Recently in Lisa's Weekly Plans F10 Category

Overview:
This week we will be continuing our ongoing themes as well as making a few changes in the classroom to allow for additional learning opportunities. In place of the current sensory table we will be having a larger sand table in the classroom. The table will be filled with wet sand to give the children a fine motor experience and allow them to mold and make creations in the sand. Additionally, to build experience with making patterns we are adding examples of patterns into the caves to encourage the children to continue and to make patterns of their own with the gems on the light table. This week is our last week of small groups. Culminating activities will take place in order too wrap up all the learning that has taken place over the last few weeks. Brittany's bug group and Hamdi's shape group will also be taking field trips this week.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Boggle Jr., counting lotto, non-interlocking puzzles, interlocking puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles, sequencing/ordering activities, interlocker blocks, Bilofix construction set
•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, matching, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To challenge students to predict and think critically about materials, sequencing and ordering activities are provided. Construction materials that work on fine motor skills and spatial concepts will be added to the "nook" area.
•Skills: print awareness, numeral recognition, part-whole relationships, shape recognition, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills, perceptual motor skills, fine motor skills, problem solving, patterning, comparison, matching, ordering, sequencing, construction skills.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, play dough)
•Materials: primary color paint and mixing cups at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, natural collage materials.
•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. Mixing cups are at the easel area so the children can explore how different colors are made.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: play dough, rolling pins (smooth and spiky), pizza cutters, spatulas, trays, paint, shape cutters, paint brushes, paint
•Rationale: To promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. The children can use the shape cutters to make shapes or make their own sculptors out of the play dough. After the children let their creations dry they can paint them to create a piece of artwork with the playdough that they can take home.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination), artistic expression, symbolic representation

Sensory
•Materials: sand, shovels, buckets, trucks
•Rationale: to allow and encourage experimentation with pouring, scooping, molding, and digging in sand. Trucks will be provided to encourage creative play and extend the recent investigation of construction in the community. •Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials
Dramatic Play
•Materials: Chalkboard, table with chairs, colored pencils, pencils, scissors, bell, book-bags, notepads, books and corresponding books on tape, numeracy/literacy materials
•Rationale: The classroom set up will help children to expand on their concept of school, and allow them to play out their real live experiences about school. It will give the children the opportunity to think about the routines of school. The materials will provide print and numeracy awareness and pre-literacy skills.
• Skills: Social interactions, cooperative skills, role-play, creativity, problem solving, fine motor skills, awareness of writing and concepts of print, pre-/early literacy skills,

Language and Literacy
Writing Center
•Materials: paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors
•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with paper, and writing utensils. With the addition of our "classroom," the writing center will assist to extend their play in the dramatic play center.
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
Library
•Materials: Books about school, seeds, spring, and shapes. Familiar and favorite books.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information, to give the children ideas about other materials we could include in our dramatic play classroom.
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Science
Table and Windowsills
•Materials: Magnifying glasses, paper, pencils, measuring tools (rulers), plants, water squirt bottles, books about planting, worm farm, small aquarium with living things
•Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the plants growing in our classroom that they planted and notice changes in the plants as they grow. This will give the children a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. The children will be able to practice watering the plants and discussing what plants need to grow. The children will also be able to explore and observe living creatures in the worm farm and pond life (snails, tadpoles, insects, dragonfly larvae, minnows) in the aquarium with the magnifying glasses.
•Skills: Exploration, observation, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language, plant and animal life cycles
Caves
•Materials: light table, glass gems, light tiles with worms on them, pattern guides
•Rationale: In the caves the children will be able to explore using glass gems on the light table. To relate to the discussion about worms and their habitats the in soil, we will encourage the children to use the glass gems to create worms, and worm tunnels. To continue exploration with pattern making examples using the gems will be made for the children to continue.
•Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language, comparing

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel, truck books, assorted fabrics
•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work. To allow children to extend personal experiences through imaginative play.
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical and geometrical thinking

Large Motor
Gym
•Materials: bolsters, green mats, assembled to create "mat mountain." A-frame climbing structure, blue foam donut, blue stairs, foam roller slide, painted hopscotch track, monkey bars, basketball hoop, foam balls.
•Skills: Upper and lower body strength, climbing skills, tumbling, body control, risk taking, turn taking, hand-eye coordination, jumping and landing, coordination, core strength, stamina, one-to-one correspondence, balance, number sense.
Playground
•Materials: shovels, buckets, wagons, swings, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: Digging in sand, riding trikes around the playground, and swinging on the swings create opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, role play, and many large motor experiences.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.

Snack
Monday - Rice cakes and oranges
Wednesday - Bananas and graham crackers
Thursday - Apples and pretzels
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise specified
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Overview: This week will bring new and exciting learning opportunities for the children as we enter the last few weeks of small groups and the addition of a new dramatic center in our classroom. With the help of a discussion with the children, we have decided to change our restaurant into a classroom. This is a relevant part of their lives and it will offer them opportunities to explore and expand on their concept of school. We will also be continuing with our existing themes of planting and shapes. This week Elizabeth A's small group will be going on a flied trip to the Como Zoo Conservatory to explore and learn about the plants there, and on Monday Pearl and Emmett's mother will be coming to make pizza with the children in celebration of Peal and Emmett's birthday.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, interlocking puzzles, construction floor puzzling, interlocking food puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles, interlockers

•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To stimulate ideas for our restaurant in the dramatic play area we have food puzzles for the children to work with. We have added interlockers for the children to gain experience making, comparing, and measuring pattern creations, while working on problem solving and perceptual motor skills. 

•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills, perceptual motor skills, problem solving, patterning, measurement, comparison.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, play dough)
•Materials: primary color paint and mixing cups at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, natural collage materials.

•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. We added mixing cups to the easel area so the children can explore how different colors are made. 

•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition

•Materials: play dough, rolling pins (smooth and spiky), pizza cutters, spatulas, pizza pans and trays, paint, shape cutters, paint brushes
•Rationale: To promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the children can continue using the shape cutters on the play dough to cut out their own shapes and after the children let their creations dry they can paint them to create a final product.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)

Sensory
•Materials: dirt, sand, bugs, shovels, trees, water, frogs

•Rationale: to allow and encourage experimentation with dirt, sand, and the natural objects one might find in dirt. We have been doing a lot of reading and discussing about planting and bugs. The sensory table will give children the opportunity to see what else we can do with dirt. We are adding toy frogs to the sensory table to help the children to think about food-chains: what bugs eat and what might eat bugs. Water will be added to the table to help emphasize the molding of the dirt and sand and to serve as ponds for the frogs.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, thinking about insect habitats, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials

Dramatic Play

•Materials: Chalkboard, table with chairs, colored pencils, pencils scissors, bell, book-bags, notepads
•Rationale: The discussion of transforming our restaurant into a classroom has been received by the children with excitement and they have had many great ideas about what to put in our classroom. This week we will bring these ideas to life with the help of the children. The classroom set up will help children to expand on their concept of school, and we anticipate their real live experiences about school will be played out. It will also give the children the opportunity to think about the routines of school.
• Skills: Social interactions, cooperative skills, creativity, discussion and problem solving, fine motor skills, awareness of writing and concepts of print, pre-/early literacy skills,

Language and Literacy
Writing Center 

•Materials: paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors

•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with paper, and writing utensils. With the addition of our "classroom," the writing center will assist to extend their play in the dramatic play center. 

•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building

Library

•Materials: Books about seeds, spring, and shapes. Books about school.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information, to give the children ideas about other objects we could include in our dramatic play area and in our sensory table
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Science
Table

•Materials: Magnifying glasses, flowers, paper, pencils, markers, measuring tools (rulers and tape measurers), dirt, pots, seeds, water, books about planting, worm farm
•Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the flowers growing in our classroom and notice changes in the flowers as they grow. We have been doing a lot of talking about seeds and plants growing. This activity will give the students a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. Also, planting new seeds allows children to connect the previously explored seeds to the plants they grow into. The children will be able to practice watering the plants and discussing what plants need to grow.
The children will also be able to explore the worm farm with the magnifying glasses. They will be able to see the worms tunnel through the dirt and make castings out of their food.
•Skills: Exploration, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language

Caves
•Materials: light table, brown glass gems, light tiles with worms on them

•Rationale: In the caves the children will be able to explore using glass gems on the light table. To relate to the discussion about worms and their habitats the in soil, we will encourage the children to use the glass gems to create worms, and worm tunnels. To introduce pattern making with another material.
•Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language, comparing

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel, truck books 

•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work. We will highlight the use of unit blocks this week to emphasize shapes and part-whole comparisons made by putting different blocks together.

•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical and geometrical thinking

Large Motor
Gym
•Materials: bolsters, green mats, assembled to create "mat mountain." A-frame climbing structure, blue foam donut, blue stairs, foam roller slide, painted hopscotch track, monkey bars, basketball hoop, foam balls.
•Skills: Upper and lower body strength, climbing skills, tumbling, body control, risk taking, turn taking, hand-eye coordination, jumping and landing, coordination, core strength, stamina, one-to-one correspondence, balance, number sense.
Playground

•Materials: shovels, buckets, wagons, swings, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: Digging in sand, riding trikes around the playground, and swinging on the swings create opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, role play, and many large motor experiences.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.

Snack
Monday - Making pizza with Emmett and Pearl's mom
Wednesday - Eric's birthday treat
Thursday - Cantaloupe & graham crackers
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise specified

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Hello Families!

Well, our camp out is a go! The weather has held off so far, so I'm
remaining hopeful that it won't rain within the next couple of hours. If it
does we'll continue at Dodge, but just amened our plans.

Throughout the flurry of e-mails, I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that
Sheila, our Lab School naturalist and Dodge Nature Center connection :)
will be leading the nature walks tonight (a big "thank you" to her in
advance!).

See you and your families soon!

Lisa

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Overview: This week in our classroom we will be continuing our themes of planting, shapes, and restaurants. We will also be making a few changes to our classroom. We are getting a worm farm for the bug small group and it will be out at the science table for all of the children to explore. We are also adding some new puzzles to the manipulative area to get the children more involved with shapes and games with rules. This week we will add moisture to the sensory table so the children can begin to do some molding. During large group we are going to assign jobs to take care of the guinea pigs because we want the children to be able to take part in taking care of them. This week Hamdi will be making popsicles with the children.

Math and Manipulatives

•Materials: Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, interlocking puzzles, construction floor puzzling, interlocking food puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles, interlockers

•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To stimulate ideas for our restaurant in the dramatic play area we have food puzzles for the children to work with. We have added interlockers for the children to gain experience making, comparing, and measuring pattern creations, while working on problem solving and perceptual motor skills. 

•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills, perceptual motor skills, problem solving, patterning, measurement, comparison.

Expressive Arts (paint, play dough)

•Materials: primary color paint and mixing cups at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, natural collage materials.

•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. We added mixing cups to the easel area so the children can explore how different colors are made. 

•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition

•Materials: play dough, rolling pins (smooth and spiky), pizza cutters, spatulas, pizza pans and trays, paint, paint brushes
•Rationale: To promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the students can begin to create pizzas with the play dough to expand on our restaurant dramatic play theme. We will demonstrate at large group that the new dough for this week can be left over night to harden. After the children let their creations dry they can paint them to create a final product.

