Sproutlings News – December 4, 2017

Reminders:

-All students are required to have their flu shot by this Friday, December 15th (with the exception of babies under 6 months of age). Please get documentation from your doctor to bring to Sproutlings.

-Join us next Thursday for our Winter Concert! The Beanstalks, Pre K 3 and Pre K 4 will be singing some holiday favorites! 6:30-7:00

Hour Of Code:

This week, students in the Little Sprouts through After Care proved that even some of our youngest students can begin to understand computer programming! It was an exciting week filled with many fun coding activities! Check out the blurbs below for more details.

Peapods

This week we continue to decorate our room with our holiday decorations.  They are on our windows for all to enjoy. We’ve been playing a lot of music and using our instruments to play along. There is also a lot of dancing happening too! Some of us have been crawling around like little mice trying to catch one another. We have a new play mat for our room. It’s fun to crawl and roll around on it. We read It’s Hanukkah! and sang “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.”

Seedlings

We had a fun week in the Seedlings room. All the kids were excited to explore the new layout of our room. It was fun discovering where things were in their new spots. We also made snowflakes using our hands. It was exciting to see how our handprints changes by adding more prints. The Seedlings had a blast painting popsicle sticks and seeing them come together to make a snowflake. We are excited to hang them around the room! We have been matching shapes and putting them in the right spots while saying their colors. During circle we read Peek-a-boo Penguins by Matt Buckingham and we sang “Jingle Bells.”  On Thursday, we welcomed our new friend Christopher to our room!

Little Sprouts

We welcomed December by learning about gingerbread men in the Little Sprouts classroom! Some of us had eaten gingerbread men before and decorated them at home. We read The Gingerbread Man by Karen Schmidt and danced to “5 Gingerbread Men.” Our sensory table was filled with white shredded paper to imitate snow and cardboard gingerbread men. For art, we painted using toothbrushes and made our own gingerbread men by sponge painting and decorating them with buttons! We also made our own gingerbread men using felt cut-outs. Some of us gave our gingerbread hats or clothes while others gave them buttons and shoes. It was fun to mix and match! We worked on identifying the letters in our name too!  Hour of Code was this week, we had a special guest visitor come in! His name was Charlie the Code-a-pillar and we were able to code him to do movements and sounds! It was so much fun!

Beanstalks

Wow it’s December! Can you believe it? Time sure does fly when you are having fun!! This week in Beanstalks we have been as busy as ever. In literacy, a new letter of the week was introduced which was I.  We practiced the sound of “I” and thought of words that begin with I.  We are working very hard on our fine motor skills by coloring, cutting, and tracing various things that correspond with the letter “I”.
In math, the number 8 was introduced.  We made the number 8 out of play dough on our play dough mats and counted ornaments for our tree.  We are continuing to review numbers and one to one correspondence with various math activities. In art this week we painted with ice paint cubes, made a purple collage, and tie dyed t-shirts to celebrate the end of our study on clothes. Next week we will introduce a new a new theme “Holidays”. Have a great weekend !!!

Pre K 3

Pre K-3 had a great week of learning! This week we wrapped up our study on clothes. We learned a lot about clothes. We learned how clothes are made, what we can uses to make, how to wash clothes, and the tools used to make clothes. We introduced the letter “I” and the number 10.  In literacy, we talked about the letter “I” and it’s sound. We also thought of words that began with the letter “I” as well. In addition, we colored in the letter “I’ with purple markers and tissue paper. We also learned how to write the letter I. We read Who Wears What?, A Pocket for Corduroy, and Little Red Riding Hood. In math this week, we learned the number 10 and played various games such as counting socks and matching buttons. We worked on one to one correspondence of numbers 1-10. In art, to celebrate the end of our clothes study we tie dyed shirts! The kids had a great time! Next week we will be learn about Hanukkah!

Pre K 4

This week the class participated in the global initiative, Hour of Code. We spent our week introducing the children to computer science. We learned how programmers communicate with computers and had the chance to try different types coding games. The class created algorithms to move through mazes using a Bee Bot. We were able to sequence the Code-a-pillar to create different paths around our room. The kids were able to complete a series of tasks moving Moana across the ocean in a “Disney Partners Hour of Code” game. We learned about “If statements” and about creating loops.  Check out HourofCode.com for more information and activities to try at home!

This week the class worked on the letter I. We created snowmen made out of the letters of our names. We practiced writing the numeral 10. Our color focus continued to be purple and the students created purple tissue paper art pieces. This week’s books were Three Billy Goats Gruff and Dinosaur Woods. Next week the class will begin a study on Winter Holidays.