Week 15...Community Helpers

We have kept with our theme of community helpers this week. We have learned about various jobs such as doctor, mail carrier, chef, construction worker, "computer jobs", and today (my personal favorite :) ) Police officers. The kids really seemed to enjoy having a real police officer there...especially with her car (Ty doesn't get to take home a car and doesn't have any of his uniform here)...so huge shout out and thank you to Connie who even went out of her way to come back for the afternoon class. Hopefully your kids were able to tell you a little about it and we didn't tell them too much information! :) We did try to stress "911" to them...have them memorize it but also remember that it is ONLY for emergencys...test them out and see if they remember.

I'm sorry our letters have been slacking. I have loved doing this unit so much that I have been just taking this time to really review with them as well as get their progress reports done (they will go home on Tuesday...I just need to finish all the comments). Also, I guess the August kit I bought was from their last years material so some of the letters they sent me for this month (and last) were the ones we already learned in August...so sorry for the confusion...then with next week being a short week, I will probably still review.

I also made a decision for that Fri vs. Mon. make up day. We are going to go on a FIELD TRIP to the fire station on Greenfield and Pueblo ( just past Southern before Broadway I believe) for MONDAY at 10:30. This is a more enclosed area so if you need to drop your child off and go do errands, that is perfectly fine...having said that they have to give the clause that it is possible that the firemen will be out on a call...which is why I like this firehouse because there is a nice big park right next to it so we can play until they return. I thought this would just tie in prefectly with all of our community helpers. Besides they invented police men so firefighters could have a hero too! :) We will also do the whole picnic lunch thing at that park. It should be a great day!

I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving next week. Here is a reminder schedule...We will have school on Tues and Wed. next week (25th and 26th). No school on Thanksgiving. School will resume WED. Dec 3rd (No school on Tuesday the 2nd) There will be school the 3rd and the 4th. THen on the MONDAY the 8th will be our MAKE UP DAY...field trip to the firehouse...then I will teach the normal T-TH. I hope that's not too confusing and doesn't foul anyone up too bad. I appreciate your cooperation with this! Have a great week!

AS always feel free to leave a comment, email or call me anytime with ANY questions you might have!!

Thanks!

Visit from a REAL Police girl!

Week 14

Where does the time go...14 weeks...Middle of November? I can't believe it. I'm sorry I missed last weeks update...life is just crazy!

We have moved on to our "Tiny Town" unit...talking about community helpers. We have learned about (and done projects for) doctors, construction workers, and mail carriers... We have discussed other jobs such as policeman and fire fighters, dentists and such. We also went around the circle and said what we wanted to be when we grew up...and even though I tried to explain what a job is and how you have to go to work and then they pay you money...we still had some girls wanting to be a real princess when they grew up (who knows...maybe they can work at Disneyland). We have some basketball players, doctors, policeman and fireman...and of course we have to have some "spider mans" and "Batman's". It has been a really fun unit, and I am still hoping to do a field trip to the fire station this month (just need to get my act together and call them...maybe after I finish this) and I hope my neighbor will be able to come over with her police car and talk to them for a few minutes about police work (she is on her death bed at the moment...so hopefully she'll get better soon :)).

On top of learning about the above topics we have still been working on our letters, shapes, and numbers, as well as participating in some cutting exercises, Rhyming games, and some name recognition games. They all seem to be doing really well in all of the areas...I don't see any big red flags at the moment...PROGRESS REPORTS will be sent home next week (hopefully...if not for sure before Christmas!)

I wanted to post these pictures because they were perfect of examples of how I prefer our projects to be. When I am registering children I often get asked the question of how I separate the children and how can 3 year olds and 5 year olds possibly be in the same class...and this is how...one, we don't give our children enough credit...3 year olds are capable of a lot...they can learn all their letters and sounds learn to cute, etc. They can't sit quite as long or stay on a task as long, which is why I always keep us moving. But as far as projects go...this is what I like to see in the above picture (it's not as clear as I would've liked) this 4 year old girl decided to color her pliers with a pattern, and she stuck with it on the whole side (she also knew it was a Christmas pattern...red, green, red, etc.) The other side she just wanted to do all red.

The one below is a little boy that just turned 3 a couple weeks ago. He chose random colors to color with, and couldn't quite get it all colored by the time he started to lose interest. Both are ok with me and what I encourage the children to do all the time...I always try to have them make it their own. This year is a little different because most of the projects are sent to me...I feel as if they do a good job of letting the children express themselves how they want...and I LOVE that!

I loved their little mail boxes today...I thought they turned out cute. Their goal was to go home and write a letter to someone (or draw a picture) and mail it to them. SO if you could help them with this...that would be GREAT!

Thanks for all your help with all the turkeys...I Love to see all the different ideas. If you haven't had a chance to bring yours in yet...I would love it if you could. The kids are LOVING looking at everybody's and pointing out which one is theirs!

I hope you have a great week. I have used all the letters out of the November box already, and am hoping to receive Decembers this weekend so I can let you know what letter it will be. Stay tuned! Have a great week!

Happy Halloween!

I hope you guys all had a happy and safe Halloween! we had a great party...thanks for all the contributions. I hope the pictures show up ok on the slide show...they were just taking too long to download individually and all their costumes were so cute I wanted to post them all! We made our pumpkin bags this week as well as our pumpkin shakers...other than that our week was consumed with Halloween stuff!

This week we will be moving on to the letter "E". I will also be sending home a cut out of a turkey...for homework this week I would love if you would decorate it as a family...you can paint it, color it, add legs, add a gobbler thing, add feathers, some people last year glued on macaroni, others glued on water balloons...the ideas are endless...you can make it however you want...and these will be our decorations for the month of Nov. If you could return them preferably by Thursday that would be fantastic...otherwise next Wed. will be fine (remember no school next Tuesday for veteran's day!).

Have a great week!