March 31st, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast on our new wax paper place mats we made yesterday! We worked on our fine motor with the Leaping Frogs, stacked different sized hexagon containers together, and worked with buses, garbage trucks, and police vehicles! We also made stairs out of the hexagon containers, and had bunnies hop up and down the stairs. We then made different silly faces with Mr. Potato Head, and pretended to make our classmates faces as well! During centers, we looked outside and saw that it was really dark and stormy, so we placed the big grey cloud over our tree, and felt the cotton ball cloud. We counted to 31 during calendar time, discovered that our 31 needed to be a black number to follow our pattern and sang and danced to "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes!" We made observations about the egg we placed in vinegar yesterday, to see how it had changed. At first, we just looked at it, and saw that it had little lines on it, but when we took it out of the vinegar to feel it, we noticed it was squishy! Our egg did not have a hard shell anymore, and we wrote down the differences from yesterday to today. We read the story "Eggs," which was about all of the different sizes, shapes, and animals that come from eggs. For centers, some of us had speech with Ms. McGuire, and we started making our paper mache eggs! We ripped up some newspaper, blew up balloons, and started covering our balloons with the newspaper. We ate lunch with Pre-K, and went outside to the playground. We noticed that the new playground was finished, and so we were some of the first students to play there! This afternoon, we will be going over to Pre-K to finish up counting the petals on our flowers, and to finish making finger print egg equations!
Have a great day!
Lauren Avots

March 30th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, and then worked on our fine motor by putting pegs into holes, and feeding hay bales to hungry cows. We also worked on counting to different amounts, with fish in fish tanks. During circle time, we decided that it was cloudy and windy outside, so we placed the big white cloud and the windsock over our classroom tree. We held a fluffy cloud made of cotton balls, and felt wind from a fan on our face! We counted to 30 during calendar time, and read our "black, green, green" pattern and decided we needed a green number 30. We chose to sing and dance to "Mary Had A Little Lamb." Then, we went outside with Pre-K, played frisbee, and went on a bug hunt in the mud. We found a few beetles, ants and a tiny worm! We made sure to put the insects back in their habitats when we were finished looking at them. Right before centers, we observed a real egg, and saw that it was hard, white, and smooth. Then we smelled vinegar, and placed the egg in a cup full of vinegar. Tomorrow, we are going to see what the vinegar does to our egg! During centers, we played in the home center, and made tissue paper egg place mats. We tore up little pieces of colored tissue paper, drew eggs on some wax paper, and covered the eggs with the paper. Then, Ms. Avots ironed the the wax paper together, and it made a place mat. We ate lunch with Pre-K, and then played outside on the playground. This afternoon, we will be visiting the Pre-K classroom for math centers to make flowers and count how many petals they have!
Have a great day!
Lauren Avots

March 27th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, and went straight to the library to have some books read to us! The books were about farms and farm animals! We played on the playground with Pre-K and then came inside and used a magnetic wand to move magnet discs, made silly faces with Mr. Potato head, and stacked bunnies on different sized containers. We also cut out a huge egg that was cracked in half, and made a chick popping out of the egg for our bulletin board! During circle time, we decided that it was really cloudy outside, so we put our big white cloud over our tree. We counted to 27 during calendar time, and decided that we needed a green number to follow our black, green, green pattern. Our question of the day today was "What do you like to do outside?" Zero people liked the slide and walking the best, 1 person liked the swing the best, and 2 people liked the monkey bars the best! We said that more people liked the monkey bars, and walking and the slide had the least amount of people. We danced and sang to "Old McDonald" and practiced saying our animal sounds! For centers, we looked at a book that showed a lot of animals who are born from eggs, and decided which animal we were going to make. We chose to make a snake, turtle and a dinosaur! We cut out egg shells, and glued them inside to look like they were hatching! We also decorated our letter of the week, "U" with umbrellas, and The United States. We ate lunch with Pre-K, and since it was raining, we could not go outside, so we came in and dance to our favorite songs to get some wiggles out. We also cut out our painted eggs we created yesterday and put them on the bulletin board next to our chick, and looked at a bird's nest to see where mother birds protect their eggs. This afternoon, we will be heading over to Pre-K to finish up our fingerprint egg addition equations!
Have a great weekend!
Lauren Avots

