Miss Wende's Class

The Benefits of Integration: The children in this group participate fully throughout the daily schedule with their peers from the Play and Learn preschool. It is very exciting to observe the friendships developing within the group. We are noticing that all children benefit from accepting each others strengths and needs and a spirit of teamwork is the goal. There are four teachers, (Wende, Cynthia, Shira, and Julie) who collaborate on planning and leading groups throughout the day.

 

Daily Schedule: Arrival and Free play: Every morning as the children arrive and get settled with book bags and notebooks etc. they come in the room and are encouraged to choose an activity. The teachers select a variety of table toys to encourage pre academic skills. The teachers interact and supervise their play encouraging social skills, and assist in guiding them on learning counting, shapes, alphabet, etc. They have access to art supplies to work on their coloring and cutting during this time as well. The children are able to choose among three connected rooms during this play time with different choices available in each room.                   

Snack Time: At this time all the children share a snack together and practice their social and language skills as they sit together at the tables. As each child finishes and cleans up, they then choose a picture book to look at and relax until everyone is finished.

Circle Time: During circle time the children practice their counting skills as we briefly discuss the days of the week, the month and the weather for the day. Each child has opportunities to speak in front of the group as weather person, calendar person etc. throughout the month. Circle time is an excellent opportunity for the children to practice asking and answering questions relating to the topic. 

We also introduce our weekly themes, review vocabulary, read a theme related book and discuss the art project for the day.

Project Time: As the children create theme related crafts, we are working on following directions, fine motor skills such as coloring, cutting, gluing, etc. The children take pride in their individual creations and project time gives us one more teaching opportunity related to our weekly concepts and vocabulary.

Gross Motor Time: At this time the children are encouraged to use their muscles to practice running, ball skills, bike riding and climbing on playground equipment. We have several different spaces to select for gross motor time including our gym, the playground and a room with large blocks and some climbing equipment.

Lunch: During lunch the children sit next to different friends each day and relax and chat with their peers. This is a good time to practice using our muscles to open all kinds of lunch products like pudding cups, yogurt, juice packs, etc. and asking for help when needed. The teachers sit with the children as well and encourage verbal interactions. The children clean up their leftovers, put their lunchboxes away and select a book or toy until everyone is finished.

Quiet Time: After lunch the children take a rest on their individual mats. Some of the students enjoy the short nap and seem to really need it after a busy day. For the children who are restless and not too tired, we set up quiet activities at the table to work on their goals and finish any projects etc. that are incomplete.

Special weekly groups: On Mondays we have dance with Miss Elizabeth.  On Fridays the children have a movement class, Creative Kinections with Miss Colleen in the morning and a dance activity with Miss Dorothy. We also have Show and Tell on Fridays when we try to have the children send in things to go with the letter of the week when possible.

 

Themes: This month we will begin our summer theme of Planet Earth and regional habitats. In July we will be discussing Oceans, deserts, polar/arctic habitats, and the rainforest.

 

Art activities: During the week of July 7^th – 11^th we will be creating an ocean scene the entire week. On Monday the children will finger paint on a large paper with the blues and greens to make an ocean background. As the week progresses they will be adding seaweeds, ocean creatures and fish to their oceans. We will also be taking a neighborhood walk to a pet store to observe the aquariums. Week two of July we will focus on the desert. The children will be making cactus plants, chameleons, snakes and sandy deserts with camels. Week three of July we will be discussing the arctic zone. Some of our projects include making icebergs in the ocean with polar bears and walruses, paper bag penguins, igloos, and a night scene of stars and the Northern lights. The last week of July we will talk about the rainforest. Our projects this week include making a rainforest background, adding rainforest animals, making butterflies, and creating beautiful quetzal birds.

Books: A few of the books that incorporate our themes include; A House for Hermit Crab, Fidgety Fish, Somewhere in the Ocean, Snakes, Lizards, EarthSong, Little Polar Bear, Plenty of Penguins, Rain, Rain, Rain Forest, and My Umbrella.