Getting to Know You!

A busy, busy bunch...

Can you believe it's almost the end of week 4 already!? I know I can't!! 

The pre-primary children have been busy engaging in their new environment in numerous ways and I believe we all know each other a little better now and are happy coming to school :)  The lovely hellos and smiles Mrs Clarkson and I get on arrival each morning are just beautiful and tell us, Room 15 must be a great place to be! 

We have been playing games, discovering new boundaries, learning the rules of our classroom, practising patience and turn taking, building stamina for daily tasks and learning how to take risks and try new things. A lot to take in for littlies who are just 4 and 5... don't you think?!

Take a peek at us enjoying our new pre-primary classroom!

 

Playdough Fun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Classroom Explorations

 

 

  

 

  

 

 

Out and About!

 

 

So that's just a little sneak peak at our first few weeks of pre-primary!

 

Happy Happy Days!

 

 

Welcome to 2014

Hello and Welcome to Room 15's Pre-primary Explorations Blog!

I'm so glad you have taken the time to check out the site. Here you will find updates on what the kids in room 15 have been up to with images to melt your heart. At this stage, I am still waiting for everyone's image permission so there are no pictures of the children exploring their new environment yet, however, I have taken PLENTY!

Our first two weeks of pre-primary have seen us building friendships and getting to know eachother. We have been learning the rules of the classroom and exploring the wonderful play areas in our room.

The children recieved their 100 Nights Reading Program and some children have already reached their 10 nights reading goal and have been rewarded with a sticker and bookmark. Keep reading!!

This week your child will also recieve their ABC Reading Eggs home password. Although we have not started using the program at school yet, you are encouraged to log on at home and let your child start exploring the program. ABC Reading Eggs allows your child to move through the program at their own pace, which means they can only move onto the next task once they have mastered the one they are working on. For this reason, it is important that you support your child while they use the program at home but not complete it for them. It is a great program, which most children love using!

Other features of this blog include quick links to the school's facebook page, where you can keep up todate with the whole school's activities; class newsletters, where you can re-read newsletters that I have sent home and a few more helpful links will be coming soon.

So, please read the Pre-primary Explorations letter that has gone home and if need be, return the 'Permission to Publish Students' Work or Images' form if you do not want your child's picture or work on the class blog.  

Thanks for visiting and please come back next week so you can 'see' what we've been upto at school!



Frogsplorations...

 

So many explorations! Never enough time!

 

 Here is a little photo journey of some of our pre-primary explorations over the last few weeks... I hope you enjoy it.

 

 Salt-dough Frogs, Lily Pads & Father's Day Frog Pictures

We used a range of informational texts to help us design our frogs.

 

Our finished frogs! Aren't they gorgeous!?!

 

You might think our frog pictures were missing legs... and you'd be right, however, we left them off on purpose. Later we cut, folded and concertinaed our own frog legs and stuck them onto our frog's bodies. Then we glued our finished frogs onto the front of our very own Father's Day cards. They looked Amazing and each one was individually made by the kids :)

You can see some of the gorgeous cards here. And if you're wondering what the gift is that our cards are attached to... It's our frogs of course! What a great pressie for our dads! 

The frog fun never ends...

 Below you can check us out playing one of our word games during 'Word Work'.

 

 

For this game we had to flip picture cards with cvc (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and find them on our activity page. We worked together to hear each sound in the word and if we had the matching picture on our activity sheet, we carefully spelled the word under the correct picture.



You can see us using our 'robot arms' to segment each sound as we break the word up.



 

We then blend those sounds back together as we write the word.

 

We always talk and share our thoughts as we work with our friends.
 

 

We love helping each other learn when we get stuck and are also learning to be good leaders.



Can you see that beautiful smile saying ..."Yep, I'm learning how to write!"

 

What clever little frogs we have in Room 15!

 

An update on our butterflies and the wee pollywogs...

Did you know a pollywog is just another name for a tadpole?  :)

 





 

Here you can see them soon after hatching from their eggs.
They are feeding off the jelly eggs they emerged from.



 

Setting our last monarch butterfly free.

 

  

 Look very carefully at HIM... All of the other butterflies we had were girls. We know this one is a male because of the two little black spots you can see on his wings just next to his abdomen. These are like scent glands, tiny scales that emit a chemical during courtship.

 

How amazing is Mother Nature!? ... and what better way for children to learn and explore their world, than with real life experiences!

 

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Be sure to come back soon to find out all about our cool Zoo trip!