•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)

Sensory

•Materials: dirt, sand, bugs, sticks, trees, water

•Rationale: to allow and encourage experimentation with dirt, sand, and the natural objects one might find in dirt. We have been doing a lot of reading and discussing about planting and have planted some seeds in dirt. The sensory table will give children the opportunity to see what else we can do with dirt. We are adding sand to the table so the children can experiment with what happens when dirt and sand are combined. Water will be added to the table to help emphasize the molding of the dirt and sand.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, thinking about insect habitats, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials

Dramatic Play

•Materials: Restaurant center props (aprons, chef hats, cardboard pizza boxes, felt food, dishes), housekeeping and caretaking materials (furniture, dishes, food, babies, baby clothing), writing supplies (menus, paper, pencils, markers) dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys, cell phones, necklaces, and purses 

•Rationale: Our dramatic play center continues to be the pizza restaurant this week. It continues to be a relevant for them after our field trip to Duffy's pizza and our recent pizza cooking project. The children were very intrigued by all of the different toppings their classmates brought in, so we will encourage them to make those toppings in the pizza restaurant. To facilitate and strengthen dramatic play related to working at and visiting a restaurant. To follow the children's continued interest with making, ordering and delivering pizzas, pizza pans, oven, phone and notepad and pencils will be included. To encourage cooperative play and highlight another job, pizza deliver/waiter in our community and what it takes to perform that job. 

•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy

Language and Literacy

Writing Center 

•Materials: menus, food order forms, paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors

•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with the menus and food order forms. We are going to spend more time encouraging children to use the menus to show the waiters and waitresses what they actually would like to order at the restaurant. 

•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building

Library

•Materials: Books about seeds, spring, and shapes. Books about restaurants, pizza, and other types of food.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information, to give the children ideas about other objects we could include in our dramatic play area and in our sensory table.
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Science

Table

Materials: Magnifying glasses, flowers, paper, pencils, markers, measuring tools (rulers and tape measurers), dirt, pots, seeds, water, books about planting, worm farm
Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the flower growing in our classroom and notice changes in the flower as it grows. We have been doing a lot of talking about seeds and plants growing. This activity will give the students a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. Also, planting new seeds allows children to connect the previously explored seeds to the plants they grow into. The children will be able to practice watering the plants and discussing what plants need to grow.
The children will also be able to explore the worm farm with the magnifying glasses. They will be able to see the worms tunnel through the dirt and make castings out of their food.
Skills: Exploration, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language

Caves

Materials: light table, glass gems, light tiles with worms on them

Rationale: In the caves the children will be able to explore using glass gems on the light table. To relate to our theme and discussion about planting we will be encouraging the children to create flowers, trees, and gardens using the glass gems. To introduce pattern making with another material. 
Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language, comparing
Blocks

•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel, truck books 

•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work. We will highlight the use of unit blocks this week to emphasize shapes and part-whole comparisons made by putting different blocks together.

•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical and geometrical thinking
Large Motor

Gym


To Be Announced 


Playground

•Materials: shovels, buckets, wagons, swings, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: Digging in sand, riding trikes around the playground, and swinging on the swings create opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, role play, and many large motor experiences. 
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.
Special Interest
• In addition to Hamdi's popsicle cooking project this week, we will also spend time exploring care-taking roles related to our guinea pigs.

Snack
Monday - Animal crackers & oranges
Wednesday - Popsicles & apples
Thursday - Celery & hummus

Overview: This week in our classroom we will be continuing our themes of planting, shapes, and restaurants. The children will be able to investigate how plants grow by planting bean seeds. We also have two exciting cooking projects this week. The children will be able to help make bread with Robin's mom Anna and pizza with Brittany. The children's play in the restaurant will continue to be expanded as they see firsthand how to make pizza and as we implement more of their ideas into the restaurant center. Additionally it is our second week of small groups, which will make for a busy week of learning and exploring!

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Blokus, Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, Perfection, interlocking puzzles, construction floor puzzling, interlocking food puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles, interlockers
•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To stimulate ideas for our restaurant in the dramatic play area we have food puzzles for the children to work with. We have added interlockers for the children to gain experience making, comparing, and measuring pattern creations, while working on problem solving and perceptual motor skills.
•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills, perceptual motor skills, problem solving, patterning, measurement, comparison.

Expressive Arts (paint, play dough)
•Materials: primary color paint and mixing cups at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, natural collage materials.
•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. We added mixing cups to the easel area so the children can explore how different colors are made.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: play dough, rolling pins (smooth and spiky), pizza cutters, spatulas, pizza pans and trays
•Rationale: To promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the students can begin to create pizzas with the play dough to expand on our restaurant dramatic play theme.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)

Sensory
•Materials: dirt, sand, bugs, sticks, trees
•Rationale: to allow and encourage experimentation with dirt, sand, and the natural objects one might find in dirt. We have been doing a lot of reading and discussing about planting and have planted some seeds in dirt. The sensory table will give children the opportunity to see what else we can do with dirt. We are adding sand to the table so the children can experiment with what happens when dirt and sand are combined.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, thinking about insect habitats, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials

Dramatic Play
•Materials: Restaurant center props (aprons, chef hats, cardboard pizza boxes, felt food, dishes), housekeeping and caretaking materials (furniture, dishes, food, babies, baby clothing), writing supplies (menus, paper, pencils, markers) dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys, cell phones, necklaces, and purses
•Rationale: Our dramatic play center continues to be the pizza restaurant this week. It continues to be relevant for them after our field trip to Duffy's pizza and with our upcoming pizza cooking project. To facilitate and strengthen dramatic play related to working at and visiting a restaurant. To follow the children's continued interest with making, ordering and delivering pizzas, pizza pans, oven, phone and notepad and pencils will be included. To encourage cooperative play and highlight another job, pizza deliver/waiter in our community and what it takes to perform that job.
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy

Language and Literacy
Writing Center
•Materials: menus, food order forms, paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors
•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with the menus and food order forms. We are going to spend more time encouraging children to use the menus to show the waiters and waitresses what they actually would like to order at the restaurant.
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
Library
•Materials: Books about seeds, spring, and shapes. Books about restaurants, pizza, and other types of food.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information, to give the children ideas about other objects we could include in our dramatic play area and in our sensory table.
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Science
Table
•Materials: Magnifying glasses, flowers, paper, pencils, markers, measuring tools (rulers and tape measurers), dirt, pots, seeds, water, books about planting
•Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the flower growing in our classroom and notice changes in the flower as it grows. We have been doing a lot of talking about seeds and plants growing. This activity will give the students a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. Also, planting new seeds allows children to connect the previously explored seeds to the plants they grow into. The children will be able to practice watering the plants and discussing what plants need to grow.
•Skills: Exploration, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language
Caves
•Materials: light table, glass gems, light tiles with worms on them
•Rationale: In the caves the children will be able to explore using glass gems on the light table. To relate to our theme and discussion about planting we will be encouraging the children to create flowers, trees, and gardens using the glass gems. To introduce pattern making with another material.
•Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language, comparing

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel, truck books
•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work. We will highlight the use of unit blocks this week to emphasize shapes and part-whole comparisons made by putting different blocks together.
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical and geometrical thinking

Large Motor
Gym
•Materials: target, upside down rocking boats, big foam triangle, donut, rolling mountain, hurdles, stairs, wobbly bridge, A-frame, empty boxes.
•Rationale: To encourage children's planning and movement awareness. To encourage turn-taking and risk taking. To provide more climbing challenges along with opportunities for risk taking. The wobbly bridge provides the opportunity to practice coordination between upper and lower body, build core strength and balance while the empty boxes allows for creative building and spatial awareness.
•Skills: climbing, upper and lower body strength, balance, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, depth perception, physical risk taking, construction skills.
Playground
•Materials: shovels, buckets, wagons, swings, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: Digging in sand, riding trikes around the playground, and swinging on the swings create opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, role play, and many large motor experiences.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.

Special Interest
• We are making bread and pizzas this week! We will also be continuing our small groups on bugs, planting, and shapes.

Snack
Monday - Making bread with Robin's mom
Wednesday - Making pizza with Brittany
Thursday - Trail Mix
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise specified

Overview: Last week was exciting and busy for our classroom as we went to Duffy's Pizza on Wednesday and the children got many ideas for expanding our pizza restaurant. They also got to explore our new soil sensory table. This week we will be continuing with implementing the children's ideas into the restaurant, and expanding on our theme of seeds and planting by taking a closer look at our plants, measuring them, and seeing how much they've grown. This week will also bring with it our first student teacher cooking project, as Elizabeth A. makes strawberry banana smoothies with the children. Small groups will also start this week. Our group themes for small group will be: Seeds and planting, Bugs, and Shapes.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Blokus, Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, Perfection, interlocking puzzles, construction floor puzzling, interlocking food puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles
•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To introduce children to our upcoming restaurant in the dramatic play area we have food puzzle for the children to work with. The construction floor puzzle was a preferred choice last week so we will continue to have it out and encourage the children to work together to put it together.
•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills.

Expressive Arts (paint, playdough)
•Materials: primary color paint and bubble wrap at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, natural collage materials.
•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. We added the bubble wrap this week to concentrate on texture and allow the children to explore what patterns they can make with different objects.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: playdough, rolling pins (smooth and spiky), pizza cutters, spatchulas, pizza pan and trays
•Rationale: Since the field trip to Duffy's Pizza, the children have been interest in creating and working with pizza dough, so playdough was provided to extend this interest. To promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the students can begin to create pizzas with the playdough to expand on our restaurant dramatic play theme.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)

Sensory
•Materials: dirt, bugs, sticks, trees
•Rationale: to allow and encourage experimentation with dirt and the natural objects one might find in dirt. We have been doing a lot of reading and discussing about planting and have actually planted some seeds in dirt. The sensory table will give children the opportunity to see what else we can do with dirt. During the week we will brainstorm ideas with the children about what else we could add to the dirt.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, thinking about insect habitats, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials

Dramatic Play
•Materials: Restaurant center props (aprons, chef hats, cardboard pizza boxes, felt food, dishes), housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), writing supplies (menus, paper, pencils, markers) dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys, cell phones, necklaces, and purses
•Rationale: Our dramatic play center continues to be the pizza restaurant this week, it continues to be relevant for them after our field trip to Duffy's pizza. To facilitate and strengthen dramatic play related to working at and visiting a restaurant. To follow the children's continued interest with making, ordering and delivering pizzas, pizza pans, oven, phone and notepad and pencils will be included. To encourage cooperative play and highlight another job, pizza deliver/waiter in our community and what it takes to perform that job.
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy

Language and Literacy
Writing Center
•Materials: menus, food order forms, paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors
•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with the menus and food order forms. We are going to spend more time encouraging children to use the menus to show the waiters and waitresses what they actually would like to buy at the restaurant.
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
Library
•Materials: Books about seeds, spring, and shapes. Books about restaurants, pizza, and other types of food have also been added.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information, to give the children ideas about other objects we could include in our dramatic play area and in our sensory table.
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Science
Table
Materials: Magnifying glasses, flowers, paper, pencils, markers, measuring tools (rulers and tape measurers), dirt, pots, seeds, water
Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the flower growing in our classroom and notice changes in the flower as it grows. We have been doing a lot of talking about seeds and plants growing. This activity will give the students a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. We are adding the measuring tools so the students can measure how much the plant grows. Also, planting new seeds allows children to connect the previously explored seeds to the plants they grow into. The children will be able to practice watering the plants and discussing what plants need to grow.
Skills: Exploration, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language
Caves:
Materials: Colored linking blocks, paper, markers, Legos, Felt board and felt petals
Rationale: In the caves we have been letting the children explore with the colored linking blocks. The children have shown interest in created flowers, trees, and gardens. This week we are going to encourage them to continue to make flowers and begin to talk about patterns. As teachers make patterns with the blocks and felt board and describe patterns, children will be able to explore with the blocks to create patterns of their own. The Legos will give the children another tool to create flowers with. The children can compare and contrast the flowers made out of Legos and the flowers made out of linking blocks.
Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language, comparing

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel, truck books
•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work. The children can use the truck books to create delivery trucks for our restaurant. This will tie together the block area and the dramatic play areas to create a more social, collaborative classroom.
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking

Large Motor
Gym
Materials: target, upside down rocking boats, big foam triangle, donut, rolling mountain, hurdles, stairs, wobbly bridge, A-frame, empty boxes.
- Rationale: To encourage children's planning and movement awareness. To encourage turn-taking and risk taking. To provide more climbing challenges along with opportunities for risk taking. The wobbly bridge provides the opportunity to practice coordination between upper and lower body, build core strength and balance while the empty boxes allows for creative building and spatial awareness.
•Skills: climbing, upper and lower body strength, balance, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, depth perception, physical risk taking, construction skills.

