Colorful Times for our Budding Scientists!

Thanks, Karen, for the great idea for creating a COLOR CATERPILLAR. This was a HIT for our young explorers. While the colors captivated their attention, the mixing invited curiosity. Questioning, Predicting, and Drawing Conclusions created that scientific inquiry we value so much!

 

The Color Caterpillar sticks around to continue to invite exploration and color mixing understandings. 





 The Walls come alive with a color explosion! Look at all we did to explore and learn about color though science, play, literacy, math, and art?






Flowers of all kinds adorn the rooms! Look at the carnations and coffee filter flowers. 

 



Angie Prather's idea of honoring students with letter seats for the week is taking the preschool by storm and resulting in ALPHABETIC KNOWLEDGE!

Oh, the joys of effective PLC work!

Measurement and Growing Animals! What more can a little scientist ask for? Check out this "growing" lizard- getting bigger by the day. It's so much fun to intentionally move toward the transfer: gather, analyze, and use evidence from tools, interactions as an opportunity to learn and communicate!

Math + Science + Oral Language

Patterns= Math learning

What math & literacy lessons can result from this simple graphic?

 

 

 

Great Happenings at the OCP

If you are hoping to peek inside of other classrooms and get the feel for what others are doing to spark creativity and learning through play, check out these photos.

 Play Plans combine thinking, creativity, writing, and PLAY!
Are you kids ready to begin these valuable learning tools? YES!

Some teachers have used them as true Play Plans, while others have had kids reflect on their favorite "learning through play" time of the day.

Either way you are harnessing thinking, creativity, and literacy skills.  

Turn you head and you will see this little one reading to her bear. What a delightful experience. Looking at pictures of kids from all over the world, she tells be bunny quite a tale. (Haha, get it, tale, tail??!)

All aboard!!! This simple box transformed into the famous Mayflower as students took ownership. They created the mast, wrote the name of the boat, and invented all the play that came with it! Social studies, social play, literacy, and science all in one!

 

Another moment of self-selected play in action. These little guys are drawn to the literacy center where they extend stories they have heard in read aloud. They often add pages, or create new stories to share with the class in this room.

OCP Family Night Dinner & Dialogic Reading

Welcome to Family Night at OC Preschool!

Every letter counts! Even teacher name signs offer letter recognition opportunities!

  

Families enjoyed pizza and cookies before the reading fun!

Mrs. Clark takes time to ask her kiddos their thinking about the text she just read. "What do you predict will happen next?"

Writing names is a critical part of a child's learning. And FUN!
 



Mrs. Prather uses a book with BIG numbers to
 embrace both literacy and math learning.

 


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Welcoming and sharing the purpose for the activity is SO important for all who come to learn.

Mrs. Banks reiterates the importance of Dialogic Reading  with children as she closes out the modeling portion.

Leaving with a book to try it out on is the icing on the cake! Readers need BOOKS!

What was the feedback?

 

   

Unit 2- We Are Into You!

This year,  Unit 2 has had a bit of a different feel. Teachers are working with ensuing that our students' "Well-Beings" are balances. Here is a sneak peek into the last week of Preschool.

Reading books is so much fun! Reading familiar poems is a ball, too!
How many of our little Peacocks are already 'reading" our rhyme?

 
Letters line the way for students in Mrs. Honeycutt's room!

 

Towers of 4 are EVERYWHERE in Mrs. Clark's room.

Plan Plans helps Peacocks to sustain play.

 Letters and Books are fun to play. with in centers!



Picture Sorts with beginning sounds becomes a GAME!

 Writing!

 

It's fun to add pages to the end of our shared reading. Good night, ______.

Unit 2- We Are Into You!

This year,  Unit 2 has had a bit of a different feel. Teachers are working with ensuing that our students' "Well-Beings" are balances. Here is a sneak peek into the last week of Preschool.

Reading books is so much fun! Reading familiar poems is a ball, too!
How many of our little Peacocks are already 'reading" our rhyme?

