Painting with Pre K's!

This week the Junior Pre K's have had a lot of fun painting. We painted a garden by using green paint for our grass and glued flowers on our stems. We also painted our sun orange and yellow and added a few butterflies. Later on in the week we made a 'dirt road' where we got to dip our favorite cars into paint and drive them on our paper to make it look like a dirt road. We also got to finger-paint and make handprints to take home!

Music!

Today we had a great day in music class! We all got to choose which instrument we wanted to play first, and decided it would be nice to share and trade-up the instruments with the other children after every song. We practiced singing the song while we played. We played softly, and sang in whisper voices. Next we sang very loudly and played our instruments in a very powerful way. We also practiced when to stop playing our instruments. The children had to practice watching the “conductor” at the same time as playing their instrument. It was a little bit tricky to focus on two things at once, but the children did an amazing job of putting down their instrument when they saw the “stop” signal. Great job friends!

Technology!

Yesterday we introduced the concept of technology to the class. We started the computer and allowed everyone to see what the click of the mouse felt like. We tried to name all of the parts of the computer that we know.  After we learnt a little bit about the parts, we played an interactive Cat in the Hat Story. All of the children were able to click on and hover over certain objects with the mouse to find out more about the story. We had lots of fun learning about the computer and all of the fun activities we can do on it!   

Art Class!

Today in art the classes came together to work as a team. First, we made an observational painting - carefully looking at the different parts of a flower and trying to mimic the bouquet in our paintings. We broke it down into parts - first drawing the stem of the flower, and later adding the center and petals. We had to focus very carefully on the flowers to make sure we didn’t miss anything in our painting. Next, we utilized our team building skills to create a large display for the art room wall. We differentiated between fingerprints and handprints and then got to work! Our large finger and hand painting looks great! 

Early Literacy!

Our Pre K class has been learning some important aspects of early literacy skills this week. We have learnt how to turn our palmar grasp into a tripod grasp to better control our fine motor skills. We learnt which way to put our papers so the writing was at the top and we could start to practice reading the words from top to bottom, left to right. We also then focused on creating straight lines down and across to get us ready for handwriting. Everyone did a wonderful job!

A Birthday Celebration!

On Tuesday we celebrated our friend Ava’s birthday! She turned 3 years old and we all gathered around to sing a very cheery happy birthday song. First we sang it to her in our regular singing voices, and then we decided we would try some different ways to sing happy birthday. We sang the song in quiet fairy voices, and then in great loud voices so that everyone on the block could hear us! We want to wish Ava a very happy birthday -- from all of your friends at school!

Visual Art

We are in the process of making our special September Art Project. We tinted our paints pastel colours by adding white paint to primary colours. Each child chose their own colour paint and painted their background. As the weeks progress we will add more detailed art work to our project and surprise everyone with our beautiful art!

Rosh Ha'Shana!

Today at school we celebrated the Jewish New Year, called Rosh Ha’Shana. We talked about the special dinners that we have to bring our families together at the start of a new year. We also talked about the special foods that we eat. On Rosh Ha’Shana we dip apples in honey, to represent a sweet year to come. Everyone in the class got to try dipping their apple in honey at snack time today. In Hebrew we wish everyone a “Shana Tova” – meaning a good year. We had a great time learning about the Jewish New Year and wish everybody around the world a Sweet New Year!