color pattern during calendar, and danced to "I Like Potatoes". Ms. McGuire came for speech therapy. We also added our legs and feet to our turkeys. Please look in your child's backpack for turkey art work. We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest we're going to go to Ms. Mitchell's to enjoy pumpkin pie that her class made from scratch this morning!

I wish you all a very happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday break. We are certainly very thankful for the time you allow us to have with your children!
Ms. Parsons

Nov. 24, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew a picture of a brown bear in our journals. We also practiced our first lock down drill (which we had talked about during breakfast). We all sat in the dark in the reading center and were very quiet. We did a great job! We are very hopeful that we'll never need to do this in a real situation. For our fine motor work we felt a texture book, put coins in a pig, matched real restaurant items to pictures of like items, and created restaurant signs for each of our restaurants on the community map. We glued them to our restaurant. The community map is really coming along. We'll be adding fall trees soon. During circle time we determined that it was cloudy today (we used the gray cloud over our tree), counted to 24 and said that orange was next in our calendar pattern, and danced to "Itsy, Bitsy Spider". We played outside with our Pre-K friends. I continued reading poems out of our Thanksgiving book today. The poem today was about a girl that couldn't eat because her braces were too tight. For centers we had many different sizes of blocks in the big toys center. We created structures, admired them, and knocked them down. We also began creating turkeys in the art center. We cut a little circle for a head and a big circle for a body (which we folded in half). We added eyes, a diamond shape for a beak (we folded the diamond shape in half), and a waddle. We also cut strips of yellow, red, and orange paper and folded them in half to make feathers. We glued them to the body piece and added the head. Tomorrow we'll add the legs and feet. We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest we'll create pattern bracelets in Pre-K. We were going to do this activity on Friday, but we ended up working on a shapes song as a large group.

Please check your child's backpack today. Their Thanksgiving place mats are in them.


Have a wonderful night!
Kali Parsons

Nov. 21, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew pictures of insects in our journals. We went to the library with Pre-K and Ms. Kraal read two books about bears. We played outside on the boulders. When we returned to the classroom we did our fine motor activities (cutting pictures of food from fliers and talking about whether they were healthy or unhealthy choices, creating structures with bristle blocks, and stringing beads and spools). During center time we expanded our home center (we made it BIGGER!). Now three children can be in there at once. We also put our writing center table near there. Now we have an entire restaurant set up. Customers ordered healthy food from the menus and the chefs cooked and served. Yummy! We also continued working on the letter "I" and glued letter "I" objects on our letter "I" paper (igloo, ice cream, insects, ink, iron, invitation, etc.). Please look out for the letter "I" in your environment! We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest in my group in Pre-K we'll create bracelets using 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 beads. We'll be making patterns with the beads.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Reminder: only two days of school next week!
Kali Parsons

Nov. 20, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew a picture of an inchworm in our journals (the inchworm had a brown/orange pattern). For our fine motor work we drew with dry erase markers, made frogs jump, sorted fish and frogs, and laced numbers and letters. During circle time we determined that it's sunny today, counted to 20 during calendar, and danced to "The Number Game". Our class and Pre-K attended a special event today in the cafeteria. The fourth graders were rehearsing a bunch of Texas songs that they're going to perform at tonight's PTA meeting. Some of us noticed that Ms. Parsons' son was on stage. :-) For story time today I continued reading poems out of our Thanksgiving poetry book. During centers we ran our restaurant in the home center, glued insects onto big letter "I"s, completed our Five Fat Turkeys, and created menus to use in our restaurant by cutting pictures of food out of ads and gluing them on white paper. There were lots of good things to order! Our counselor, Ms. Pundt, and our speech therapist, Ms. McGuire, also came today. We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest Ms. Welcome will do a BINGO game in Pre-K (I'm off work this afternoon).
See everyone tomorrow!
Kali Parsons

Nov. 19, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew our turkeys (with features) in our journals. For our fine motor work we put money in a pig, drew with chalk on chalkboards, sorted insects, and counted with counting cakes. During circle time today we determined that it's sunny today (we also felt the heat from a flashlight), counted to 19 during calendar time, determined what was next in our orange/brown pattern, and danced to "The Bear Hunt". We played outside with our Pre-K friends. I continued reading our Thanksgiving poem book during story time. In the book it showed a classroom with children's art on their walls. Just like in our classroom they had pumpkins and turkeys that they were working on! During centers we continued working in our home center/restaurant, played with dollhouse characters, and completed our Thanksgiving place mats (these will go home next week). We also worked with Mr. Potato Head giving him all kinds of funny features! We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest we'll complete our 5 fat turkeys art work and work on patterning.
I'll be absent tomorrow after 10 AM. I'll be back on Friday.
Have a great night!
Kali Parsons