Playground
•Materials: shovels, buckets, wagons, swings, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: The children have been enjoying digging and transporting the sand using the wagons, pulling the wagons around with their friends and riding the bikes. They enjoy running, going on the swings, playing hide-seek, and digging while engaging in social interactions, cooperation, role play, and lots of large motor experiences.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.

Special Interest
• This we will starting our small groups and making smoothies!

Snack
Monday - Strawberry banana smoothies
Wednesday - Pretzels & apples
Thursday - Toast & milk
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise specified

Overview: This week in our classroom we will be continuing our two large themes of seeds and restaurants. We are adding dirt to our sensory table for the children to explore and manipulate. We will also be taking a field trip to Duffy's Pizza in Dinkytown to get ideas on how to expand our dramatic play area and to show the children what kinds of duties are performed at a real pizza restaurant. We will also be bringing the guinea pigs out of the nook area and into the main part of our classroom. We plan to continue to provide the children with facts about the guinea pigs and to teach them the proper ways to interact with our new pets.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Blokus, Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, Perfection, interlocking puzzles, construction floor puzzling, interlocking food puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles
•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To introduce children to our upcoming restaurant in the dramatic play area we have food puzzle for the children to work with. The construction floor puzzle was a preferred choice last week so we will continue to have it out and encourage the children to work together to put it together.
•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills.
Expressive Arts (paint, clay)
•Materials: primary color paint at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, natural collage materials, watercolors, brushes, spray bottles, textured watercolor paper, bubble wrap
•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. We added the bubble wrap this week to concentrate more on texture and allow the children to explore what patterns they can make with different objects.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: Clay, hammers, clay knives, craft sticks, pencils, toothpicks, rolling pins
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the children can begin saving their clay creations, working on them for several days, and drying them out to create a permanent art object. The students can begin to create pizzas with the clay to expand on our restaurant dramatic play theme.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: dirt, bugs, sticks
•Rationale: to allow and encourage experimentation with dirt and the natural objects one might find in dirt. We have been doing a lot of reading and discussing about planting and have actually planted some seeds in dirt. The sensory table will give children the opportunity to see what else we can do with dirt. During the week we will brainstorm ideas with the children about what else we could add to the dirt.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials
Dramatic Play
Restaurant
•Materials: Restaurant center props (aprons, chef hats, cardboard pizza boxes, felt food, dishes), housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), writing supplies (menus, paper, pencils, markers) dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys, cell phones, necklaces, and purses, cash register, money
•Rationale: A new center to facilitate and strengthen dramatic play related to working at and visiting a restaurant. To follow the children's continued interest with delivering packages, pizza boxes will be included for delivery of pizzas. To encourage cooperative play and highlight another job, pizza deliver/waiter in our community and what it takes to perform that job. To introduce how to make sales and how to be polite when communicating with a customer.
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy
Housekeeping Area
•Materials: baby dolls, doll clothes, bottles, strollers, kitchen supplies, dress up clothes
•Rationale: Since some of the children in our class were really interested in washing babies in our sensory table last week, we plan to move the babies over to the house keeping area. This way the children can practice taking care of babies and doing tasks such as feeding, clothing, and rocking the babies.
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving
Language and Literacy
Writing Center
•Materials: menus, food order forms, paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors
•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with the menus and food order forms. We are going to spend more time encouraging children to use the menus to show the waiters and waitresses what they actually would like to buy at the restaurant.
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
Library
•Materials: Books about seeds, spring, and babies. Books about restaurants, pizza, and other types of food have also been added.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information, to give the children ideas about other objects we could include in our dramatic play area and in our sensory table.
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building
Science
Table
Materials: Magnifying glasses, flowers, paper, pencils, markers, measuring tools (rulers and tape measurers), dirt, pots, seeds, water
Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the flower growing in our classroom and notice changes in the flower as it grows. We have been doing a lot of talking about seeds and plants growing. This activity will give the students a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. We are adding the measuring tools so the students can measure how much the plant grows. Also, planting new seeds allows children to connect the previously explored seeds to the plants they grow into. The children will be able to practice watering the plants and discussing what plants need to grow.
Skills: Exploration, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language
Caves:
Materials: Colored linking blocks, paper, markers, Legos
Rationale: In the caves we have been letting the children explore with the colored linking blocks. The children have shown interest in created flowers, trees, and gardens. This week we are going to encourage them to continue to make flowers and begin to talk about patterns. As teachers make patterns with the blocks and describe patterns, children will be able to explore with the blocks to create patterns of their own. The Legos will give the children another tool to create flowers with. The children can compare and contrast the flowers made out of Legos and the flowers made out of linking blocks.
Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language, comparing
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel, truck books
•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work. The children can use the truck books to create delivery trucks for our restaurant. This will tie together the block area and the dramatic play areas to create a more social, collaborative classroom.
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking
Large Motor
Gym
Materials: climbing ladders, monkey bars, notch blocks, climber with wedge slide, A-frame with ladder bridge
, rolling climber/slide, rocking seat
•Rationale: to provide more climbing challenges along with opportunities for risk taking. The notch blocks will allow the children to creatively build their own designs for motor challenges.
 The rolling climber (purchased with our Gym Jam money) allows children to use upper- and lower-body strength as they climb on an unstable surface. It also encourages appropriate risk-taking as they slide down when they are finished. The donut slide was changed to a wedge slide to give the children an opportunity to try and climb up the wedge while using their arm strength to pull on a rope for additional support.
•Skills: climbing, upper and lower body strength, balance, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, depth perception, physical risk taking, construction skills * Look for additions later in the week!
Playground
•Materials: shovels, scoops, buckets, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: The melted snow has revealed plenty of sand, leaves, grass for the children to explore. Digging in wet sand, raking leaves, and riding trikes around the playground create opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, role play, and lots of large motor experiences.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.
Special Interest
•This week, our very capable student teachers will begin leading large groups and initiating our classroom transitions.
•Fieldtrip to Duffy's Dinkytown Pizza on Wednesday.
Snack
Monday - Pretzels
Wednesday - Pizza at Duffy's
Thursday - Hummus and carrots
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Student Teachers Co-Teaching Week

Overview: Last week was certainly a busy week for our classroom. We got to know our new classroom pets, guinea pigs named Sam and Rosebud! The children did an excellent job observing the animals quietly so that they would feel comfortable in our classroom. This week, the children will begin visiting with the guinea pigs in small groups. This will give them a chance to observe the way these animals move and interact, and also introduce them to some of the basic needs guinea pigs have. Additionally, the children will practice appropriate ways to approach the cage and interact with the animals. In addition to our new animals, the children will also begin planting some of the seeds we have explored this session, including the seeds we gathered when making guacamole last week. This week will be full of exploring, observing, and caring for living things in our classroom.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Blokus, Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, Perfection, interlocking puzzles, construction floor puzzling, interlocking food puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles
•Rationale: To introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes. To introduce children to our upcoming restaurant in the dramatic play area we have food puzzle for the children to work with. Because many children have been really enjoying working with the puzzles and because of the many constructions going on around the U and in the block center, the construction floor puzzle will be available this week.
•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
•Materials: primary color paint at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, natural collage materials, watercolors, brushes, spray bottles, textured watercolor paper
•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects. To help build sense of classroom community by watercoloring collaborative paintings to hang in our school hallway.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition
Clay
•Materials: Clay, hammers, clay knives, craft sticks, pencils, toothpicks
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the children can begin saving their clay creations, working on them for several days, and drying them out to create a permanent art object.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)

Sensory
•Materials: water, soap/bubbles, rotary egg beaters, whisks, measuring pitchers, mixing bowls, baby tubs, baby washing cloths, baby dolls.
•Rationale: to allow encourage experimentation with soap and water and the processes that create bubbles. To facilitate imaginative play including cooking, making potions, washing dishes and baby bathing. We've been discussing babies doing large group because one of the children has just had a new baby brother. The babies and soap will introduce concepts of care-taking for others.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials

Dramatic Play
•Materials: Restaurant center props (aprons, chef hats, cardboard pizza boxes, felt food, dishes), housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), writing supplies (menus, paper, pencils, markers) dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys, cell phones, necklaces, and purses
•Rationale: A new center to facilitate and strengthen dramatic play related to working at and visiting a restaurant. To follow the children's continued interest with delivering packages, pizza boxes will be included for delivery of pizzas. To encourage cooperative play and highlight another job, pizza deliver/waiter in our community and what it takes to perform that job.
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy

Language and Literacy
Writing Center
•Materials: menus, food order forms, paper, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, scissors
•Rationale: to promote print and letter awareness while incorporating dramatic play with the menus and food order forms.
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
Library
•Materials: Books about seeds, spring, and babies. Books about restaurants, pizza, and other types of food have also been added.
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Science
Materials: Magnifying glasses, flowers, paper, pencils, markers, measuring tools (rulers and tape measurers), dirt, pots, seeds, water
Rationale: Magnifying glasses enable the children to examine the flower growing in our classroom and notice changes in the flower as it grows. We have been doing a lot of talking about seeds and plants growing. This activity will give the students a chance to see a plant that is in the process of growing. We are adding the measuring tools so the students can measure how much the plant grows. Also, planting new seeds allows children to connect the previously explored seeds to the plants they grow into.
Skills: Exploration, fine motor, drawing, measuring, language
Caves:
Materials: Colored linking blocks, paper, markers.
Rationale: In the caves we have been letting the children explore with the colored linking blocks. The children have shown interest in created flowers, trees, and gardens. This week we are going to encourage them to continue to make flowers and begin to talk about patterns. As teachers make patterns with the blocks and describe patterns, children will be able to explore with the blocks to create patterns of their own.
Skills: Fine motor, pattern constructing, memory expansion, color recognition, cooperation, planning skills, language

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils, easel
•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building including drawing or writing plans and blueprints, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking

Large Motor
Gym
Materials: climbing ladders, monkey bars, notch blocks, climber with donut slide, A-frame with ladder bridge
, rolling climber/slide, rocking seat
•Rationale: to provide more climbing challenges along with opportunities for risk taking. The notch blocks will allow the children to creatively build their own designs for motor challenges.
 The rolling climber (purchased with our gym jam money) allows children to use upper- and lower-body strength as they climb on an unstable surface. It also encourages appropriate risk-taking as they slide down when they are finished.
•Skills: climbing, upper and lower body strength, balance, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, depth perception, physical risk taking, construction skills * Look for additions later in the week!
Playground
•Materials: shovels, scoops, buckets, dishes for dramatic play, rakes, tricycles, and wagons
•Rationale: The melted snow has revealed plenty of sand, leaves, grass for the children to explore. Digging in wet sand, raking leaves, and riding trikes around the playground create opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, role play, and lots of large motor experiences.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.
Special Interest
This week, our very capable student teachers will begin leading large groups and initiating our classroom transitions.
Snack
Monday - Trail mix & milk
Wednesday - Saltines & frozen peas
Thursday - Rice cakes & raisins
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: Only one week into our Spring Session and the children are already creatively exploring and engaging in new learning tasks. Additionally, the class has begun building relationships with our three new student teachers, Elizabeth A., Hamdi, and Brittany. This week we will continue our exploration of seeds and plant growth, both with our seed sorting and with the observation of our new classroom plant (a daffodil). The science area will also see the addition of some different fruits and vegetables that the children can examine before we cut them open to examine the seeds inside and to make some guacamole for our classroom snack. We have also been discussing a change in our dramatic play area. As we finish up with the post office, the children have given us many ideas for possible changes including a restaurant, theater, bakery, and a pirate ship. We will keep you updated as we get closer to a new pretend play idea.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
•Materials: primary color paint at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, natural collage materials, watercolors, eye droppers
•Rationale: to explore new tools and media with hands and eyes, promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships and communication skills as children work on collaborative and individual projects
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development (strength, coordination), sharing ideas and materials, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: Clay, hammers, clay knives, craft sticks, pencils, toothpicks
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. To begin representing ideas and objects in a 3-D medium. Additionally, the children can begin saving their clay creations, working on them for several days, and drying them out to create a permanent art object.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)

Sensory
•Materials: water, soap/bubbles, rotary egg beaters, whisks, measuring pitchers, mixing bowls
•Rationale: to allow encourage experimentation with soap and water and the processes that create bubbles. To facilitate imaginative play including cooking, making potions, and washing dishes.
•Skills: sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical changes, creative thinking, fine motor, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, symbolic representation, sharing materials.

