Marching Towards Summer in the 3's

Good afternoon 3’s families,

What a beautiful week! We had lots of recess time this week. The children enjoyed gardening (planting fake flowers in the garden bed) and painting the walls with water. They used big paint brushes, dipped them in a bucket of water and painted the walls outside. This is another great activity to try at home. It is a perfect opportunity for the children to build up strength in their arms and backs. You could also have them practice drawing circles, lines or the letters in their name with chalk, then paint over it with water. Using squirt bottles to wash the chalk away is also fun and great for their muscles. Lots of ways to squeeze in some extra pre-writing practice while having fun!

We were so happy to be able to see each other’s smiling faces outside. The students did a wonderful job storing their masks in their “mask cups.” They came right over at the end of recess to sanitize their hands and put the masks back on for dismissal. They have done an AMAZING job adapting to all of the pandemic protocols. They have had a lot of fun this year despite things being a little different.

This week at CIRCLE TIME,

· We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle again. We also played a food-matching game on the easel. Each child had a card with a picture of something that the caterpillar ate in the story. They came up and put their picture on the easel after we read about that food in the story. Ask your child what food picture they had!

· We started taking attendance. We wanted the children to be familiar with it for next year as they move on to Mixed Age, Enrichment or Pre-K classes! I call each child’s first and last name. When they hear their name, they raise their hand and say, “Here!”.

· We danced with scarves during music and movement to class favorites such as the PJ Masks Theme Song, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Hot Dog Song and others.

We repeated most of the activities from last week since they only had one day to play with the materials. What’s new in CENTERS this week?

Sensory Bins: Still loving the ocean-themed sand boxes.

Playdough: Blue playdough, rollers, squeezers, scissors, little plastic butterflies and frogs

Pretend Center: Farmer’s Market

Art: Children used paint brushes to paint butterflies. They also worked together to make a big caterpillar mural. They used dot markers to make the caterpillar bodies. It came out great!

Discovery Bins: Fine motor and color matching practice this week with treasure chests and keys

Yellow Bins: More pattern practice using colored chips to make caterpillars.

Block Bins: Wooden blocks, magnatiles, plastic animals, car ramp and cars. We added some magnatile mats to this center. Each mat has a different picture on it made out of magnatiles. The students matched the magnatiles with the picture to make a creation.

Lastly, we have been watching our caterpillars very closely the past two weeks. Today something very exciting happened! Two of the caterpillars have become butterflies! We were lucky enough to watch one of them emerge from the chrysalis! Big day for us!!