Early June Excitement in Pre K!

Dear parents,

We had a fabulous start to June in the Pre K class, and we hope your week was

great as well! This week, the class was productive and had a lot of fun. The children put all their writing and curatorial skills to the test making their own storybooks, tried out a brand new cooperative game, continued their responsibilities in large group time and so much more! Also, we have an exciting announcement! Next week, to end the school year with a fun twist, we will be doing our first LE Spirit Week. Please see the flyer below for information regarding that.

Large Group

We had a wonderful week in large group. The class followed along with their usual

routine of counting the caterpillar (and had an excellent discussion about nature,

transformation and growth inspired by the caterpillar), reading from the circle

time center and doing the activities on the whiteboard (such as beginning/ending

sounds and counting the images). We also read some fun books as a class. The large

group session is one of our favorite times with the Pre K crew for many reasons,

one of which being that this is a fantastic time to see the interplay between

students, and to observe their interactions as a unit. We are so proud of the

children’s social and emotional development this year. They have formed strong

connections with their friends, and are helpful, considerate and kind to each other.

We admire this very much and can’t wait to see these bonds continue to grow with

time.

Literacy

This was an especially exciting week in literacy for our class! In our literacy

sessions, the children illustrated their very own storybooks. In previous literacy

sessions the students have done various activities to lead up to this. First, the

class made several intriguing stories as a group, where they each contributed one

sentence or phrase and took turns sharing ideas until the story was constructed.

Additionally, they made habitat story cards with their own illustrations.

With all this newfound expertise, the natural next step was for each student to

make their very own book. We made templates for them in their choice of yellow,

red or green. Inside each book there were several blank pages for them to fill to their liking. We also told them that they can decorate the cover of their book if

they wish. From there, the children’s creativity took over! Although we encouraged

the class to connect their current illustrations with the stories they came up with

before, we also let them know that if they want to create something entirely new

they are free to.

The variation and expressiveness they demonstrated through this activity is very

impressive! Some students continued expanding on their habitat stories- in one

story, there was an exciting chase between two classic rivals- a lion and tiger and a

shark and whale! In another story, there was a fun family party filled with all kinds

of exciting adventures and plot twists. Some even combined components from their

habitat stories and the group one we made as a class!

Overall, each and every student made incredible storybooks and had a blast doing

it. We can’t wait for next week when they will share their story books with the

class.

Innovation Center

It was an exciting week of finishing projects for the Pre K class in the Maker’s

Space/Innovation center. Throughout the school year, the students have really

enjoyed getting a chance to discuss the ideas and things that inspire them, and

then take those ideas out of the realm of thoughts and into the realm of our

concrete 3D reality. It has been a marvel to watch as their comfort and ease with

the process of creating something from scratch has increased steadily! Their

latest two projects were excellently done and also reflected the class’s interests.

The first was a robot! For all their projects in maker’s space, they use exclusively

recycled materials. It’s inspiring to see how well they utilize the tools and

resources available. For the robot, the body was already fully constructed so in

this session they simply had to put finishing touches like painting details and so on.

Then, they got to work on their second and most recent project, which is our very

own Pre K school bus! For this, the construction of the base was already finished as

well, so it was another paint session. They decided to paint it a beautiful bright yellow, and added all the fixtures. Now, all that is left is to write “Pre K Bus” on it

or something to that effect, which they will do before the end of next week.