Retelling & Reaching Learning Targets through Small Group and Play

This has been the week of THREES! Three Bears, Three Pigs, Three Letters!
Here is just a snapshot of the learning that is happening in our amazing preschool!

 What may look a house of sticks (from the 3 Little Pigs) morphed into a trap for the ghost shark to use the turtles as bait for those poor people! A story of their own making ends with a lesson learned about falling prey to the ultimate predator! Mrs. Bratcher's' imaginative crew!

 Blocks in Mrs. Banks' room are constructed to meet the big plans these little ones have for them. Can the wolf blow this brink house over??

 

Mrs. Clark's room offers this little one's imagination a world of possibilities! Making a box into a stick house - adding sticks one by one is a little counting lesson, too!

Extending the retelling of the Three Little Pigs= learning about story structure! Whether they were retelling though the book version, making up a new scene, or considering possible roles for the characters and who would play which one - play and learning collided! Research shows that purposefully "coaching" as kids play allows for teachers to offer up some questions to help learners plan or extend play, and intentionally impact learning (cognitive, social, emotional, etc.) all while the learner is engaged in play!

 Who wants some porridge? Mamma Bear and Baby Bear do! Why not add some letters for  a little added nutritional value?! Oh, and just after this they found a tiny bowl for the sweet Baby Bear, switched the orange "medium" bowl to be Mama's, and gave the "big" green bowl to Papa Bear. Love their understanding of the story and graduated order!

When you are learning math, it's more fun to have objects of choice! Each child has their own objects to count, but Mrs. Banks if extending each learner's understanding by need. Differentiation and engagement in action.

Rhythm, Syllables, Sounds and more! Making Music is fun for all! Mrs. Honeycutt makes music in her classroom and what a fun learning time they had!

 Mrs. Cheek's crew is learning to ID letters. The three you see are those of this week. Getting a Bingo makes this letter learning FUN!

 



 

Differentiation is at the hear of this mall group time. Some are rhyming and reading, others are listening for sounds, and still others are working on letter ID. What you need is what you learn!

Exploration and More

Unit 3 offered so much for our curious little kiddos. Never a dull moment could there be for these inquiring little minds. Students took to STEM projects coupled with the ever-present learning of literacy. Check out some of our preschoolers in action.

 

Water, Water! I wonder what it will do?  Whirl around? Swirl around? It's so fun to EXPLORE everyday objects and substances AND study the W letter and sound!

 Vocabulary building is a powerful strategy for all of our preschoolers. Check out this friend's examples of DIFFERENT. (A tier 2word the class is learning though text and explicit instruction.) Ms. Cheek's Reading Academy research-based strategies in action.  

 Help! We need to call in the community helpers to EXPLORE the fire! Dramatic play is all about pretending and playing with real-life idea... or those crazy ones that they dream  up!

 Nary a day goes by  without wrapping kids in literacy learning. Fluency poems and letter ID and sounds make for literate kiddos.

 Art + Math= learning! No only could this friend

 Excited to spend some quality science exploration time with dad at OC Preschool STEM family night in Mrs. Banks’ room

 

Hey Dad, let’s see what this lever can do!  Making observations while experimenting with levers at OC Preschool STEM family night in Mrs. Banks’  room.

 Everybody LOVES exploring Print concepts, and reading books each and every day- especially when we can do it with a buddy!

 Sink or Float? How do we  know? Each child predicts and tests objects and then charts what happens. What conclusions can we draw about why something sinks or floats? What do you suppose???

  Sinks float? What do you suppose???

Time for TRANSFER! Do we know alliteration? Which of these sounds the same at the BEGINNING? Because we KNOW the importance of phonological awareness plays in growing readers!

 

Wheels, Ramps, Measurement & Letters!

It was a short, but FUN week of LEARNING about lots of important concepts! Check out some this weeks' learning gems.

Help! This car has all 4 WHEELS, but they need some fixin'!

Tools! I need tools to get your car ready, ma'am, but you'll just need to wait because this car is going to take time to fix!

We can ALL work together to help at this repair shop!



Ramps are great for BUSES and cars to ZOOM down. Building SCIENTIFIC THINKING, ORAL LANGUAGE & MATH skills are so fun do as we PLAY.

Let's look at where we see wheels and (kids chose on this goal) HOW MANY we can find!

I see 1,2,3,4 wheels on this garbage can!

Ramps are so fun to BUILD! They can be LONG or SHORT and make cars go FAST, or SLOW!

 Gel bags make letter learning feel like PLAYING!

This is a K, can you say K? What letter is this? K.

 

When you already know L and K, what do you do? PLAY a game of LETTER TOWERS!
Check out this fun, individualized and INTENTIONAL letter/sound game in Ms. Cheek's room!

 

Sometimes playing means painting with colors we love and

ideas we hope to express.

 

It was a GREAT week at OCP! We can't wait to see what next week holds for our little learners.

 

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!

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