An exciting first week of April in Pre K!

Dear Parents,

We hope this blog finds you well. The Pre-K class had an action-packed and fun time this week. They got a chance to participate in a brand-new cooperative game, made some truly enthralling adventures in their storytelling session, worked on their ongoing habitat center crafts, and continued to dive deeper into patterns!

Cooperative game

This week, the kids had a blast trying out a new cooperative game! For this activity, we divided hula hoops into sections of various angles using chalk. Then, we demonstrated how we wanted every kid to jump with one foot on either side of the dividing line, trying to cleanly land in the sectioned areas and not on the line itself. Then, the kids got started, completing it one at a time. Once every kid got at least two chances independently, we had them do the activity together as a class. To begin with, one student would jump from the first to the second hula hoop. Once the first student lands on the second hula hoop, the next student will jump onto the first one, and we will continue this process on, like so until all the kids are either on a hoop or finished jumping. We saw such great sportsmanship, coordination, and wonderful energy through this activity, and we are so proud of them!

Literacy

This week in literacy, the kids had a blast trying out something new! They worked on making their very own original habitat stories. The activity itself was relatively straightforward. Before the session, we made some habitat cards for various habitats such as grassland, jungle, polar habitat, ocean, and desert. On each of the cards we had the habitat that this animal lives in, the name and illustration of an animal, what noise (if any) the animal makes, and what it likes to eat. Then, we divided the class into groups of 2-3 and assigned them a habitat for the group and an animal each.

We explained that once they were in groups, it was time to craft a story using the information on the habitat cards and what they had learned up until now. After some time passed, each group got a chance to share their story with the whole class. As always, they blew us away with their creativity and we were so delighted to see their sense of humor coming through as well! We will be sharing some highlights from the story now, and continuing to share as the kids continue to add more details and plot points in future blogs.

In the jungle/grassland group, we had a thrilling nail-biter where two lions were chasing after an elephant. Realizing he was in danger, the elephant set up a series of obstacles like pouring water on their path or trapping them in a cage. In the end, the elephant's fate was still to be determined! In the ocean habitat group, it was all about the food chain! First, the shark tried to eat the dolphin, but the dolphin got away. Then, the shark saw a panda (yes, a panda) in the water and ate that panda! Finally, the dolphin got a chance to shine and ate the jellyfish. Along with these, there were so many more narratives that they crafted. This was a fantastic activity. One of the things that was most exciting about it was the way that it seamlessly blended what we have been working on in both literacy and science. The kids loved the connection of topics, and we hope that through this activity they were reminded of the importance of interdisciplinary learning!

Science

In science this week, the kids had so much fun focusing on creative representations of habitats, while also learning more about the animals that inhabit them. Besides the literacy/science hybrid story-making activity, the kids also got a chance to make crafts according to the characters in the stories they made. We saw some beautiful takes on zebras, lions, tigers, walruses, and so much more!

Maths

It was a week of review and refreshing in math! In our sessions, the kids got a chance to look at a worksheet that introduced a new type of fun shape pattern using fruits! This was a great chance for us to briefly remind the class about some of the things we learned in science about nutrition and growing plants, and we love that they remembered so much about this topic. They did an excellent job predicting which fruit would be next in the sequence. In the other session, they got hands-on with some materials and got a chance to show all they had learned by making increasingly complex and elaborate patterns, that they were also able to verbalize and explain to the rest of the class! The progress they have made in this realm is absolutely a treat to see.