Hello Room 1A families! We wanted to share these memories with you! We had two wonderful Stone Soup days! Stone Soup is all about understanding the importance of sharing and community. We strive to teach our students to be selfless and kind. It’s all about coming together as a team to accomplish our goals! They loved helping to make the soup. They shredded chicken, cut celery and carrots, watched the soup cook and, the best part, enjoyed the soup for lunch! We hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed taking them! Thank you to everyone who brought their Stone Soup items and the Tavey Family for donating the cutest Thanksgiving bowls!
Tag: Room 1
Jesus Loves Me Party
Our “Jesus Loves Me Party” was a Valentine’s celebration centered on God’s love for us! We are so thankful for God’s unwavering love! He loves us when we make good choices and when we make bad choices as well. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Understanding the truth about God’s love not only strengthens our relationship with Him but also strengthens our relationship with others.
“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
Room 1 friends shared why they love Jesus…
At Morning Meeting, a few friends helped lead our Bible verse song:
“G-O-D is L-O-V-E” John 4:16
We made valentine cards…
…and worked with strawberry play dough!
A couple of our fabulous Room 1 Moms read some books about love!
We ate yummy yogurt parfaits topped with graham crackers, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries! Mmm!
After our special Valentine’s Day snack, we sang songs about God’s never ending love.
We passed out the Valentine’s we made for our friends.
Most importantly, we spent the day LOVING each other!
Thank you to all the parents who helped make this celebration possible. We LOVE you!
No Rainy Day Blues…JUST MOVES!
Room 1 enjoyed a game of 4 corners! This was a fun way for us to get our indoor wiggles out!
We danced to the music but when the music stopped we had 3 seconds to find a corner. If the giant die rolled our number we sat out for one round. This is a great way to practice cooperative skills in a large group setting.
We kicked it up a notch with finger lights!
We worked on gross motor movement, coordination, and listening skills!
Can We Build It? Yes, We Can!
Oh Hello, Mr. Guitar and Mrs. Violin!
Whether we’re inside, outside, or visiting the “Big Field” we love to incorporate worship and music/movement into our everyday routine. We are filled with joy as we sing songs that remind us about how much we are loved by God!
There are so many benefits associated with music! Some of which include: learning to participate in a group activity, expressing emotions, strengthening listening skills, becoming aware of one’s body, cultivating imagination, and improving large and small motor skills. Music and movement is a time when we get to discover that movements have the power to communicate messages. Woah! Isn’t learning about the world around us,so much more fun when we get to act it out with our own body?
It’s Time For…Small Groups!
Our Green Elephants, Yellow Giraffes, Blue Ladybugs, and Purple Butterflies LOVE small group time! Each small group consists of six children who rotate to four different stations in our classroom.
First, we have our Language and Literacy group. At this teacher-directed station, we implement our Happily Ever After Curriculum. At our elementary school, the transitional kindergarten (TK) and kindergarten classes also integrate a version of this program, called Superkids.Therefore, this fun reading readiness program helps us bridge the gap between pre-k and kindergarten, for our PCS families. Happily Ever After is centered on classic children’s literature. These activities aim to meet a wide range of student objectives in the areas of vocabulary/conceptual development; print and book awareness; letter recognition; auditory discrimination; phonological awareness; comprehension, emergent writing; listening and speaking; and fine motor skills.
Our Math and Science group is also facilitated by one of the three teachers in our classroom. Primarily, we use games and manipulatives to build understanding of spacial relationships, classification, patterning, and cause and effect. A fun way we help children develop a sense of quantity is by learning to estimate. For example, our math and science table has become an Estimation Station! At The Estimation Station, each child estimated the quantity of various objects (pine cones, pastel cubes, and glass marbles). They wrote down their estimations and counted the objects together. We celebrated the closest estimations with a special clap we like to call a “Fire Style” (everyone wants their friends to give them a fire style!)
We develop knowledge of the natural world by going on nature hunts. We count, classify, and compare objects like sticks, pinecones, and leaves. It’s always fun to integrate nature and science into art. Check out our Leaf Man Project!
Our third small group is The Writing Center. The children use their Daily Writing Journals to creatively depict their thoughts, feelings, and the images of their imagination. The children are either given “free choice” or an exciting prompt pertaining to things they have experienced that day or stories they have heard. Our main objective is to help children develop emergent writing skills through dialogue and dictation.
Lastly, our Independent group is our child-directed activity. We put self-regulation to work as we look at books, build with blocks, assemble manipulatives, line up dominoes, or work with play dough. Here are just a couple of the independent group activities we’ve done.
Occasionally, we are blessed with a Cal State LA student intern, and on those days our independent group is facilitated by a teacher in training.
Leaping into Learning
We know that active play is an important part of a child’s development. Our Room 1 friends stay active in our outdoor classroom by running, leaping, climbing, jumping, and spinning! Gross motor skills are put to the test as the children leap onto a colored mat, but not before making a prediction. They shout with determination, “I’m gunna’ get red!” Then, they leap with all their might (sometimes falling short of their expectation but committed to trying again). We are building strong muscles, improving coordination, fostering cooperation, encouraging self-esteem, and learning colors…all while having a blast!
Mixin’ It Up!
Who wants to sit and look at a boring ol’ color chart? No, thank you! We would much rather EXPERIENCE color mixing first-hand! During our morning free choice play, we had the opportunity to experiment with primary water colors at our science table.