 
Letters line the way for students in Mrs. Honeycutt's room!

 

Towers of 4 are EVERYWHERE in Mrs. Clark's room.

Plan Plans helps Peacocks to sustain play.

 Letters and Books are fun to play. with in centers!



Picture Sorts with beginning sounds becomes a GAME!

 Writing!

 

It's fun to add pages to the end of our shared reading. Good night, ______.

Here's to Unit 1: Belonging!!

The New School Year is off to a great start. Here are some photos of learning in action. Students are "living" life at our Preschool. A day in the Preschool is certainly different than at home. Here we have songs to sing, routines, rituals, plans to make, new friends to play with, centers to learn in, and a playground that offers so many gross motor activities for all kiddos.  There are so many ways to contribute to
 Check out how our Peacocks are learning to productively contribute to our groups and society.

Welcome to the Day. After greeting their teacher at the door, Mrs. Bratcher's students gather at the carpet to work puzzles, read books, and get to know one another better.

**Seeing what kids try and like helps us get to know them  better.

 What are your morning/afternoon start of the session rituals? 

After this time, classmates gather to hear from a special student a message he/she wants to share. Mrs. Bratcher then writes it on the easel for all to see and they all chorally read to practice fluency with written text.

**What a wonderful way to let kids see CAP in action, writing of words, and chorally read!

 What writing do you do with your kids so they can see the connection between the words we say, the sounds we hear, and the letters we write that carry a message?

 

Play Plans: Following some fun on the carpet- exploring with a variety of toys books and puzzles, Mrs. Clark supports her learners as they make a plan for their play-based learning centers. Students share the three places they want to play, and how they might play in one of those areas.

**What a prime time to support and hold high expectations for kids to speak in complete sentences: "I want to play in the __________ area/center."

"I will ___________"

  How does your class select centers and create play plans? 

 

Small Groups (or Intervention): When plans have been made and kids are enjoying their learning-based play in the centers, this affords us time to push in to push learning. Mrs. Putlak is using the ABC arc to help this student grow with letter ID and sounds that match. 

 **Pushing in and sharing a research-based strategy targets and motivates students to gain in specific understandings and/or skills.

  What research-based strategies do you use with your kids? 

Transitions: Of course, all play must come to an end, and that is when we transition students to clean up and move to a different area. Ms. Cheek's routines and rituals afford students the opportunity to select the clean up song (today was a Disney tune) to play on the speakers and shows the visual for the play center (just finishing #2 in this case), so students can know that they have to finish their cleanup responsibilities and move to the carpet before the song ends.

 **Visual and Auditory triggers are known to support learners in being successful with routines and rituals.

What cues do you use with your kids? 

 

While this post did not highlight all parts of our day, it's a start. Our Peacocks are definitely gaining a better understanding of "this preschool thing".  :)

 More to come next week!

YUMMY Literacy Learning- Growing Veggie Soup!

Great things happen when you explore Growing Vegetable Soup! Lois Ehlert's book was a HIT for our little learners at the Oldham County Preschool. Teachers read, students retold and even made their own version of vegetable soup this week. All kinds of learning happened as students thinking blossomed in the house area, block center, and in student's writing. Check out the student work and students in action below. 

It is exciting to see students creating plans for their play-based learning time. Developing writers help us to see the powerful pretend play in which they will engage.



Reading to friends is so fun. This little literacy lover is retelling the story with the pictures as her peers listen closely. You can also see the vegetable soup she made in the drama area. Yummy!

 

Seeds have a sequence they follow to grow into plants! Students drew and wrote about the growth: from seed to plant. Each one shared their own version of how a plan grows. Some "grew" flowers, other grew vegetables. Thank goodness all of their seeds grew- wish we could all have such luck! :)

Writing away! This one is copying garden theme words to tell stories about. Modeling how much fun something is can really pay of when students choose to grow as literacy learners in the writing area.