January Joy in Enrichment!

Hi all!

We had a great week in Enrichment that ended with a Popcorn and Pajamas party! Wahoo!!

A few housekeeping things before I dive into this week.

1. It would be very helpful if your child could wear or bring layers to school. I know sweaters and sweatshirts aren't everybody's favorite thing, but we keep a window open for fresh air circulation, and when the children are sitting for snack and lunch (which are near the open window) some get chilly.

2. Please make sure to bring your child to the bathroom while you're waiting for the door to open in the morning, even if they went at home.

3. Valentine's ❤- Believe it or not- VALENTINE'S DAY is coming! A few things I want to touch on early to avoid any confusion in the upcoming weeks.

The kids are welcome to bring in Valentine's cards to share with their classmates. PLEASE NO CANDY! Also, because of the time it takes to hand out cards, please only fill out the FROM portion of the card. (Have you ever tried to watch a 4/5 year old try to decipher their own writing... other 4/5 year olds writing... look through 16 bags to find the right one... during center time? It's not pretty. Lol!) We will have 16 children TOTAL in our class.

We will be making Valentine's bags in school, so no need to send in boxes or anything for Valentine collection.

The children can feel free to wear festive colors on Tuesday the 14th!

If you have any questions I can help clarify, please let me know!

This week we read The Mitten by Jan Brett. She is quickly becoming a favorite author of this class! It's all about a mitten that gets left behind in the snow, and how the different woodland animals make more and more room for more animals to join them inside the mitten! We really dove into this week's book. On Monday we read the book, and this being the third Jan Brett book we've read, they knew to look carefully at the pictures for details about the story. On Tuesday we read the book and learned about sequencing (what happened first, second, third, etc.). They each were given an animal's picture or the name of the animal to put up on the board when that animal joined the group in the mitten. Today they wore masks during the reading representing each of the animals in the story. When their animal's page came up they left their normal spots and each went over to try to "fit" in our mitten. They learned just how squeezed in those animals were!

Getting the children involved in the story really helps their comprehension, and it's a whole lot of fun too!

What was NEW in centers?

Art- The children colored and glued the animals from our story into their own mitten picture.

Easel- Sticky mittens- We decorated our own mittens with clear contact paper and tissue paper.

Math- Winter picture matching- Each place at the table had a game of memory with different winter pictures to match up.

Discovery- The children practiced hanging mittens on clotheslines that they built.

These things, in addition to centers that carried over from last week, were lots of fun to explore.

Also, using the lines and curves that make up letters and numbers, we built Mat Man! Each of the children are given a different part of Mat Man, which we put together using a song. It's always fun!

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Just a reminder, there is NO SCHOOL this Monday the 16th, in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Warmly,

Christina Renoni, Ashlee Taylor, and Erica Derbyshire