Science
•Materials: at the table: assorted seeds, pictures of plants and flowers, tweezers, sorting tray, books on seeds and plants, daffodil plant, avocadoes, limes, tomatoes, notebooks, pencils, magnifying glasses
in the cave: multi-link cubes for plant and flower making, images of different plants for inspiration
•Rationale: to build awareness of plants and growing through the investigation of plants in different states: seeds, growing flower, fruits with seeds inside. To compare the plants in their different stages including their texture, size, color, and shape.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, sorting, exploring transitional changes, investigation of the natural world, documenting change over time.
• Materials: Overhead projector, solid shapes (geometrical shapes, wire of varying thicknesses) for making shadows, a large white sheet for projecting, books on shadow and light.
•Rationale: to deepen our exploration of shadow shapes to shadow transformation, to explore lines and how they can make different shapes, to connect shape with the materials that make different shadows, to explore what does and does not make a shadow.
•Skills: Observing size and shapes, critical thinking skills, observation of the properties of light, creativity, symbolic representation.

Dramatic Play
•Materials: post office station props (large mailbox, mailbags, postal service uniforms, packages, letters, stamps), writing supplies (paper, envelopes, alphabet stampers, markers, pictures of students), housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys, cell phones, necklaces, purses.
•Rationale: to continue supporting the children's interest in the mail delivery process while promoting social interaction, the expression of inventive ideas, and the exploration of how individuals perform jobs in our community
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, strengthening home-school connections, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Blokus, Boggle Jr., crayons and notepad for Boggle word writing, Perfection, interlocking puzzles, shape/fraction puzzles
•Rationale: to introduce children to games with rules that relate to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shape. To introduce children to simple ways to identify and describe shapes and to create new shapes from smaller shapes.
•Skills: print awareness, part-whole relationships, shape recognition and matching, shape combination, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills.

Language and Literacy
•Materials: a large mailbox, individual mail "slots" for each child, pictures of children in the classroom, picture/name cards, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape
•Rationale: to encourage children in the letter writing process, name recognition, and letter awareness. to provide children with the tools needed to draw or write their own letters and to communicate with peers and teachers through writing.
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building

Library
•Materials: familiar favorites along with new books about seeds, spring, babies, and mail delivery
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom, to use books as resources for non-fiction information
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored shape blocks, small wooden cube blocks, small wooden rods, steering wheels, paper and pencils
•Rationale: To foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building, to combine different materials in order to create new structures, to allow for individual building and collaborative work
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking

Large Motor
Gym
Materials: climbing ladders, monkey bars, notch blocks, climber with donut slide, A-frame with ladder bridge

•Rationale: to provide more climbing challenges along with opportunities for risk taking. The notch blocks will allow the children to creatively build their own designs for motor challenges.

•Skills: climbing, upper and lower body strength, balance, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, depth perception, physical risk taking, construction skills * Look for additions later in the week!
Playground
•Materials: shovels, scoops, buckets, dishes for dramatic play
•Rationale: As the snow slowly melts, the children will explore digging in wet sand, mud, and snow, creating opportunities for social interaction, cooperation, and role play.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), building community through social interactions.

Special Interest
Elizabeth will lead large group for the next week, and use this community time to discuss our classroom plant's growth, changes to our dramatic play area, and the possible arrival of some new classroom pets. We will also explore seeds as we cut open avocadoes, limes, and tomatoes to make guacamole for a snack.

Snack
Monday: Rice cakes and applesauce
Wednesday: Alphabet soup and crackers
Thursday: Guacamole and tortilla chips
*** All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: Welcome back to school families! And Happy Spring! I hope you all enjoyed the break with your families. This first week back to school we will focus on building relationships with our new student teachers Brittany, Elizabeth, and Hamdi. Now that spring is here, we will introduce plant cycles and re-examine the concepts of life and seasonal cycles. As we investigate plants and grow our own, we will discover how plants grow and what they need to survive. The student teachers are excited get started on these and other new topics and activities in the classroom.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
•Materials: primary colors (blue, red, yellow) at the easel, natural materials for collage, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: to explore with hands and tools to promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: fine motor development (strength, coordination), creativity, symbolic representation, sensory input, color recognition
•Materials: clay, hammers, clay knives, toothpicks, craft sticks
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. Children can also save their clay creations and work on them over a period of several days to create a permanent art object.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory (water, bubbles)
•Materials: water, soap/bubbles, rotary egg beaters, whisks, measuring pitchers, mixing bowls
•Rationale: the children were very interested in adding soap to the water table that was introduced last session. We will expand on this interest as we explore the properties of soapy water...and find many ways to make bubbles of all shapes and sizes!
•Skills: making predictions, knowledge of physical properties, sensory input, creative thinking, dramatic play, building social relationships, sharing materials
Science
•Materials: at the table: assorted seeds, pictures of plants and flowers, tweezers, sorting tray, books on seeds and plants
in the cave: multi-link cubes for plant and flower making
•Rationale: to build awareness of plants and growing by introducing seed investigation and discovery. We will examine the properties of seeds, focusing on size, color, texture, and shape.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, comparison, sorting, descriptive language, exploring transitional changes, investigation of the natural world
•Materials: overhead projector: solid shapes (geometrical shapes, wire of varying thicknesses) for shadow making, a large white sheet for projecting, books on shadows and light
•Rationale: to deepen our exploration of shadow shapes to shadow transformation, and to extend our learning about the different shadows that objects cast
•Skills: observing size and shapes, critical thinking skills, observation of the properties of light, creativity, symbolic representation
Dramatic Play
•Materials: post office station props (large mailbox, mailbags, postal service uniforms, packages and letters to deliver, stamps), writing supplies (paper, envelopes, alphabet stampers, markers, pictures of students), housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), dress-up fabric, shoes, accessories such as keys and cell phones, baby care items
•Rationale: to continue supporting the children's interest in the mail delivery process (especially after our field trip to the post office) while promoting social interaction and the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, making connections to real-life experiences, strengthening home-school connections, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Blokus, Boggle Jr., Perfection, interlocking puzzles
•Rationale: to introduce children to games with rules that are related to print awareness, numeral recognition, and knowledge of shapes, while continuing to provide puzzles to increase skills of one-to-one correspondence
•Skills: print awareness, numeral awareness, shape recognition and matching, spatial awareness, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, social skills
Language and Literacy
Writing Center
•Materials: a large mailbox, individual mail "slots" for each child, pictures of children in the classroom, picture/name cards, alphabet stamps, a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape
•Rationale: we will focus on print awareness as we involve and encourage children in the letter writing process; we will provide children with the tools needed to draw and write their own letters to deliver throughout the classroom
•Skills: awareness of print, connecting speech to print and print to speech, letter recognition, pre-writing, receptive language, fine motor, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
Library
•Materials: familiar favorites along with new books about seeds, spring, and mail delivery
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom. We will also begin discussions on using books as informational resources.
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored blocks, steering wheels, paper and pencils, books about mail delivery, post office/mail delivery props such as packages and delivery mail bins
•Rationale: to foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
Gym
•Materials: climbing ladders, monkey bars, notch blocks, climber with donut slide, A-frame with ladder bridge
•Rationale: to provide more climbing challenges along with opportunities for risk taking. The notch blocks will allow the children to creatively build their own designs for motor challenges.
•Skills: climbing, upper and lower body strength, balance, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, depth perception, physical risk taking, construction skills
Playground
•Materials: shovels, scoops, buckets, dishes for dramatic play
•Rationale: to support basic motor skills, and to promote social interaction and role play as children use dishes and tools for scooping and manipulation
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), social skills
Special Interest
Large Group Meeting--we will welcome everyone back from break and share some of the things that we have done. This time together will emphasize togetherness and foster the building of classroom community as we get acquainted with our new student teachers, Brittany, Elizabeth, and Hamdi.
Snack
Monday: Pretzels
Wednesday: Granola bits
Thursday: Mandarin oranges & wheat crackers
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: During these last two weeks of our winter session we will explore a few new concepts as we spend time reviewing what we have learned. Because mail delivery has been so popular amongst the children, we have added a postal station to our dramatic play area, complete with mail carrier uniforms and post office props. We are sure to see the expansion of ideas as children correspond with their classmates and teachers through the mail delivery process. We will continue our discovery of the five senses in our science center as we review the sense of touch, sight, hearing, and smell, and introduce the sense of taste. The children will continue to experience clay through pounding, cutting, and poking, and we will continue to introduce new materials to encourage creative modeling and manipulation. We will enjoy discovering a new set up as children play in the gym this week. And after several exciting weeks of learning and sharing experiences together, we will be wrapping up our small groups. We are looking forward to our upcoming field trip and end-of-the-session party, and we hope you have an energizing and refreshing spring break!