Nov. 18, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew the beginning of our turkey hands in our journals. For our fine motor work we drew with small pieces of chalk on small chalkboards, laced letters and numbers, counted pegs on peg boards, and created pictures with plastic shapes. During circle time we determined that it's cloudy today, felt a puffy white cloud, counted to 18 during calendar time, and danced to "Ride that Pony" (a song about position words - front, side, back). We played outside with our Pre-K friends. We all held part of a big parachute and made it go up and down. We did a pattern with our lifting and lowering (fast, fast, slow, fast, fast, slow and up, down, up, down). When we all came to the circle area back inside, we danced to "Five Fat Turkeys". I continued reading the next poem in our Thanksgiving poem book for storytime. During center time we added features to our turkeys (beak, legs/feet, waddle, and an eye). We also turned our home center into a restaurant and began creating menus. Ms. McGuire came today and did speech therapy. We had lunch and played on the playground with our Pre-K friends. After rest we'll go to Pre-K and continue working on our five fat turkeys in the tree. We'll add real feathers, googly eyes, legs/feet, beaks, waddles, and the numbers 1-5.
Have a wonderful evening!
Kali Parsons

Nov. 17, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew a picture of an ice cream cone in our journals. For our fine motor work we cut pictures out of magazines and made collages, counted pegs and put them on peg boards, worked with community helper cars, and worked with larger wooden number blocks. We all came to the carpet and I created an upper case letter "I" and a lower case letter "i" on the carpet using masking tape. We talked about all of the strokes needed to create these letters. We were unable to have our circle time today because Mr. Emilio needed to clean up something in our classroom. We played outside with our Pre-K friends. I began reading the book, "It's Thanksgiving", a series of Thanksgiving poems. During center time we worked in the home center creating food to eat, worked in the dollhouse center, and worked in the art center. In the art center I worked with each child individually to help the create a turkey. I painted their hands with fall colors and they made a handprint on a paper with their name that they had written. With extra time, some of the children chose to create their own turkey handprint by painting their own hands. Tomorrow we'll add features to our turkeys. We had lunch and played on the playground with our Pre-K friends. This afternoon we'll begin creating "Five Fat Turkeys in a Tree" artwork by dipping our hands in brown paint and making five brown handprints up in the limbs of a tree. We'll add feathers, eyes, and number them 1-5.
I hope everyone has a great evening!
Read to your kiddos!
Kali Parsons

Nov. 14, 2008

Nov. 14, 2008
Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew a picture of a straw hat in our journals. For our fine motor work we threaded shapes with yarn, made frogs jump, and colored our turkeys from Ms. Mitchell's class. We went to the library with Pre-K and Ms. Kraal read two books about mice. We played outside on the boulders, pretending that we were dogs. We came in and had circle time. We determined that it's sunny today, counted to 14 during calendar time, and we danced to "Boogaloo". We talked about what our favorite part of the song was. During center time we all drew letter "H" objects out of our brown bag. Some items were hat, helmet, horse, hippo, etc. Next we all put letter "H" stickers and objects on letter H paper (hearts, hats, hens, hands, happy faces, and the letter "H"). We continued working on our thank you poster for Faith, our PTA president. We had pictures of our faces on paper and we drew our body and clothing below. We glued our portraits on the poster in the hay. We look just like we're riding on a hay ride! We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest we'll continue working on our fall trees with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on them.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kali Parsons
PPCD Teacher
Zilker Elementary
841-0746

Nov. 13, 2008

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and drew a picture of a fall tree in our journals. For our fine motor work we drew with dry erase markers, made frogs jump, created structures with oval legos, and created circles by connecting pop beads. During circle time we determined that it's sunny today, counted to 13 and continued our orange/brown (ABAB) pattern during calendar time, and danced to "If You're Happy and You Know it". We played outside with our Pre-K friends. For story time today I read "The Scarecrow's Hat". After I read it we practiced the letter "H" sound. We noticed that we can feel our warm breath when we make the "H" sound. During centers created letter "H" art by gluing hearts and hands on big letter "H"s. Some chose to create patterns. We also began creating a thank you poster for Faith, our PTA President, for taking us on a hay ride. We glued hay (we noticed that it's a letter "H" word!) on the bottom half of a blue poster board. We glued cotton balls on the top half to create clouds in the sky. Ms. Pundt, our counselor, came to our class today. She talked about feelings and what we can do when we have those feelings. If we're sad, scared, or mad we can ignore what a friend is doing, we can use our words, we can walk away, or we can talk to an adult. She encouraged everyone to try the first three first before talking to an adult (unless someone is hurt, of course). We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. After rest we'll do math centers in Pre-K. In my group we'll create fall trees by tracing our hand and arm. We'll glue a leaf on each finger and then write the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on the leaves.
Have a great night!
Kali Parsons
PPCD Teacher
Zilker Elementary
841-0746