The countdown to the holidays has begun, and the kids can barely contain their enthusiasm! We have been learning a lot about different cultures and their holiday traditions. Last week we learned about Hanukkah and the miracle of the oil, and then we enjoyed spinning the dreidel. Colton and Gabriel were particularly skilled at spinning their dreidels! And then, of course, we had our Winter Program, where the kids sang many Christmas songs and enjoyed a visit from Santa! Once again, the preschoolers stole the show! We also enjoyed the Star Lab, which is a traveling planetarium, and Mr. McBride taught us all about the stars including Betelgeuse, the red supergiant in Orion, cannis major (the great dog) and the milky way. If you've never experienced the Star Lab, you're missing out...because its a blast! You crawl through a tube to the center of the dome (which is inflated by a fan), and then the lights go dark and you enjoy the night sky above as you learn about the stars. It's a magical experience and the kids really LOVE it! And coming up this week, we are looking forward to our Christmas Party on Thursday, December 22nd! We will enjoy Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer in the morning, and then the party starts at 10:00am. We hope you can join us for the fun! We will have a book gift exchange (please let us know if you cannot provide a book, so we can ensure every child gets one), tasty treats, and we will be decorating a ginger bread house to take home with us. If you would like to provide a treat for the party, please let us know so we can plan accordingly.
We hope you all have a safe holiday filled with magic and joy! Enjoy this time with your family and friends and we will see you back at school on Monday, January 9th.
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The holidays are upon us, and things tend to get crazy busy at this time of year, but we hope you all find some time for family, good friends, great food and laughter! Our preschoolers are very busy as well! We had our Bookfair and Turkey hot lunch, both a huge success, and now we are diving into the Christmas season. The kids have been practicing their songs for the winter program, and are getting excited to take the stage! We also had our all school craft day, which consists of combining all grades into several groups, and moving from one craft station to the next to make our school beautiful for the Winter Program. Its always a favorite among the kids and the 5th graders enjoy showing their leadership while working with the preschoolers.
The Star Lab will be visiting us next week, and the kids are going to love it! Its a traveling planetarium that will be set up in the gym, with one of our very own Ed Tech Fascilitators from the Poudre School District doing the presentation. And last, theres the Preschool Holiday Party on December 22nd at 10:00am. Parents are once again welcome to join us as we celebrate with a gift exchange (a new book, wrapped, $5.00 limit), delicious snacks, decorating a gingerbread house, and handing out presents. If you would like to bring a snack, please let us know so we can plan accordingly. We are looking forward to the holidays, and we hope yours is safe and festive! What a busy couple of weeks it has been! For those of you that came, our Fall Festival was a blast! Lots of games and fun! And then we had our preschool Halloween Party...which included a movie, "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown", Trick or Treating in the halls, more games, yummy snacks and lots of laughs. Hot potato...or in this case, hot pumpkin, was a lot of fun, and a very special angel won the pumpkin prize! We learned all about the Day of the Dead as we celebrated our departed loved ones. We made sugar skulls and tissue paper marigolds, as well as lighting a candle for them. We also held an election alongside our own nations presidential election, and our preschoolers got to vote on snack for the day. The choice was a tough one...bananas with graham crackers vs. pear with string cheese, and the drink option was milk or juice. And the winner is....pears, string cheese and milk! yeah! The kids enjoyed the voting booth and they were excited to eat the snack of their choosing. Gabriel gave me the thumbs up to enjoy snack even when his choice didnt win! Way to be a good sport Gabriel! Our poll booth has been dismantled though and we are now thinking about the Turkey Hot Lunch and the Scholastic Book Fair, both of which take place this week! We hope you can join us for both events...they are a tradition here at RFLE and families always have a great time. The kids will start practicing their songs for the Winter Program, so be on the lookout for the lyrics coming home in Thursday folders. We also hope to get some parent/teacher conferences underway, so stay tuned. We are focusing on our fine motor skills, writing, cutting, etc...as well as working on our letters and numbers, counting and the ABC's. We are also working on sharing and problem solving, all important things for children at this age. The children can practice these skills at home over the holiday break and Sharon will be putting together a packet to send home with you on that. If you have any questions or concerns about anything, please let us know! :) We hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
Wow...what a crazy awesome two weeks it has been! Last week we had a visit from the Forest Service and our very own RFL Fire Department for Fire Prevention Month. The kids got to try on all their gear, taste their MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat...our group tasted the chili macaroni and cheese, cookies, tortillas and bread), explore their trucks and the ambulance, and they even got to meet Smokey the Bear! Some of the kids weren't sure what to make of that giant bear, considering I had recently told them about a bear breaking into my car to steal our play doh, but they all enjoyed his story. Aubrey wasnt sure what to make of all the fire fighters, but she warmed up to Smokey, and was happy to pose for a picture. But their favorite part of the whole day...checking out the TRUCKS!!! Looks like Gabriel and Caleb are ready to hit the road! We'd like to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to all the volunteers and Forest Service folks that came out for the entire day to share Fire Safety with our kiddos! They had a great time and learned a lot! Did you know it was National Pretzel Month?!? Well thats what our preschoolers learned this week as Ms. Sharon taught them all about pretzels and the letter "P"! We made a pretzel Mat Man, pretzel necklaces, and then we explored kitchen science by making homemade pretzels! Aubrey enjoyed rolling and squeezing her dough, while Colton created a pretzel snake. His favorite part was "painting" the snake with butter! Working with dough strengthens the hand and finger muscles, which is great for their fine motor skills, so next time you're in the kitchen, have those kids give you a hand! After we all made our predictions about what would happen to the dough in the oven, we got to enjoy our experiment while watching a short video about how pretzels are made in a factory. The preschoolers decided it was much more fun to make them by hand then the factory way, and I agreed! Gabriels favorite part about the pretzel, was the salt, which he licked off before even trying the pretzel. The Fall Festival is on Friday so we hope you can make it! Preschoolers are invited to join in on the fun, and they always have a blast!