Expressive Arts
•Materials: scented and textured paint at the art table, markers at the easel
•Rationale: to provide a new texture and sensory experience for the children as we continue to explore our "5 Senses"
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: clay, hammers, clay knives, toothpicks, craft sticks
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they increase their fine motor skills. Children can also save their clay creations and work on them over a period of several days to create a permanent art object.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: water, plastic animals, rubber balls, Styrofoam pieces, bottle caps, other "sinking and floating" objects
•Rationale: to give children the opportunity to explore and interact with water and its properties. After the children became experts in melting snow, their focus shifted to water where they became curious about the concept of sinking and floating.
•Skills: making connections between indoors and outdoors, making predictions, sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, creative thinking, dramatic play
Science
•Materials: at the table: pictures, books, and other materials for the exploration of taste; in the cave: musical instruments for the continued exploration of sound
•Rationale: we will naturally progress from our investigations of our sense of smell to our sense of taste. We will continue to discuss all of the senses so children will be able to make connections between them, and create a deeper understanding of what they currently know and understand.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, critical thinking skills, self reflection
•Materials: overhead projector--solid and translucent geometrical shapes, a large white sheet for projecting, books on shadows and light
•Rationale: to explore shadow shapes, to extend creative picture-making, to encourage the exploration of making shadows with our bodies, and to learn more about how our bodies and shadows move together
•Skills: observing size and shapes, critical thinking skills, observation of the properties of light, creativity, symbolic representation
Dramatic Play
•Materials: housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), dress-up fabric, shoes, and accessories such as keys and cell phones; baby care items; props for a new post office station (large mailbox, mailbags, postal service uniforms, packages and letters to deliver)
•Rationale: to support the children's interest in writing and delivering letters, and deepen the concepts surrounding the mail delivery process while promoting social interaction and the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: memory game, button mosaics and boards, pattern blocks and boards, interlocking puzzles
•Rationale: to increase the children's cognitive skills of memory, patterning, color recognition, and one-to-one correspondence while supporting the children's interest in exploring with numbers and quantity
•Skills: memory, patterning, color recognition, one-to-one correspondence, turn-taking, grouping
Language and Literacy
•Materials: a large mailbox, individual mail "slots" for each child, pictures of children in the classroom, picture/name cards, alphabet stamps, and a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, and tape
•Rationale: to involve and encourage children in the letter writing process, and to provide children with the tools needed to draw and write their own letters to deliver throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, concept of print, creative expression, social interaction, awareness of others, community building
•Materials: a variety of alphabet books, books about mail delivery and letter writing, and familiar favorites
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, multi-colored blocks, steering wheels, paper and pencils, books about mail delivery, post office/mail delivery props such as packages and delivery mail bins
•Rationale: to foster current dramatic play themes, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--rope ladder, hopscotch, ball jump station, trampoline, climber, pitch back, soccer kick
•Rationale: we have a new gym set up where children can climb, balance, and throw while negotiating space and practice turn-taking
•Skills: rope ladder: core strength, coordination, balance, climbing, grasping; hopscotch: dynamic/static balance; ball jump station: risk taking, spatial awareness, temporal awareness, body awareness, depth perception; trampoline: endurance, flexibility, lower body strength, turn-taking; pitch back: overhand throwing skills, catching skills; soccer kick: social interaction, kicking skills, eye-foot coordination
•Materials: playground--shovels, scoops, buckets, sleds
•Rationale: with the continued accumulation of snow, the playground will include tools for scooping and manipulation
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, building community through social interactions
Special Interest
•Elizabeth's small group will go on a walking field trip this Wednesday, March 2nd.
•Frances will be our guest on Thursday, March 3rd, and will lead another musical experience during our large group.
•Monday, March 7th is our walking field trip to the Dinkytown Post Office to learn more about the mail delivery process that everyone is so excited about!
•Thursday, March 10th is our last day of the session! Please join us for our party at 2:00 PM. All family members are welcome!
Snack
February 29-March 3
Monday - Popcorn
Wednesday - Apples & sunbutter
Thursday - Trail mix
March 7-10
Monday - Mandarin oranges & wheat crackers
Wednesday - Brenna's Birthday Snack!
Thursday - Classroom Feast!
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: We are finishing up some learning activities, extending others, and introducing new and exciting opportunities in the classroom this week. Thanks to all families who donated boxes and stationary material recently. Our post office continues to be a popular spot for children to correspond with their classmates and teachers. This area will continue to expand with props to help extend the pretend play opportunities of this activity. We wrapped up our shoebox house collages last week, and will begin exploring still-life drawing using different natural objects. Our initial exploration with clay inspired several children to engage in pounding, cutting, poking, and scraping. Simple tools will continue to be available to help encourage modeling and manipulation of this novel substance. Additionally, we will introduce the sense of smell to our science center, with different opportunities to identify substances based upon their smell. However, our sense of sight continues to be important as we interact with an overhead projector to create different shadows using geometric shapes. As always, the children's joyful approaches to all of the classroom materials guide our decision-making and help to create a wonderful early learning environment.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: multi-colored paint at the easel, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors,
•Rationale: to enable each child to actively observe and creatively interpret different objects that they see in everyday life. After having the opportunity to bring in, prepare, and enjoy vegetables for our vegetable soup, the children now have the chance to think deeply about the colors, shape, and texture of vegetables, fruit, and other natural objects. Several colors of paint will remain available at the easel in order to facilitate continued engagement in color mixing and layering.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, problem solving, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: Clay, hammers, clay knives, toothpicks
•Rationale: to provide both a creative and social opportunity for children as they begin to use a novel material and learn from each other's approaches to the clay and clay tools. The clay presents a new texture and sensory experience for the children. It is more dense than play dough and glurch and allows the children to roll, poke, cut, and pound the material in interesting ways. Additionally, the children can begin saving their clay creations, working on them for several days, and drying them out to create a permanent art object.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: snow, scoops, buckets, water, mittens, ice molds, glass beads, animal figures
•Rationale: to allow children to explore water in different states and observe the changes that can occur between solid and liquid states. The children have become experts in melting snow with water. This week, the children will begin making comparisons between ice, snow, and water. Small colorful beads will be frozen into large pieces of ice to encourage the children to melt the ice. Arctic animals will also be available to encourage dramatic play, as the animals jump from iceberg to iceberg.
•Skills: making connections between indoors and outdoors, sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical changes, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, comparison, awareness of animals, symbolic representation.
Science
•Materials: canisters with different substances (coffee, cocoa, vanilla, orange, etc) and pictures for matching, sound "sorting" shakers, bells, and other materials for the exploration of sound.
•Rationale: As we move from our discussion of the sense of hearing to the sense of smell, the children can interact with both musical instruments as well as a scent-based matching game. In addition to sorting different scents, the children will have the opportunity to describe and label different types of scents.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, critical thinking skills, sorting, self reflection
• Materials: Overhead projector, opaque geometrical shapes, a large white sheet for projecting.
•Rationale: Last week, we introduced the overhead projector with differently shaped and colored pieces of translucent plastic. In order to extend the creative picture-making that began last week, we will provide opaque shapes to encourage the making of different shadow shapes.
•Skills: Observing size and shapes, critical thinking skills, observation of the properties of light, creativity, symbolic representation.
Dramatic Play
•Materials: housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), dress-up fabric, shoes, and accessories such as keys and cell phones; baby care items, large mailbox, mailbags, postal service uniforms.
•Rationale: to continue to facilitate and strengthen dramatic play while encouraging social interaction, idea sharing, and cooperative play. To highlight the concept of jobs in our community, specifically a letter carrier, and what it takes to perform them.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation, literacy
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: small pegs and grids, interlocking puzzles, patterning boards
•Rationale: to support the children's interest in numbers and counting, to emphasize part-whole relationships, to encourage patterning of colors.
•Skills: rote counting (1, 2, 3...), part-whole relationships, comparison of objects and quantity (larger vs. smaller), patterning.
Language and Literacy
•Materials: a mailbox and a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, and tape, pictures of children in the classroom, name cards, tracing paper.
•Rationale: to involve and encourage children in the letter writing process; the children have been busy drawing and writing messages for their peers in the classroom. Letters may also be written at home and delivered in the morning to our "mailboxes"
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, social interaction, awareness of others, community building.
•Materials: A variety of alphabet books, as well as some new and exciting story books have been added to the library
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, awareness of print, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, steering wheels, paper and pencils
•Rationale: to foster to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together, to encourage planful and purposeful approaches to building, and to foster dramatic play interactions.
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking
Large Motor
Materials: gym--climber with slide, target "throwing" box with beanbags, rope swing, "bolster island" (all the red, green, and blue tumbling blocks linked together for climbing fun), hopscotch, balance beam.
•Rationale: a new set up for children to increase upper and lower body strength. With the many different activities, the children will have great opportunities to be challenged in several skill areas.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength/coordination, muscular endurance, dynamic/static balance, depth perception, eye-foot coordination, spatial awareness, targeting, over-/under- hand throwing strength/coordination
•Materials: playground--shovels, scoops, buckets, sleds
•Rationale: with the continued accumulation of snow, the playground will include tools for scooping and manipulation.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, building community through social interactions.
Special Interest
Elizabeth will lead large group for the next two weeks. We will continue to engage with musical instruments, also discuss other concepts that are important in our classroom, such as shadows and the sense of smell.
Small groups will continue their explorations of building, water, and storytelling. The water group will be taking a walking trip to the Education Sciences Building on Wednesday, February 16th.
Snack
Monday, February 14: Robert's birthday snack
Wednesday, Februrary 16: Rohan's birthday snack
Thursday, February 17: Oven fries

Overview: New play themes are beginning to emerge throughout the classroom as we continue our exploration on animal tracks and the five senses. We have added a mailbox to the writing center, along with one in our housekeeping area, to accommodate the high interest in mailing letters and packages to one another in the classroom. We will be adding individual mailboxes and letter writing literature to our writing center as the week progresses. Any donations you may be willing to bring in to add to our writing center will be gladly accepted! We will encourage connections between the indoors and outdoors by continuing our experimentation with freezing and melting, and by constructing animal schemes in the sensory table and in the unit blocks. We are excited to begin our small groups this week as well. The topics of water, building, and storytelling will allow for in-depth exploration of the children's interests this session.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: paint at the easel, materials for making individual "houses" and other three-dimensional art, glue, tape, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: because the children were so creative with their wood collage and group sculpture project, we wanted to continue to foster their creative imagination by offering an outlet for further pieces of original art. Children will have the opportunity to design their own house as teachers continue to foster the social relationships that emerge by observing and working together.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation
•Materials: glurch, scissors, markers, small manipulatives for decoration
•Rationale: by stretching, cutting, squeezing, and pinching, the children will be able to create different representations as well as share ideas and interact socially.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: snow, water, animal figures, scoops, buckets, molds, mittens
•Rationale: to continue exploring the properties of snow and the ways it changes in response to differences in temperature, in addition to extending the children's interest in animal tracks left in the snow.
•Skills: making connections between indoors and outdoors, sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical change, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, creative building, awareness of animals
Science
•Materials: sound "sorting" shakers, bells, and other materials for the exploration of sound; objects from past sensory investigations will remain available
•Rationale: the children have been learning about the five senses. In previous weeks they have been introduced to the sense of touch and sight, and this week they will have the chance to explore the sense of hearing .
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, critical thinking skills, sorting, self reflection
Dramatic Play
•Materials: housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), washer and dryer, iron & ironing board, baby care items, dress-up fabric, shoes, and accessories such as keys and cell phones; a mailbox has been added to receive incoming mail and packages
•Rationale: the children have been busy washing and ironing baby clothes and material from our dramatic play; they have also been receiving many packages and letters. We have added a mailbox to continue to support and deepen these themes, while encouraging social interaction.
•Skills: creative role-play, literacy, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: counting pegs and boards, puzzles, abacus
•Rationale: to continue to support the children's interest in numbers and counting; to explore with numbers and quantity
•Skills: recognition of printed numerals, route counting (1, 2, 3...), rational counting (one number to one item), counting by 10's, one-to-one correspondence
Language and Literacy
•Materials: a mailbox and a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, and tape
•Rationale: to involve and encourage children in the letter writing process; teachers will help children write letters, as well as record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition
•Materials: books on the 5 senses have been added to our library, along with a collection of books about writing and mailing letters and delivering packages
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Unit Blocks
•Materials: unit blocks, small colored blocks, foliage, small woodland animals
•Rationale: to foster creative building and allow for opportunities to build and collaborate together; to further develop the "animal tracks" dramatic play theme.
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--climber with slide, target "throwing" box with beanbags, rope swing, "bolster island" (all the red, green, and blue tumbling blocks linked together for climbing fun), hopscotch, balance beam.
•Rationale: a new set up for children to increase upper and lower body strength. With the many different activities, the children will have great opportunities to be challenged in several skill areas.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength/coordination, muscular endurance, dynamic/static balance, depth perception, eye-foot coordination, spatial awareness, targeting, over-/under- hand throwing strength/coordination
•Materials: playground--shovels, scoops, buckets, sleds
•Rationale: with the continued accumulation of snow, the playground will include tools for scooping and manipulation.
•Skills: upper and lower body strength, physical fitness, building community through social interactions.
Special Interest
•Frances will be our guest during Large Group on Thursday, February 3rd. She will lead music and movement activities. Thank you Frances!
Snack
January 31-February 3
Monday: Apples and pretzels
Wednesday: Sweet potato quesadillas
Thursday: Sunbutter and rice cracker sandwiches
February 7-10
Monday: Animal crackers and raisins
Wednesday: Alphabet soup!
Thursday: Pretzels and orange slices
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: After only two weeks back from break, the teachers and children all seem comfortable and excited about all of the learning taking place in the classroom. Thank you for bringing your children ready for outdoor play. It has been helping add some extra time to our outside exploration time. For the next two weeks, we will continue to introduce new materials to familiar activities in the classroom to help build upon the children's emerging interests. Two concepts the children have been actively exploring and discussing are animal tracks/footprints as well as the five senses.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: multi-colored paint at the easel, three-dimensional wood sculpture and collage materials, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors,
•Rationale: to continue actively exploring 3-D art. By introducing wood collaging and sculpture to the art area, children will have the opportunity to combine, stack, juxtapose, and decorate different shapes. The natural textures and colors of wood will allow children's creative imagination to continue to develop. Several colors of paint will remain available at the easel in order to facilitate continued engagement in color mixing and layering.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, problem solving, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: play dough, glurch, small manipulatives for decoration, a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting
•Rationale: to encourage comparison between the two sensory experiences of glurch and play dough. By molding, shaping, cutting, stretching, and rolling, the children will be able to create different representations as well as share ideas and interact socially.
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: snow, scoops, buckets, water, mittens, animal figures
•Rationale: to allow children to explore the different properties of snow, especially the ways it changes in response to temperature change. Animals will be provided to extend the children's interest in the different tracks that are left in the snow on the playground
•Skills: making connections between indoors and outdoors, sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, observation of physical changes, knowledge of physical properties/cause and effect, awareness of animals
SPECIAL NOTE: Sheila, our health and safety person, has noticed the exciting work the children have been doing in the sensory table. On Wednesday, January 19th, stop in to see a special sensory table surprise that Sheila has created just for our class!
Science
•Materials: Magnifying glasses, variety of images for exploration (I-Spy books, magnified "mystery" pictures), painted sunglasses and materials with different textures.
•Rationale: to continue our exploration of the five senses, highlighting the sense of sight, and how sight can be used to solve problems. This sense will be connected to our previous exploration of touch as children are encouraged to guess what they are touching without being able to see it.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, critical thinking skills, sorting, self reflection
• Materials: light table, woodland animal figures, footprint outlines, pencils, white paper
•Rationale: to continue the children's exploration of animal tracks, and how you can make predictions about what animal made tracks in the snow based upon their size and shape. Children will be able to match animals to their tracks and trace different tracks to make their own guessing game
•Skills: Observing size and shape, making predictions, connecting outdoor and indoor experiences, critical thinking skills, sorting and matching
Dramatic Play
•Materials: housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), dress-up fabric, shoes, and accessories such as keys and cell phones; new baby care items have been introduced to the caves, including pretend washing machines for cleaning the baby clothes.
•Rationale: to continue to facilitate and strengthen the dramatic play occurring related to care of others, while encouraging social interaction, idea sharing, and cooperative play
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: counting pegs and boards, Unifix cubes, interlocking puzzles, Duplos
•Rationale: to support the children's interest in numbers and counting, to emphasize part-whole relationships, to introduce the measurement of different objects and comparison of lengths
•Skills: recognition of printed numerals, rote counting (1, 2, 3...), rational counting (one number to one item), part-whole relationships, comparison of objects and quantity (larger vs. smaller)
Language and Literacy
•Materials: variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, alphabet chart, and 'familiar words' cards
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; the introduction of 'familiar words' and alphabet charts will help the children begin writing letters and stories with greater independence
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, social interaction
•Materials: a collection of new and familiar books have been added to our library
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, steering wheels, color cubes
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: Wall ladder, monkey bars with rope swings, blue slide and foam cylinders with climbing rope, A-frame ladders with the donut hole and a connecting bridge, and Pedalo.
•Rationale: To promote physical development through balance, coordination, upper body and core strength. To foster social interaction through sharing the same equipment.
•Skills: Core strength, coordination, balance, risk taking, spatial awareness, depth perception, bilateral movement, climbing, upper and lower body strength, motor planning, grasping, turn taking, and social interaction
Special Interest
•Large Group Meeting--Elizabeth will lead large group and continue to establish rapport with the classroom community. Elizabeth will combine our previous discussion of touch with our new sense "sight" be introducing a "Feely box" and encouraging students to identify objects without being able to see them. Animal motion will also be explored through creative movement.
Snack
Wednesday: Sunbutter and rice cracker sandwiches
Thursday: Popcorn and raisins
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted
Next week's snack TBA
Reminders
Wednesday, January 19th - Creativity Night

