Wild Animals in Winter

It's been a cold week, but that hasn't slowed this group down! Thanks to the great layers you're sending in, along with lots of movement and some warm tea we've been able to spend over an hour each morning outside. 

We're learning all about the different ways that animals survive winter, introducing the concepts of migrating, hibernating and staying active. 

Are you curious about the ways we support your child's literacy development in pre-k? Interestingly, a crucial foundation for learning how to read and write comes first in the forms of speaking and listening. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and work with sounds in language. For example, rhyming (i.e. cat-bat), segmenting words into syllables (i.e. migration = mi-gra-tion), hearing the initial sound in a word (i.e. cat starts with /k/ sound) and segmenting words into sounds (i.e. cat = /k/ /a/ /t/) are all parts of phonological awareness, and are precursors to learning to read. Children who are better at playing with words, rhymes, syllables and speech sounds often learn to read more quickly. The fun part about teaching these skills is that they are easily embedded into our day, and into our play. We love singing songs, doing silly rhymes, reading books, and constantly playing with words. 

And you can try at home, too! Have fun with rhyming and syllable segmenting (have your child show you how to "clap a word"). These skills come before the ability to isolate the first sound in a word, or the ability to break a word into its individual sounds. 

A windy day last week kept us out of the woods, but the field is always a fun alternative.

We learned the word "magenta" when our play dough mixing turned our hands bright pink!

We have a new classmate! Our scarecrow is also a bird feeder - hopefully the birds will get used to visiting us in Wildwood Forest. 

The extra hay from the scarecrow became the perfect bird's nest. 

This restaurant is open for business! The specialty is ice souffle with a topping of acorns

We spent a lot of the week learning about what animals do to survive the winter, and added a "Hibernation Station" to our dramatic play area. These kiddos are staying warm in their den, thanks to the help of a friend building a nice fire. 

Sorting a gluing pictures onto our "Hibernate-Migrate-Stay Active" poster

Julianne helped kids build a tree out of boxes for our Hibernation Station. 

This coyote let us know that she stays active in the winter. 

We made tea with the Kelley Kettle on Tuesday. 

Hurray for tea!

A favorite circle time activity is "graphics practice."  

We're working on building some muscle memory with writing tools - this week we made circles, always starting at the top, always going counter clockwise. This will help a great deal as children start to practice more and more letter formation.

Lots of opportunities for writing! Mini chalk boards and this magnet board are fun options.

Happy Friday! We enjoyed the balmy warm weather with some black bean brownies cooked over the fire.