November News from the 3's

Good afternoon families! Brrr... It was a chilly week. Thank you all for remembering to send your little ones in with their labeled winter gear. There is a picture in the hallway to remind the children to 1) Put their mittens in their hat, 2) Stick the hat in the sleeve of their coat. Thanks so much for helping them out with this skill!

Our new month brings lots of new activities. Many activities this month will provide opportunities for the students to explore shapes. You can encourage your child to notice shapes when you are at home too. During meal/snack time, ask your child what shapes they see in the food on their plate. While in the car, ask your child to go on a shape hunt! Have them look out the window for square shaped signs, windows, etc. and have them tell you when they see them.

This week at MORNING MEETING we read Shape Song Swingalong by Steve Songs. This is another book in the Barefoot Books series, which has beautifully illustrated stories set to music. You can also find Shape Song Swingalong on YouTube. We also played a shape game. There were houses with different shapes on them up on the easel. Then, I hid a little paper mouse behind one of the houses. Each child came up and had a turn picking a shape-house to look behind. We sang, "Little Mouse, Little Mouse, are you behind the square house?" The students had a lot of fun!

Here’s what’s NEW in CENTERS!

Pretend Center: DONUT SHOP! The children wore aprons, worked the cash register, baked donuts, and filled orders at the donut shop. They took turns being bakers, cashiers and customers.

Block Area: This center has been stocked with wooden blocks, bristle blocks, cars, a wooden garage, a road rug, wooden people, and new puzzles. There is also a book with photos of different buildings around the world. The children can look at the book and try to build one of the structures they see in the pictures.

Discover Center: The students used magnet wands and discovery bottles. They moved the wand over each bottle to see which materials would stick to the magnet.

Art: The students made their own pictures out of different paper shapes. This is an open-ended activity, meaning that there is no specific "end-product". They used glue sticks to stick the shapes onto their papers. These will be displayed on our hallway bulletin board next week, so be on the lookout!

Easel: The children did some shape sorting at this center. There were circle and square stickers for them to stick onto two halves of a paper. One side was for circles, one side was for squares. Peeling stickers is also a great fine motor activity.

Math: This center had cookie pans with shape magnets for more open-ended creation. We had some very cool designs going on! There was also a shape matching game.

Writing Table: This center is stocked with construction paper, line and circle tracing worksheets, gel pens, markers and crayons.

Literacy Cart: Children matched magnetic shapes on fall-themed shape mats.

Sensory Table: The table is filled with oats this month. The kiddos had fun making apple pies and scooping up plastic apples and cinnamon sticks with measuring cups.

We were having so much fun playing, we forgot to take pictures. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend, stay warm!

Your teachers,

Brenda Daday & Christina Renoni