Overview: Welcome back to school! I hope you all had a relaxing break and enjoyed the holidays with your families. As we welcome the children back after our long break, we will focus on classroom routines, and getting acquainted and reacquainted with teachers and friends. If you happen to stop in, please introduce yourself to Elizabeth, my new co-teacher. We have both familiar materials in the classroom to help the children with the adjustment back to school, as well as new materials to spark their interest and curiosity. We're excited to get started!

Expressive Arts
•Materials: multi-colored paint at the easel, three-dimensional collage materials (small wood pieces, bottle caps, corks, spools, string), markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: we will incorporate the children's interest in 3-D design that started to emerge before break by providing collage materials, which in the past, has been a wonderful outlet for creative expression; activities at the art table help to increase fine motor skills and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: snow, scoops, buckets, molds, mittens
•Rationale: to allow children to connect with the outdoors and to explore with their senses as they learn about the properties of snow through play
•Skills: making connections between indoors and outdoors, sensory input/developing an awareness of senses, knowledge of physical properties, creative building
Science
•Materials: materials of various textures (i.e. hard, soft, smooth, rough, bumpy), sorting tubs for exploring with hard and soft materials
•Rationale: to introduce the five senses, starting with our sense of touch. The senses are the vehicle for learning and making sense of the world for young children, and we want to create a deeper understanding of what they currently know and understand
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, critical thinking skills, sorting, self reflection
Dramatic Play
•Materials: housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), dress-up fabric, shoes, and accessories such as keys and cell phones; the caves have been rearranged into a play room and small bedroom still housing "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to continue supporting and deepening the strong dramatic play taking place, while encouraging social interaction and the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: counting pegs and boards, Unifix cubes, alphabet and number puzzles, whiteboards, dry-erase markers
•Rationale: to support the children's interest in numbers and counting, to explore with numbers and quantity
•Skills: recognition of printed numerals, route counting (1, 2, 3...), rational counting (one number to one item)
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, and tape
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: a collection of new and familiar books have been added to our library
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, steering wheels, color cubes
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--monkey bars, A-frame ladder bridge, climber with slide
•Rationale: a simple set-up that is basic and familiar to the children
•Skills: balance and coordination, strength, and endurance
Special Interest
•Large Group Meeting--Lisa will use music and movement to lead activities fostering togetherness and getting acquainted/reacquainted; she will also introduce "The Five Senses," which will be featured in the science area throughout these next ten weeks
Snack
January 5-6
Wednesday: Apples and pretzels
Thursday: Popcorn
January 10-13
Monday: Bananas and graham crackers
Wednesday: Carrots and pretzels
Thursday: Rice cakes and raisins
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted
Reminders
Monday, January 17th - NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, January 19th - Creativity Night

Overview: We are midway through November and winter is upon us in full force! I hope you all had a fun and safe weekend enjoying the snow. We will continue to go outside at the end of the day when it is warm enough, so please send warm coats, snow pants, boots, hats, and mittens with your child. We do have limited lab school clothing available for use, and if your child is sent home in the clothing please return the items to school so they can be used on another day! The children are continuing to enjoy and explore color mixing in the classroom. They have discovered how to make secondary colors with water as well as paint. They are also noticing they can change the lightness or darkness of a color. We will be adding some white and black to the art easel to continue fostering their interest in color tint and shade. In the dramatic play area we have added some new colorful fabric and dress up shoes, as well as some new food and baking items for cooking in the kitchen. We have had three weeks of small groups now, and will each be taking a field trip soon for a community connection to the topics we are studying.

Expressive Arts (paint, watercolor, play dough)
•Materials: Water colors, coffee filters, watercolor paper, pipettes; primary colors, white and black paint, empty cups for mixing, paintbrushes, spoons; markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and hole-punchers; colored play dough, rollers, cutters in familiar shapes, and pounding tools.
•Rationale: The children are continuing to use primary colors, while mixing secondary. We are also adding white and black paint to mix different tints and shades. We have also started to introduce water color painting through dropping the colors on coffee filters with pipettes and will slowly introduce painting with the water colors. We will be continuing to use the play dough because of its soft consistency, while using different tools to change the shape.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition, sensory input, sharing materials
Sensory (flax seed)

•Materials: seeds, measuring cups, funnels, a variety of different sized and shaped containers, scoops, muffin tin, baking utensils.
•Rationale: To change the sensory experience with a new natural material while continuing to use measuring cups and scoops to continue comparing and counting. Cooking materials will be used to follow their interest in pretend play cooking.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses.
Science

•Materials: Red, yellow, and blue water, mixing containers and test tubes, pipettes, color wheels, light table, transparent colored shapes, water based manipulatives
•Rationale: to encourage color awareness and development of inquiry skills through hands on experimentation with mixing colors, as well as exploring color through manipulatives.
•Skills: observing, predicting, recording, scientific investigating and inquiry, sorting, fine motor, use of science tools, sharing and discussing
Dramatic Play

•Materials: Tools, blocks, fabric, stethoscopes, doctor bags, clipboards, stuffed animals, a variety of food and food boxes, kitchen utensils; the caves continue to have blankets and pillows, and baby dolls for house play.
•Rationale: To follow the children's interest in building and fixing appliances with tools, as well as helping injured and sick people and animals. They are also interested in cooking pretend meals and baking using the empty boxes.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives

•Materials: Peg boards and colorful pegs, puzzles, translucent colorful duplos
•Rationale: The children have enjoyed using the pegs to create interesting designs. The puzzles currently have a color theme to support the theme of the classroom. Duplos have been introduced in the color cave to encourage construction as well as patterning with shape and color.
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, counting, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, critical thinking, creativity, and fine motor development
Language and Literacy

•Materials: Writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and stickers. In our literacy center, familiar books, books with seasonal themes and books with classroom themes and interests.
•Rationale: To encourage writing, recording, and creativity. To support pre-literacy skills, follow the themes of the classroom and encourage new ideas within the theme, and allow for a quiet space for exploration of the books.
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, receptive language, listening, supporting social skills and relationships.
Blocks

•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, and tools 

•Rationale: To continue dramatic play themes and support creativity, teamwork and collaboration, and problem solving. 

•Skills: large motor development (strength, coordination), dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, directional awareness, cooperative play, problem solving
Large Motor

•Materials: gym- large motor obstacle course (A-frame ladders, horizontal and vertical climbing bars, mats, balance beams, large rubber balls, and a basketball hoop) playground- shovels, scoops, buckets
•Rationale: To promote development of a variety of large motor skills. With the new snowfall, the playground will include tools for scooping and manipulating the snow.
•Skills: coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, body awareness, upper and lower body large motor development, physical fitness, and building community through social interactions

Special Announcement:
A student in the morning class is missing a red knit hat and mittens. If one of our students was accidently sent home with the items, please send the items back to school with your child. Thank you!

Snack
Monday - Sunbutter & celery
Wednesday - Hummus & rice crackers
Thursday - Cucumbers & pretzels
*All snacks served with water and milk unless otherwise noted

Overview: Winter has arrived! The children are every excited to play on the playground in the snow. We will continue to go outside at the end of the day when the weather is warm enough. Please continue to send warm coats, snow pants, boots, hats, and mittens with your child. The lab school does have limited clothing available for use. If your child is sent home in any of the clothing, please return the items so they can be used another day! The children continue to be very excited about color mixing and are discovering how to make secondary colors. With the addition of the black and white paint at the art easel, the children have discovered how they can change the tint and shade of their paint colors. After many fun and exciting weeks, we will be wrapping up our small groups on Monday. We also have a new gym set up this week. There is a rolling hill, distance jumping area, monkey bars, and a climbing wedge. Have a safe and fun Thanksgiving break!

