All Kinds of Fun in the 3's!

Hi everyone!

The chilly days are upon us, so thank you for bundling the kids up in cozy hats and mittens. 

Next, please help me welcome Mrs. Haynes into our classroom. She's a kind and caring person, and the children took to her immediately, like I knew they would!

This week we read Never Touch a Polar Bear by Rosie Greening. This book teaches us to be kind to our arctic friends if we see them learning to knit or ice skate, while also giving us a fun tactile experience as we read! Getting kids involved in reading is a great way to foster a love for it!

We're exploring a lot of feelings in our class. We're talking about things that make us happy, sad, angry, proud and more. We'd love for these conversations to continue at home. Labeling how you're feeling will help them to identify it in themselves. This applies to both positive and negative feelings. A phrase we use in our classroom is, "It's okay to be sad." (or scared, or tired), often followed by "How can I help?", and/or giving them options like "Would you like a hug, would you like some quiet time on the beanbags, or something else?" Using the same phrases at home and at school really helps to reinforce the ideas. We hope this helps in this season where big exciting things are happening, little ones are introduced to large groups of people they don't know or see infrequently, and where daily routines are changed.  

Our centers this week were...

Art- We decorated apple cut outs with different emotions (smiles, tears, frowns etc.) and made fluffy snowflakes using snowflake cutouts, glue and cotton balls (these will be decorating our 3's tree in the classroom!

Math- We explored more feelings puzzles with scared, proud, and shy.

Easel- We colored by number our way to fun gingerbread houses.

Discovery- Feelings sensory bottles, where there were different things were put inside the bottle to represent the different emotions (with a little help from the characters of Disney's Inside Out)

Writing table- We added a light table and beads to our table. The children got to make their own shining designs and patterns.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Warmly,

Christina Renoni and Julie Haynes