Week 8

 

🎃 Pre-K Weekly Newsletter: Week 8 🦇

Dear Pre-K Families,

What a fun and exciting week we had in Pre-K! Our room was filled with pumpkins, bats, and spiders as we explored everything autumn. Here is a look at what we learned and created this week:

Have a look at many photos from our week in the photos folder. 

🌅 Morning Meeting & Skills

• Interactive Morning Greeting: We started our mornings with a special bat poem! Students practiced number recognition and active listening by standing up when their bat’s number matched the poem or ten-frame count.
• Letter & Sound Focus (U & C): We introduced the letters U and C this week! Students practiced letter formation, identified their sounds, and engaged in hands-on building activities using Play-Doh, blocks, and paint.
• Morning Literacy Practice: We worked on matching uppercase and lowercase letters, blending and segmenting sounds, and pairing pictures with their initial sounds.
• Heggerty Phonemic Awareness: We launched our new "Heggerty Hero" routine! Each day, one student gets to model our daily hand motions while holding our class puppy stuffed animal and then selects the next hero for the following day.

📖 Shared Reading & Literacy

• Shared Reading Poem: We read "What I See in Fall", deconstructed the poem line-by-line, and worked together to put it back together.
• Anchor Chart: Together as a class, we created a "What We Know About Fall" chart to record all our observations and ideas about the changing season.
• Non-Fiction & Storytime: We read many great books about pumpkins, bats, and spiders and watched non-fiction videos to build our vocabulary and learn real-world facts about bats and spiders!

🎨 Discovery & Center Time

• Sensory Table: Our new fall sensory bin was a huge hit! It was filled with "spaghetti hay," autumn leaves, acorns, and fun tactile materials.
• Dramatic Play — The Pumpkin Store: Thank you so much for all of your pumpkin donations! The pumpkin store was a favorite all week.
• Fine Motor & Hands-On Play: Students crafted spider webs and built pumpkin patches using Play-Doh.
• Fall Art Projects:
  • Spooky black construction paper spiders complete with googly eyes!
  • Hand-painted paper pumpkins cut into unique jack-o'-lantern faces.

🧸 Friday Fun!

We wrapped up our week with a super fun Stuffy Day! The students loved bringing their stuffed animals to school and enjoying a fun cozy autumn cartoon together to end the week.

🌟 Looking Ahead

We look forward to seeing all of our learners back next week for another fantastic week filled with pumpkins, leaves, bats, and spiders!
Have a wonderful weekend!

Warmly,
The Pre-K Team

Week 7

 

🌟 Pre-K Newsletter | Week 7 🌙 

 

Dear Pre-K Families, 

What an exciting, action-packed week we had! From exploring the magic of shadows to enjoying a lively puppet show and celebrating our Read-A-Thon, our classroom was full of joy, learning, and discovery. Here is a look back at everything we accomplished.

View photos from our week in Week 7 Photos Folder.

🌙 Theme of the Week: Nighttime & Shadows

Our young scientists explored how shadows are made by experimenting with light sources and light blockers.

• Shadow Tracing: We headed outside on a sunny day to trace our shadows on the pavement with chalk! We also made shadow in the nighttime cabin with magnatiles and flashlights. 

• Nocturnal Animals & Owls: We learned all about animals that stay awake at night, focusing on owls. The kids practiced their fine motor skills by tearing paper to craft their own adorable owl projects following a visual model.

• Literature: We enjoyed a wonderful mix of fiction and non-fiction books all about space, nighttime, and shadows.

📚 Literacy & Phonemic Awareness Highlights

• Starry Morning Greeting: We kicked off our mornings with a star-flipping letter game! When a letter was flipped, students checked their names. If the letter was in their name, they got to stand up!

• Rhyming & The Hidden Acorn Game: We read a shared poem called Squirrel, Squirrel and hid a paper acorn behind different words. After listening to a clue, students hunted for the acorn! It was a huge hit.

• Phonemic Awareness: We practiced identifying beginning and ending sounds in words, reviewing letter sounds and experimented with adding and taking away the suffix -ing.

• Letters of the Week (T & I): We focused on letter formations and sounds for T and I, The students built the letters using playdough, painted them, and practiced tracing them in salt trays for sensory reinforcement.

💛 Social-Emotional & Special Events

• SEB Lessons: We discussed sincere apologies, learning what it means to say "sorry" meaningfully, and practiced communicating our feelings clearly to our friends.

• Recycling Puppet Show: A special guest from St. Louis County visited us to put on an interactive puppet show about recycling. The kids learned so much and had a blast!

• Read-A-Thon Assembly: We capped off our week with an exciting assembly celebrating all of the reading and fundraising done by OB! The energy was high, and the kids truly loved the celebration.

📌 Quick Reminders 

Rest materials will only come home every four weeks. We only rest 30 minutes a day, 150 minutes a week. Therefore, they are not getting very dirty over four weeks. 

We look forward to diving into a brand-new theme next week! Have a wonderful, restful weekend!

Warmly,

Mrs. McGee, Ms. Schwer, Ms. McNutt

Your Pre-K Team

Week 6

 

Pre-K Week 6 Newsletter: 

✨Shining Bright in the Night! 🌙

This Week's Learning & Exploration 📙

Our theme this week was Nighttime! We kicked things off by accessing our background knowledge and creating a whole-group chart comparing day and night.

• Literacy & Phonics: We explored the letters E and H. Students practiced letter formations in writing books, traced them in salt trays, and built them using blocks, tangrams, pipe cleaners, and playdough! We also practiced producing rhyming words during morning meetings. Every day we also practice our phonemic awareness and started a Heggerty Hero who gets to hold Puppy the stuffy and pick the next's days helper. 
• Books & Art: We read wonderful stories about the moon, our eight planets, and stars. Students got creative by making their own custom constellations and foil moon art.
• Morning Meeting & SEL: We enjoyed a fun nighttime greeting where we flipped over stars with friends' names to greet each other in playful ways. 
• Counselor Visit: We also welcomed our school counselors, who helped us create sensory bottles to use when we have big feelings, and practiced our Second Steps social emotional learning lesson on asking a teacher for what we need or want. 

Centers & Hands-On Learning 🌟

Our classroom centers were buzzing with cosmic imagination this week. Here are some highlights!

• Marshmallow Constellations: Students engineered their own star patterns using toothpicks and mini-marshmallows.
• Playdough Stars: Children molded playdough stars and placed them onto a starry night sky.
• Nighttime Cabin Dramatic Play: The house center transformed into a cozy nighttime cabin.
• Stellar Stamping: Young artists painted using star-shaped cookie cutters and moon sponges.
• Next Week: We are continuing our nighttime adventure next week, with a special focus on shadows and nocturnal animals.

Important Reminders & Thank Yous 🎃

• Sunday Pumpkin Trip: We hope you can join us at Theis Farm this Sunday! Remember that one child and one parent get a free ticket. Let's cross our fingers for some perfect fall weather!
• Read-A-Thon Thank You: A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the Read-A-Thon! This fundraiser directly supports our school and helps fund the amazing events our OBPTO puts on all year long. Thanks for your generous donations!

📸 Visit our Photos Folder to see photos from this week. 


Have a wonderful weekend!
Caroline, Jayonna, and Rachel