Expressive Arts (paint, watercolor, play dough, glurch)
•Materials: Water colors, coffee filters, watercolor paper, pipettes; primary colors, white and black paint, empty cups for mixing, paintbrushes, spoons; markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and hole-punchers; glurch, colored play dough, rollers, cutters in familiar shapes, and pounding tools.
•Rationale: The children are continuing to use primary colors, while mixing secondary. We will continue with white and black paint to mix different tints and shades. We will also continue with watercolor painting. We will be adding glurch and removing the play dough. We want to introduce a new material, yet still provide one that that soft in consistency.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition, sensory input, sharing materials
Sensory (flax seed)

•Materials: seeds, measuring cups, funnels, a variety of different sized and shaped containers, scoops, muffin tin, baking utensils, bowls
•Rationale: To change the sensory experience with a new natural material while continuing to use measuring cups and scoops to continue comparing and counting. Cooking materials will be used to follow their interest in pretend play cooking. We will be adding a pretend oven and cookbooks.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses.
Science

•Materials: Red, yellow, and blue water, mixing containers and test tubes, pipettes, color wheels, light table, transparent colored shapes, water based manipulatives
•Rationale: to encourage color awareness and development of inquiry skills through hands on experimentation with mixing colors, as well as exploring color through manipulatives.
•Skills: observing, predicting, recording, scientific investigating and inquiry, sorting, fine motor, use of science tools, sharing and discussing
Dramatic Play

•Materials: Tools, blocks, fabric, stethoscopes, doctor bags, clipboards, stuffed animals, a variety of food and food boxes, kitchen utensils; the caves continue to have blankets and pillows, and baby dolls for house play.
•Rationale: To follow the children's interest in building and fixing appliances with tools, as well as helping injured and sick people and animals. They are also interested in cooking pretend meals and baking using the empty boxes.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives

•Materials: Peg boards and colorful pegs, puzzles, translucent colorful duplos
•Rationale: The children have enjoyed using the pegs to create interesting designs. The puzzles currently have a color theme to support the theme of the classroom. Duplos have been introduced in the color cave to encourage construction as well as patterning with shape and color.
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, counting, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, critical thinking, creativity, and fine motor development
Language and Literacy

•Materials: Writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and stickers. In our literacy center, familiar books, books with seasonal themes and books with classroom themes and interests.
•Rationale: To encourage writing, recording, and creativity. To support pre-literacy skills, follow the themes of the classroom and encourage new ideas within the theme, and allow for a quiet space for exploration of the books.
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, receptive language, listening, supporting social skills and relationships.
Blocks

•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, and tools 

•Rationale: To continue dramatic play themes and support creativity, teamwork and collaboration, and problem solving. 

•Skills: large motor development (strength, coordination), dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, directional awareness, cooperative play, problem solving
Large Motor

•Materials: gym- rolling hill, distance jumping, climbing wedge, monkey bars
Playground- shovels, scoops, buckets, sleds
•Rationale: To promote development of a variety of large motor skills. With the new snowfall, the playground will include tools for scooping and manipulating the snow.
•Skills: coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, body awareness, upper and lower body large motor development, physical fitness, and building community through social interactions
Snack
Monday - Crackers & sunbutter
Wednesday - Oven fries & Abby's birthday treat!
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Special Announcement: A student in the morning class is missing a red knit hat and mittens. If one of our students was accidently sent home with the items, please send the items back to school with your child. Thank you!

Reminders:
NO SCHOOL THURSDAY NOVEMBER 25
LAST DAY OF THE SESSION MONDAY DECEMBER 6

Overview: The children were very excited to begin their work with mixing two different colors together to create a new color. The children were able to experience mixing colors first hand by using pipettes and test tubes. We will continue our work with color mixing this week. The children continue to be busy with dramatic play using tools to repair our classroom appliances, playing doctor, and building hospitals and other structures with the large hollow blocks. The teachers will facilitate the children's interests by continuing to provide additional materials and tools. Small groups are well underway and going great. Amy's science group will continue with various science experiments. Lisa's group will continue to learn about animals, based on the children's interests. My group will continue our fall harvest theme, investigating a variety of fall fruits and vegetables. More information on these small groups can be found on the small group tab.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, play dough)

•Materials: We will be adding watercolors along with coffee filters and paper to the art table. We will continue using primary color paints and empty cups for color mixing at the easel; natural materials for collage; markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and hole-punchers; colored play dough, rollers, cutters in familiar shapes, and pounding tools.
•Rationale: The children are continuing to use primary colors, while mixing secondary. The natural materials with various textures are being used for making collages, as well as the hole-punchers and scissors to make interesting designs with the paper. Blue play dough has sparked curiosity and conversations, while continuing to develop fine motor skills through changing the shape of the dough. 

•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition, sensory input, sharing materials
Sensory (flax seed)

•Materials: seeds, measuring cups, funnels, a variety of different sized and shaped containers, and scoops. 

•Rationale: To change the sensory experience with a new natural material while continuing to use measuring cups and scoops to continue comparing and counting. 

•Skills: large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses
Science

•Materials: Continue with red, yellow, and blue water, mixing containers and test tubes, pipettes, color wheels, light table, transparent colored shapes, water based manipulatives. 

•Rationale: to encourage color awareness and development of inquiry skills through hands on experimentation with primary colors and colors they can make. 

•Skills: observing, predicting, recording, scientific investigating and inquiry, sorting, fine motor, use of science tools, sharing and discussing
Dramatic Play

•Materials: Tools, blocks, fabric, stethoscopes, doctor bags, clipboards, stuffed animals, food, kitchen utensils; the caves continue to have blankets and pillows, and baby dolls for house play. 

•Rationale: To follow the children's interest in building and fixing appliances with tools, as well as helping injured and sick people and animals. They are also interested in cooking pretend meals and pretending to watch funny movies in the caves, which has created a lot of laughter and has built social relationships. 

•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives

•Materials: Continue with Bristle Blocks, puzzles, and shape blocks

•Rationale: To continue supporting the interest in construction of buildings and vehicles with the Bristle Blocks. The puzzles have themes, which are consistent with themes in the classroom. Shape blocks have been introduced to encourage construction as well as patterning with shape and color.
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, counting, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, critical thinking, creativity, and fine motor development
Language and Literacy

•Materials: At the writing center, we have writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and stickers with letters, numbers, fall shapes, and familiar characters. In our story center, we have a variety of familiar books, seasonal books with harvest themes, as well as a variety of titles corresponding to the student's interest in constructing buildings and hospitals.
•Rationale: To encourage writing, recording, and creativity. To support pre-literacy skills, follow the themes of the classroom and encourage new ideas within the theme, and allow for a quiet space for exploration of the books.
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, receptive language, listening, supporting social skills and relationships.
Blocks

•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, and tools 

•Rationale: To continue dramatic play themes and support creativity, teamwork and collaboration, and problem solving. 

•Skills: large motor development (strength, coordination), dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, directional awareness, cooperative play, problem solving
Large Motor

•Materials: gym- large motor obstacle course (complete with A-frame ladders, horizontal and vertical climbing bars, mats, balance beams, large rubber balls, and a basketball hoop) playground- continue using rakes, shovels, and wheelbarrows to collect fallen leaves, as well as scooters and bikes. 

•Rationale: To promote development of a variety of large motor skills along with providing a group game to foster cooperation. The playground includes rakes to support their interest in the changing seasons and connect them with nature while incorporating physical development. 

•Skills: coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, body awareness, upper and lower body large motor development, physical fitness, and building community through social interactions
Snack
Monday - Bananas & graham crackers
Wednesday - Trail mix & milk
Thursday - Cereal & milk

Overview: Happy November everyone! As the month and weather changes, we have been discussing what has been happening in nature with the fallen leaves and rain. The children have been busy with dramatic play fixing our classroom with tools, being construction engineers building hospitals and offices with the blocks, and using stethoscopes and other tools to be doctors and veterinarians in the hospital. We have also started our small groups! Lisa's group is studying animals, and will continue looking at a variety of animals that live inside and outside. Lindsay's group is fall harvest, and they are currently comparing different sized pumpkins and the seeds. My group is the science group, and after discussing some topics and tools we will begin experiments this week. Please check out the small group tab on our webpage to see updates and photos from our groups! This week, we will be making some changes in our environment and introducing some new materials. We will be replacing the sand in the sand table with flax seed, while continuing to use the measuring cups and containers to fill. We will also be changing the science center from leaves and seeds to a color mixing focus.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, playdough)
•Materials: primary color paints with empty cups for color mixing at the easel; natural materials for collage; markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and hole-punchers; colored playdough, rollers, cutters in familiar shapes, and pounding tools.
•Rationale: The children are continuing to use primary colors, while mixing secondary. The natural materials with different textures are being used for making collages, as well as the hole-punchers and scissors to make interesting designs with the paper. Blue play dough has sparked curiosity and conversation of how it got a new color, while continuing to develop fine motor skills through changing the shape of the dough.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition, sensory input, sharing materials

Sensory (flax seed)
•Materials: seeds, measuring cups, funnels, a variety of different sized and shaped containers, and scoops.
•Rationale: To change the sensory experience with a new natural material while continuing to use measuring cups and scoops to continue comparing and counting.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses

Science
•Materials: Red, yellow, and blue water, mixing containers and test tubes, pipettes, color wheels, light table, transparent colored shapes, water based manipulatives.
•Rationale: to encourage color awareness and development of inquiry skills through hands on experimentation with primary colors and colors they can make.
•Skills: observing, predicting, recording, scientific investigating and inquiry, sorting, fine motor, use of science tools, sharing and discussing

Dramatic Play
•Materials: Tools, blocks, fabric, stethoscopes, doctor bags, clipboards, stuffed animals, food, kitchen utensils; the caves continue to have blankets and pillows, and baby dolls for house play.
•Rationale: To follow the children's interest in building and fixing with tools as well as helping injured and sick people and animals. They are also interested in cooking pretend meals and pretending to watch funny movies in the caves, which has created a lot of laughter and built social relationships.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Bristle Blocks, puzzles, and shape blocks
•Rationale: To continue supporting the interest in construction of buildings and vehicles with the Bristle Blocks. The puzzles have themes which are consistent with themes in the classroom. Shape blocks have been introduced to encourage construction as well as patterning with shape and color.
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, counting, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, critical thinking, creativity, and fine motor development

Language and Literacy
•Materials: At the writing we have writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and stickers with letters, numbers, fall shapes, and familiar characters. In our story center we have a variety of familiar books, seasonal books with harvest themes, as well as a variety following their interest of constructing and hospitals.
•Rationale: To encourage writing, recording, and creativity. To support pre-literacy skills, follow the themes of the classroom and encourage new ideas within the theme, and allow for a quiet space for exploration of the books.
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, receptive language, listening, supporting social skills and relationships.