Our Halloween party will be on Monday, October 31st, and if you'd like to join us for the fun, our celebrations start at 10:00am. (preschoolers can wear their costume to school all day and parents can wear one too) Please let us know if you would like to bring a snack or run a game or craft for the party...kids love it when their folks are there! We hope you are enjoying the cooler weather...have a great weekend! What an exciting week we had! We had our very first field trip to the pumpkin patch at Bartel Farms, and everyone had a great time! We enjoyed gathering pumpkins, a hayride, farm animals, a picnic and the corn maze! A "BIG THANK YOU" goes out to the Red Feather Lakes PTO for picking up the tab, and also the many chaperones/drivers that made this trip possible! We hope you had as much fun as we did! Now on to important upcoming news: We have the RFL fire department visiting us on Tuesday along with the Forest Service for Fire Prevention week. The kids will get to explore fire trucks, their equipment and they might even run into Smokey the Bear! We'll also have a surprise fire drill this week, so we'll have the kids all prepared for that. Reminders: There is no school on Thursday, October 13th, and there is also no preschool on the following Monday, October 17th (CPP work day). So please mark your calendars, as the first day back, Tuesday, October 18th, will be picture day at school. Younger siblings are welcome to come in that morning to have their pictures taken too if you like, so come on by. And finally, we are looking for a few volunteer parents to help us with our Halloween party on Monday, October 31st, so if you would like to make some treats, or run an activity or craft during the party, please let us know. Parents are welcome to come to our party, which starts at 10:00, so we hope you can join in on the fun! Please talk to Ms. Sharon or I if you would like more information.
The Fall Festival is on Friday, October 28th, from 1:30-2:30. Parents and preschoolers are welcome to join the elementary kids, so we hope you can make it. There will be games, a costume contest, prizes, trick or treating on the nature trail and more, so please stop by. Well, thats about it for now :) I hope you had a wonderful weekend! See you in the morning! We went leafing on the nature trail this week and then created art making rubbings of those leaves. We have been learning all about Fall and the letter "F" this week, as well as continuing to build friendships and building our fine motor skills. We are enjoying the beautiful weather and looking forward to our field trip coming up soon. Please be sure to check the Thursday folders for permission slips, and additional information about the field trip. If you would like to be a driver, you will need to be registered with the Poudre School District as a volunteer, which you can do on their web page. It takes about a week to process, so you will need to do it soon. Also in the Thursday folders you will find more information about Mat Man. We hope to make a Mat Man set for each child soon, so your child can create their own at home. They can practice letter and number building at home as well as singing and creating their own Mat Man! This will be a fun activity for the whole family! Meanwhile, enjoy the weekend...the leaves are at their peak right now on the Manhattan Road!
This week we introduced Mat Man! Mat Man is a wonderful learning tool created by Handwriting Without Tears. By exploring Mat Man, we learn about body awareness, drawing and prewriting, counting, building, socializing and sharing! We will continue to explore Mat Man throughout the year as we introduce letters with curves and straight lines (just like Mat Man). If you would like to learn more about Mat Man, you can click on this link for more info. Meanwhile, we are falling into a preschool routine, and the kids are eager to learn new things each day! This week we enjoyed sidewalk chalk and basketball at recess, working on our Brown Bear, Brown Bear books during art, and we continue to work on our fine motor skills. Preschool ROCKS!
We hope you enjoyed your long weekend! Our first week of preschool was fabulous! We spent each day exploring the classroom and its rules, touring the school, and becoming friends. This week we will be assigning jobs, so be sure to ask your child what their job is this week!
I'm kicking off our blog with a photo of Aubrey and Gabriel already becoming fast friends and learning about teamwork as he pushes her on the swing at recess. Preschool ROCKS! |
Hi! Ms. Lisa here, sharing all the fun and excitement of our awesome preschool classroom!
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