March 26th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, drew pictures of ourselves and robots on whiteboards, created Mat Man with our Handwriting Without Tears sticks, and counted to different amounts with airplanes! Ms. Miller brought in some really cool Monsters vs. Aliens cards and the backs of the cards can be put together like a puzzle to form the movie's poster! Each of us put the puzzle together and then we created a card trading game and took turns trading cards! During circle time, we decided that it was really cloudy outside, and we put the big white cloud and the dark grey cloud over our classroom tree. During calendar time, we counted to the number 26 and read our pattern to find out that today's number should be green. Instead of having a question of the day today, we each got an egg shaker, and when I called a student's name, I asked them to put the egg under, on top of, behind, to the side of, below or above the green chair. If the rest of the class agreed that we placed the egg in the correct spot, they gave us a thumbs up! Then we sang and danced to "Ride That Pony," and shook our egg shaker to go along with our moves. For story time, we read the story, "Who Has More?" with Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and Little Miss Muppet. During centers, Ms. McGuire came in for speech, and we played in the big blocks center and hid our egg shakers in the towers we built. We had a lot of fun building a tower around the eggs! We also painted a huge egg with glue paint! We went to lunch with Pre-K and went outside on the playground with them. This afternoon, we will go over to the Pre-K classroom to put different sized pigs in order from smallest to largest, and make eggs with our fingerprints to count and add!
Have a great night!
Lauren Avots

March 25th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, made silly faces with magnetic eyes, mouths and noses, and played with different vehicles from around our community, like police cars and fire engines! We also worked with small colored cubes and made designs like robots and animals. We created magnificent pieces of art with our Creation Station materials, and had a lot of fun gluing different objects on to our masterpieces. During circle time, we decided that it was really windy outside, so we placed the wind sock over our tree, and felt wind on our face with a fan. During calendar time, we counted to the number 25, and determined that the color of our number should be black, according to our pattern, and then sang and danced to "Lettercise!" We went outside with Pre-K and played ball and frisbee with our friends. During story time, Ms. Miller read us "Umbrellabird's Umbrella," because the letter of the week is "U." For centers, we made towers with our blocks, and then used fire trucks to rescue the burning towers. We also dressed up as firefighters and made sure to extinguish all the fires around the room with our huge water hoses. We ate lunch with Pre-K and went outside with them on the playground. This afternoon, we will be going over to the Pre-K classroom to finish our counting in 1's, 5's and 10's with our hand prints, and to count pigs!
Have a great night!
Lauren Avots

March 24th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and went to go get our school pictures taken! We took a class picture first, and then had our individual pictures taken. When we came back, we sorted bears of different colors and sizes, and worked on our fine motor skills with ducks swimming in a pond, and our flipping frogs. We also worked as a team to build a fire engine puzzle together. At circle time, we decided that it was windy outside and predicted that it would rain later, but since it wasn't raining yet, we put the wind sock over our tree. We counted to the number 24 during calendar time, and we sang and danced to "Wheels on the Bus." We went outside with Pre-K and threw the frisbee to each other and played chase. During centers, we played in the Zilker Fire Station and fought a lot of fires with our big water hoses. We also marble painted today with red, yellow and orange paint, and made fire designs! During story time, we started reading "People in Our Neighborhood," and learned about different jobs in our community, including firefighters! We ate lunch with Pre-K and played outside on the playground with them. This afternoon, we will be staying in our classroom to finish up our marble paintings and to make a huge fire pole for our fire station!
Have a great evening!
Lauren Avots

March 23rd, 2009

Parents,
Today we ate breakfast and talked about what we did over Spring Break! We heard a lot of fun stories! We worked on our fine motor skills by threading spools onto pipe cleaners and drawing with chalk on chalkboards, and counted with flowers. We also made a guitar, a duck and circles with our Linking People manipulatives. During circle time, we decided that it was windy outside, and placed our windsock over our tree. We counted to the number 23 and noticed that our number 23 on the calendar needed to be green after reading our number pattern, and then danced to "I Like Potatoes." We went outside with Pre-K and practiced taking turns by throwing frisbees and kicking soccer balls to each other. When we came inside, we read "Hats, Caps, Socks and Mittens," a story about the four seasons. We saw how the seasons not only change nature, but what we wear as well! During centers, we played in the Zilker Fire Station, and dressed up as fire fighters! We also cut out a square and a triangle to make a house, and then painted with our own air! We put globs of paint on our houses, and then blew the paint through a straw, and it made our yellow and red paint look like our house was on fire! We ate lunch with Pre-K and then went outside with them on the playground. After rest time, we will head over to the Pre-K classroom and make hand prints, and then count the fingers by ones, fives or tens.
Hope everyone had a nice break!
Lauren Avots

March 13th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, then counted ducks swimming in a pond, made silly faces with magnetic eyes, noses and mouths, and worked with stamps during morning centers. We went with Pre-K to the library where Ms. Kraal read us two books about spring time, and one book about farm animals! On our walk back from the library, we listened to the different sounds rain could make from dropping into puddles of water, in a drain, or on concrete. During circle time, we decided that it was raining outside and put our huge blue rain drops over our tree, and felt the cold window which made us think we would need our jackets when outside. For calendar, we counted to the number 13 and realized that we will not be at school all next week, because it is Spring Break! We sang and danced to "Lettercise," "The Monkeys and the Alligator," and blew bubbles while singing "Tiny Tim the Turtle." During centers, we made a huge ladder for our classroom fire engine that reached all the way the the ceiling! We also worked on our letter of the week, "T," by taping tags with triangles on a big letter T, and on our small "T" paper, we glued a Texas, a T-Rex, Triangles, trains, tepees, teeth, and toothbrushes. We ate lunch with Pre-K, came back to the classroom to play in the Zilker Fire Station. We made a window for our fire truck, flames, smoke and kittens to rescue! This afternoon, we will be visiting Pre-K to work on drawing numbers and to finish up our turtles!
Have a wonderful Spring Break!!
Lauren Avots

March 12th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, sorted bears of different sizes and colors, and drew shapes, faces and letters on chalk boards. We also colored small, medium and large Cliffords and matched them to small, medium and large dog houses, and drove around taxis, fire engines, and police cars! During circle time, we decided that it was rainy and cold outside, so we placed the rain drops over our classroom tree and said we would need jackets when we walked to the cafeteria. For calendar, we counted to the number 12, and decided that our number 12 needed to be a green number after we read our calendar's pattern. For question of the day, the students were asked to choose their favorite type of weather. We saw that 2 people liked the rainy weather, and one person liked sunny weather, and discussed that rainy weather had the most people, and windy and cloudy had the least amount of people. We danced to "Bear Hunt" and then sang "Tiny Tim the Turtle" with our turtles we made yesterday. During centers, since we are learning about the letter "T," we each painted a tepee and then Ms. McGuire came for speech. Ms. Pundt, our counselor, came in and talked to us about self control, and we played a game with bubbles! We ate lunch with Pre-K, and came back to the room to sing and dance to our favorite songs, and read a book. We danced to M's favorite song, "Disco Limbo," S's favorite song, "Bear Hunt," and L's favorite song, "5 Little Ducks." Then we read Curious George at the Fire Station, where George learns all about firemen and ends up saving a puppy! This afternoon, we will head over to Pre-K and water paint a flower with 5 petals, finish making our turtles, and continue to observe one of our Pre-K friend's pet turtle!
Have a great Thursday!
Lauren Avots

March 11th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, counted with flowers, and worked on our fine motor skills by feeding corn to pigs and creating words with Velcro letters! We also made more gages and headlights for our fire engine and then stapled the them on our truck! At circle time, we decided it was rainy outside, and we placed the rain drops and the dark cloud over our classroom tree. We counted the numbers on our calendar, and discovered that today was Wednesday, March 11th. For dancing and movement today, we learned a new song that started with our letter of the week, "T"! The song was "Tiny Tim the Turtle." We held a small toy turtle in our hands, and learned the words and movements to the song! We went outside for a little while on the basketball court and drew with chalk Tiny Tim, the turtle, with bubbles coming out of his mouth, just like our song. For story time, we read "Tacky In Trouble" and found the letter "T" on the cover of the book. During centers, we dressed up as firefighters, and fought fires in the Zilker Fire Station! We also finished our Clifford faces and started making turtles out of ovals, and triangles. We ate lunch with Pre-K, and since it was rainy, we stayed inside and danced to music and wrote out the lyrics to our new turtle song! After rest time, we will head over to Pre-K to look at a turtle that one of our friends brought to school!
Have a wonderful evening!
Lauren Avots

March 10th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and made buttons and gages for our big fire truck! We also worked on counting with airplanes and worked on our fine motor skills by threading spools onto pipe cleaners, and working with interlocking cubes. During circle time, we decided that it was cloudy outside, and we placed the big white cloud over our tree. We noticed that our classroom tree has started to grow tiny leaves! We counted to the number 10 during calendar, and we sang and danced to "Where is Thumbkin?" Then, we went outside with Pre-K and went on a hunt for beetles and ants! We found some beetles and watched them climb in and out of a hole in the dirt. For story time, we read "Fire Truck," which was about a boy who loved fire trucks so much, he actually turned in to one! During centers, we played in the Zilker Fire Station and made long hoses for our classroom fire truck. We also used the big red circles we painted yesterday, and added eyes, a nose, two ears and a mouth to turn them into Clifford the Big Red Dog! Ms. McGuire also came during centers to work with us on speech! We ate lunch, and then went outside on the playground with Pre-K. This afternoon, we will be going over to the Pre-K classroom and making pattern crowns!

Have a great day!
Lauren Avots

March 9, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast, and then counted with ducks in a pond and fish in fish tanks. We also worked on our fine motor by placing "ice cream" (pom poms) into a "cone," and cut flashing lights out of shiny paper for our big firetruck . During circle time, we decided that it was cloudy outside, and placed the big white cloud above our tree. We then counted to 9 during calendar time and sang and danced to "The Wheels on the Bus." We played outside with our Pre-K friends and practiced taking turns throwing Frisbees. When we came inside, we read Clifford the Firehouse Dog during story time. During centers today, we played in the new Zilker Fire Station (home center)! We dressed up in fire helmets, boots, coats and gloves! We also painted red circles and colored small, medium and large pictures of Clifford the Big Red Dog. We ate lunch and then played with Pre-K out on the playground! When we wake up, we will be decorating our class tree with tiny leaves and spring buds.
Have a great evening!
Lauren Avots

March 6, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and did our fine motor work by making frogs jump, assembling Mat Man (today he was Mat Robot), and made funny faces with magnetic facial features (we had faces with lots of eyes or lots of ears!). Fire fighter Captain David came by this morning to pick up the awesome poster and the helmet we made for him. He loved them both. During circle time we determined that it's cloudy today, counted to 6 during calendar time and continued our color pattern, responded to our Question of the Day (What do you like to draw with?), and danced to "Button Factory". We played outside this morning on the basket ball court, made many shots and also hung from the uneven bars. We are amazing monkeys! During centers today we continued our rescue of animals from the forest fire. Today we brought in the ladder trucks and fire fighters! All animals and insects were saved. We also worked on our letter "S" artwork, putting snowmen, snowflakes, stars, suns, etc. on our letter "S" paper. We even added one of our classmate's pictures whose name begins with "S". We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. This afternoon we'll be celebrating one of our Pre-K friend's birthdays. Ask your child whose birthday it is today.
Enjoy the movie tonight if you're going!
Have a great weekend!
Kali Parsons

March 5, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and did our fine motor work by creating a thank you poster for Fire Fighter David, creating words with Velcro letters, moving metal balls in a maze with magnets, and creating stamp art with animal and tree stamps and a stamp pad. During circle time we determined that it's cloudy today, counted to five during calendar time and noticed that we have the beginnings of a pattern (black, green, green, black, green, wonder what's next), and we danced to "Dancing Machine". We played outside with our Pre-K friends. Ms. Avots read "Drive a Fire Engine" for story time. During centers everyone created letter "S" snakes with a yellow and green pattern (each child chose the kind of pattern they wanted to do). We also rescued animals from the forest fire in our tree home. Ms. McGuire came for speech therapy today. We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. This afternoon in Pre-K we'll be counting fish in water.
Enjoy your night!
Kali Parsons

March 4, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and did our fine motor work by putting spools on pipe cleaners, assembling gears and making them turn, creating structures with bristle blocks, and making long strings of Unifix Cubes. During circle time we determined that it was windy today, felt a fan waving air at us, counted to 4 during calendar, and danced to"The Number Game". We played outside with our Pre-K friends. We had a very special visit from a Zilker dad who is also a firefighter. Captain David came and showed us a lot of fire fighter equipment and let us touch everything. We wore the firefighter hats that we had made and he gave us all a golden badge to put on our hats. He let us try on his hat and jacket, too!! It was very, very cool! He gave everyone a special coloring book and we spent a little time before lunch working on them. We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. This afternoon we'll work on making Dr. Seuss pattern hats.
Have a wonderful night!
Kali Parsons

March 3, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and did our fine motor work by assembling Mat Man, creating colorful rectangle pattern headbands, lacing numbers and letters, and counted candles with cakes. During circle time we determined that it's cloudy today, felt the cotton ball cloud, counted to 3 during calendar, and danced to "I Like Potatoes". We played outside with our Pre-K friends on the playground. I read "Firehouse" for story time. During centers we pretended that our tree was on fire and our Danny the dalmatian sock puppets had to rescue them. We had tissue paper fires that the kiddos placed in the tree. Whew! All of the animals got out safely! We also created our own firefighter hats by cutting them out and then gluing a golden badge on them. We also used foam dot painters to paint dots on a dalmatian. We used small, medium, and large foam dot painters. We glued eyes on our dalmatians to complete them. We had lunch and played on the playground with our Pre-K friends. This afternoon we'll play BINGO in Pre-K.
Enjoy your night!
Kali Parsons

March 2, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and did our fine motor work by creating art in our creation station, creating structures with Lego's, creating patterns with beads, and putting keys on key rings. During circle time we determined that it's sunny today, put the sun over our tree and felt the heat from a flashlight, we counted to two during calendar time, did our question of the day (this is new - each child picked which pet they liked most and then we determined which had the most), and last, we danced to "The Freeze". We played outside with our Pre-K friends. Ms. Avots read "Firefighters" with the help of Danny, the dalmatian. During center time today each child created a dalmatian puppet, just like Danny, out of a sock and black and red felt. We also finger painted a big firetruck shape with red paint. When we finished we went to the big toys center to work with fire trucks and firefighters. We had lunch and played on the playground with Pre-K. This afternoon we'll continue working on our big fire truck, cutting it out and creating wheels (big and small circle shapes).
Have a wonderful evening!
Kali Parsons