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, tools
•Rationale: To continue dramatic play themes and support creativity, teamwork and collaboration, and problem solving.
•Skills: large motor development (strength, coordination), dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, directional awareness, cooperative play, problem solving

Large Motor
•Materials: The gym setting has been updated from the dramatic play racetrack theme into a large motor obstacle course. A-frame ladders, horizontal and vertical climbing bars, mats, balance beams, large rubber balls, and a basketball hoop are included. On the playground we are continuing to have rakes, shovels, and wheelbarrows to collect fallen leaves, as well as scooters and bikes.
•Rationale: To promote development of a variety of large motor skills along with providing a group game to foster cooperation. The playground includes rakes to support their interest in the changing seasons and connect them with nature while incorporating physical development.
•Skills: coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, body awareness, upper and lower body large motor development, physical fitness, and building community through social interactions

Snack
Monday: Sunbutter with crackers and milk
Wednesday: Peas and pretzels
Thursday: Carrots and hummus
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: Our nature walk last Thursday was a success! The children enjoyed observing their surroundings and exploring nature as we walked around campus. We will continue further investigations as we progress into our small groups this week. Our cooking projects have inspired children to "bake" all sorts of goodies in the sand table. The children are busy mixing and measuring with the added props. We will continue on with our cooking projects next week as we make popcorn together. Even simple projects bring children together, give them a sense of independence, and foster social relationships as our community strengthens. It is a short week this week, but we will continue to follow and support the children as they decide where these new topics will lead them.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: we have added empty cups for color mixing at the at the easel (we're still using primary color paints); we have added moss to our natural materials for collage; markers, crayons, colored pencils, and scissors continue to be available
•Rationale: by working with primary colors, the children have become interested in color mixing; the "beautiful things" brought in by the children have sparked much interest in unique materials, and activities at the art table continue to foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: continue with play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting; familiar animal and fall shaped cookie cutters will continue to be available as children build awareness of our natural surroundings and changing seasons
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: sand with measuring cups, measuring spoons, scoops, and large and small containers; we have added bowls and spoons for mixing; glass gems, caps, rocks, and other small items are still available to hide in the sand and to use as baking props
•Rationale: the children have been inspired by our cooking projects, and are having fun measuring "salt," "sugar," "flour," and other ingredients to make all sorts of delicious things
•Skills: dramatic play, role play, large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses
Science
•Materials: sorting trays for seeds and other natural materials (leaves, flowers, acorns, pinecones, and rocks), cockroaches, beetles, mealworms; a bug matching game has been added to the cave along with the leaf-sorting fishing game
•Rationale: to encourage children as they develop foundational knowledge about the natural world, and support them as they begin to make sense of abstract concepts such as seasonal cycles through hands-on activities and experiences
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, sorting, matching
Dramatic Play
•Materials: we will continue adding in a few items for our hospital and/or veterinary clinic as children continue to care for those "injured" in the fires; we will continue to have firefighter hats, housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), and dress-up fabric and shoes available; the caves continue to be set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to follow the children's interest in hospital/veterinary care, along with their continued interest in firefighting, which allows for the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Bristle Blocks, Mobilos, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials as they demonstrate their understanding of the world, and to support children's interest in construction and play themes as they build various buildings, vehicles, people, and animals
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, and seasonal items such as fall stickers and leaf shapes
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: seasonal books about fall (leaves, apples, pumpkins) continue to be a popular addition to our library collection
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, steering wheels, books about current themes and topics of interest
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--a racetrack (complete with cars, a repair shop with mechanic's tools, and a gas station with gas pumps) and an obstacle course (which includes jumping and climbing stations, hurdles, a bumpy walk, and a wide balance beam)
•Rationale: the dramatic play aspect in the gym encourages cooperation and social interaction while increasing motor development
•Skills: propulsion (pushing with feet), coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, and body awareness
•Materials: playground--rakes, shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, large climber, swings, swinging rope
•Rationale: the children have been enjoying using child-sized rakes as a way to interact with their environment
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, perceptual motor (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), turn taking, and observation
Notes & Reminders
•We will have our first small group meeting on Wednesday.
•Conferences begin this week--please double check your times and bring your questionnaire to the meeting if you haven't already turned it in to me.
•No school this Thursday! Teachers will be in St. Louis for staff development.
Snack
Monday: Apples and graham crackers
Wednesday: Peas and crackers
Thursday: NO SCHOOL
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: The children are settling nicely into our classroom routine and are making special connections with their classmates. We have noticed friendships forming, and we will continue to foster these friendships as our sense of classroom community strengthens. The children enjoyed making strawberry banana smoothies last week. They were very excited about using "real" knives (pumpkin carvers) as they participated in cutting up the bananas and strawberries all by themselves. It was a wonderful way for children to increase their feelings of independence and confidence. Cooking projects are also wonderful community builders--preparing and eating food together helps to create a bond with one another. We will continue with our cooking experiences this week by hosting Ellie's mom (Christine), who will be coming in to make muffins with the children for Ellie's birthday. This week we will also be going on a nature walk so children will be able to explore and observe our changing seasons. We have added materials in our science center, along with books in our library to help build awareness of our surroundings. Next week we will take the children out in small groups for more focused investigations. The children's play themes continue to evolve--as children and pets have become "injured" in the fire, they have become interested in caring for others at their hospital and veterinary clinics. To support these themes, we have added Bristle Blocks in the manipulative area so children can explore with other open-ended materials. Through all these themes and activities we hope to incite excitement and stimulate children's thinking as we investigate topics for our small groups next week.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: primary colors (blue, red, yellow) at the easel, natural materials for collage, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: the children are continuing to bring in their "beautiful things" for collage, which has been a wonderful outlet for their creative expression; activities at the art table help to increase fine motor skills and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: continue with play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting; familiar animal and fall shaped cookie cutters have been added to build awareness of our natural surroundings and changing seasons
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: sand with measuring cups, measuring spoons, scoops, and large and small containers; we have added glass gems, caps, rocks, and other small items to hide in the sand
•Rationale: to encourage the practice of pouring and filling, counting, and comparing; to allow children to explore with their senses as they touch items with different textures and work together to find objects in the sand and identify them
•Skills: hand-eye coordination, large and fine motor development, volume and spatial relations, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, predicting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses
Science
•Materials: sorting trays for natural materials brought in by the children (leaves, flowers, acorns, pinecones, and rocks), cockroaches, beetles, mealworms; a leaf-sorting fishing game has been added to the cave
•Rationale: to encourage children as they develop foundational knowledge about the natural world, and support them as they begin to make sense of abstract concepts such as seasonal cycles through hands-on activities and experiences
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, sorting, matching
Dramatic Play
•Materials: we will begin adding in items for our hospital and/or veterinary clinic as children begin to care for those "injured" in the fires; we will continue to have firefighter hats, fire "hoses," housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), and dress-up fabric and shoes available; the caves continue to be set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to follow the children's interest in hospital/veterinary care, along with their continued interest in firefighting, which allows for the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Bristle Blocks, Mobilos, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials allowing them to develop more complex skills, and to support children's interest in construction and play themes as they build various buildings, vehicles, people, and animals
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, and tape; seasonal items (fall stickers, leaf shapes) have also been added
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: seasonal books about fall (leaves, apples, pumpkins) have been added to the collection in our library
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, steering wheels, books about current themes and topics of interest
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--we have a new set up with a racetrack (complete with cars, a repair shop with mechanic's tools , and a gas station with gas pumps) and an obstacle course (which includes jumping and climbing stations, hurdles, a bumpy walk, and a wide balance beam)
•Rationale: the dramatic play aspect in the gym encourages cooperation and social interaction while increasing motor development
•Skills: propulsion (pushing with feet), coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, and body awareness
•Materials: playground--rakes, shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, large climber, swings, swinging rope
•Rationale: to encourage children to interact with their environment, and work together as they rake, dig, haul, run, swing, and climb
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, perceptual motor (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), turn taking, and observation
Special Interest
•Large Group Meeting--student teachers Lindsay and Amy will lead activities this week to extend and deepen children's understanding of the current topics in our classroom
•Cooking Project--Ellie's mom will be coming in on Wednesday to help us prepare a special snack for Ellie's birthday; student teacher, Amy, will assist in leading this project to encourage working together and to foster the building of classroom community
•Nature Walk--we will be going on a nature walk on Thursday to build awareness of nature and our immediate environment, and to share experiences together
Snack
Monday: Apples and rice cakes
Wednesday: Ellie's Birthday Treat!
Thursday: Carrot slices and raisins
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: Many of the children have been busy putting out fires, and working together to build buildings (that catch on fire), fire trucks, airplanes (that carry water to put out the fires!), and rocket ships. In order to expand on these interests we have added firefighter hats and hoses to our dramatic play area, and books on firefighting and space to our hollow block area. The children have been looking at the books to get ideas of what to build, and have been making connections that have shown through in their dramatic play schemes. Teachers will continue to facilitate conversations, extend and support play themes, and record the children's ideas. Mobilos have been added to the math and manipulative area to support the children's interest in construction and knowledge of part-whole relationships as they build various buildings and vehicles. The children have also been excited about bringing in their beautiful things, which we have been sorting and adding to our art and science areas. It has been fascinating to see the creativity and inventiveness of the children, and how well they are developing a sense of community by working and collaborating together in all the areas throughout the classroom

Expressive Arts
•Materials: primary colors (blue, red, yellow) at the easel, natural materials for collage, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: to produce an outlet for creative expression, increase fine motor skills, and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: sand with measuring cups, scoops, and large and small containers
•Rationale: to encourage the practice of pouring and filling, counting, comparing, and cooperatively working together
•Skills: hand-eye coordination, large and fine motor development, volume and spatial relations, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, predicting, turn taking, and fostering social relationships.
Science
•Materials: cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, light table with natural materials (leaves, sticks, pinecones, acorns, seedpods), clipboards with pencils
•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry
Dramatic Play
•Materials: firefighter hats, fire "hoses," housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), and dress-up fabric and shoes; the caves are set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to follow the children's interest in firefighting and allow for the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Mobilos, Montessori pegboard, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials allowing them to develop more complex skills, and to support children's interest in construction as they build various buildings and vehicles
•Skills: construction, knowledge of part-whole relationships, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: the library has newly added books about firefighting and space, along with other familiar books
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, books about firefighting and space
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--slide climber, wall mounted ladders, monkey bars, rocking boat, A-frame jumping station
•Rationale: a simple set-up continues in the gym to build confidence and increase gross motor skills
•Skills: Risk taking, climbing, coordination, upper body strength, depth perception, balance, jumping and landing
•Materials: playground--shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; as well as introducing whole group games such as "Mr. Fox"
•Rationale: to support basic motor skills, and to promote social interaction and role play as children dig, haul, run, pedal, and play games together
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, perceptual motor (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), turn taking, observation, and games with rules
Special Interest
Large Group Meeting--student teachers Lindsay and Amy will lead activities during this time together, emphasizing togetherness and fostering the building of classroom community
Snack
Monday: Sliced cucumbers and pretzels
Wednesday: Strawberry banana smoothies
Thursday: Apples and graham crackers
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Overview: We will continue to use simple and familiar materials as the teachers focus on helping the children make connections, build relationships with one another, and establish friendships. Our umbrella topic for the beginning of the year will be "Families" and "Building Communities." We will explore these ideas and expand on the children's current understanding of what this means in a variety of ways. The centers are arranged to promote these goals and topics as children explore and investigate the classroom. We're excited to get started!

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay, play-dough)
•Materials: primary colors (blue, red, yellow) at the easel, natural materials for collage, clay, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: to explore with hands and tools to promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: fine motor development (strength, coordination), creativity, symbolic representation, sensory input, color recognition
Sensory (water, sand, corn)
•Materials: sand with shovels, rakes, paddlewheels, and other miscellaneous containers for scooping and pouring
•Rationale: to cooperatively work together while exploring a familiar sensory experience
•Skills: large and fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, cooperative play, building social relationships, sharing materials
Science
•Materials: cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, framed insects, light table with natural materials (leaves, sticks, pinecones, acorns, seedpods)
•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry
Dramatic Play
•Materials: housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food) and dress-up fabric and shoes; the caves are set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to allow for the expression of family life and to encourage social interaction while playing with familiar props
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: sorting animals, Montessori pegboard, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials where they can develop more complex skills and work together in a group
•Skills: color recognition, sorting and classification, seriating (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition
•Materials: the library has books that might be familiar to the children on topics about animals, school, families, and friendships
•Rationale: to encourage cozy reading time with friends and teachers
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks and small multi-shaped unit blocks
•Rationale: to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--slide climber, wall mounted ladders, monkey bars, rocking boat, A-frame jumping station
•Rationale: a simple set-up in the gym is inviting and allows the children to assess gross motor abilities and confidence
•Skills: Risk taking, climbing, coordination, upper body strength, depth perception, balance, jumping and landing
•Materials: playground--shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons
•Rationale: to support basic motor skills, and to promote social interaction and role play as children dig, haul, run, and pedal
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, and perceptual motor skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness)
Special Interest
Large Group Meeting--music and movement will be used to help the children learn each other's names and the classroom routines. This time together emphasizes togetherness and fosters the building of classroom community
Snack
Monday: Pears & pretzel sticks
Wednesday: Madeline's Birthday Treat!
Thursday: Apples
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted