February 6-10

Beaumont/Alameda Pre-K

Newsletter for the week of February 6-10, 2012

This week in Pre-K “rocked!” To begin our week, we welcomed a whole new group of middle school helpers into our classroom. We are excited to have fresh faces and new friends! Between the letter ‘Pp’ and rock collections, we had lots of fun and interesting sharing this week. The highlight of the students’ week was making salt dough volcanoes. Each child formed their own volcano out of dough and the following day, and we caused an “eruption” using baking soda and vinegar. On Thursday, our special librarian friend Nina came in a read The Boy and the Bear, and several other excellent books.  We also learned about fossils, and the teachers lead us on a trip back in time. The students were encouraged to make “cave paintings” and act as cave men and women. Later in the week, the students patiently counted the pennies and other coins that we have collected from the Penny Program so far. As a class, we found out that we have 477 pennies and 15 other coins. We are proud of all of our friends for their hard work at home! At school we have been doing a wonderful job as well, and were rewarded by making rock candy for our special project on Friday. We will eat our rewards next week!

Kate Dahlin was our Person of the Week this week. From Kate’s poster about herself, we learned many new things about her. Kate is five years old, she weighs 50(?) pounds, and is 3 feet 4 inches tall. Kate’s hair is blonde and her eyes are brown. Some of Kate’s favorite foods are mac and cheese, brownies, cupcakes, popsicles, ice cream and milkshakes! Her favorite colors are pink, purple and blue. When Kate grows up, she wants to be a mom. Some of Kate’s favorite things are chewing gum, having candy, and getting books. If Kate had three wishes, she would wish to have a real dog, to be in a movie, and to have a really comfy bed!

Thanks and Reminders

*Thank you to Quincy and her family for providing fruits and vegetables for snack this week.

*Thank you to Coco and her family for providing Play-Doh this week.

*Please do not send any Valentine cards in to school with your student next week, as we do not observe this holiday.

*The letter of the week next week is Qq.

*We will be studying art and friendship next week.

*Thanks to Quincy’s family for coming in and celebrating Quincy’s 5th birthday! Happy Birthday Quincy!

The Week in Review

Monday: Today in Pre-K, we began our unit on Rocks and Minerals! We also began the letter ‘Pp’ today. The following friends shared: Lola shared a Pink Pony, Kate shared a Purse and Pink Princess shirt, Leo shared his Piggy bank! We were fortunate that the Sun was out today and so we went outside twice! We also welcomed our new middle school students to the classroom! We are excited to have them with us. This afternoon, we played “telephone.” For our special project, we made Person of the Week pages for Kate. Some choices we offered today were: rocks/magnifying glasses, ‘P’ coloring sheets, and comb blocks.

Tuesday: Today we started our day off by celebrating Quincy’s 5th Birthday! Happy Birthday Quincy! Hope you had a great day! We brought the foam noodles into the gym for students to construct their own inventions.  Dani shared a pineapple. Many students said “I love pineapple.” Deacon shared a peter rabbit plate and a pine cone. Charles shared a penguin pillow pet and a parachute. Hudson shared pine tree branches, pine needles and a pine cone. He offered to share them in the sensory table. Our special project today was using baking soda and vinegar mixed with red dye to erupt our very own volcanos we made yesterday. Students were extremely excited to watch them explode.  We read Stuck in the Mud and Little Hoot.  At the end of the day we counted how many pennies we have in our penny jar and we came up with 477! Way to go Pre-K! You should be proud of all of your hard work.

Wednesday: Today was an excellent second day learning about rocks, minerals, and volcanos.  We started our morning by making a ‘KWL’ chart (Know already, Want to know, and Learned).  We look forward to completing the ‘Learned’ portion of our chart at the end of the week!  Our focus today was on the great big rock on which we live – the Earth!  We discussed its three main layers, and how each layer is different.  Our project choice was using paint to create a ‘cutaway’ picture of the inside of the Earth, using different colors to represent each unique layer.  Today for letter ‘Pp’ sharing, Henry shared a Paper airplane and a Paper rocket (he took them out of a Paper bag), Coco shared some of her rock collection (including a Purple rock), Gabriel brought in some of his sister’s earrings made from gem stones, Daphne showed us her toy Pet bunny rabbit and her rocks, Gus shared a Pencil and a Pencil holder, and Boone shared his very special Police motorcycle toy.  At the end of the day today, we started creating our volcanos out of salt dough; we’ll use these later in the week for our volcano experiment.

Thursday: Today in Pre-K, we went into the past as we learned all about fossils! The kids were fascinated by these parts of preserved history. The teachers thought it would be fun to make our own “fossils” so we made imprints in the Play-doh with different shells. For an art project, we made our own “cave walls” which we hung up in the pretend area and encouraged the students to act as if they were Prehistoric cave men and women…essentially making/living fossils! This morning we did some math to add up all the coins we have collected as part of the Penny Program. So far, we have $7.96! Nice job! The following students shared for the letter Pp: Benton shared Pyrite and other rocks he has in his collection, shark teeth, and a starfish. Tess shared a Pictures of her sister, Pippa, a Parrot Puppet, and a Panda bear. Dominik shared a Pinata made out of Paper mache. Chase shared a Puzzle, a picture of his family at the Phillies game, and a Pig. Simone shared Potatoes in her Pink Purse! We had a special visit from the Alameda librarian, Nina today.  We read the books Green Eggs and Ham, The Boy and the Bear and The Case of the Climbing Cat.

Friday: Today was an excellent day wrapping up out theme this week, Rocks, Minerals, and Volcanos.  Our focus today was on metamorphic rocks.  We discussed that metamorphic are rocks that change because of pressure or heat.  To demonstrate this change, we used sugar and hot water to create our very own rock candy!  These creations will sit over the weekend, and we will get to eat them next week! We enjoyed playing a game of “Medicine Ball” led by our middle school helpers today in the gym, and we also read a book with one of our helpers called Ducks Do Not Where Socks. Our last day of letter ‘Pp’ sharing was great.  Beck shared a Pin, some Popcorn, and Pistachios, Lucy showed us her Pink lunchbox, Maggie shared her Pretty, Pink Purse (which was a Present!), and Gilbert shared a very interesting rock.

The Prek Team