Hi Parents! Just a reminder, be sure to check the Ray website or CPS website in the upcoming week to get updates about the teacher strike. An e-mail from a pre-k parent will be coming out if you shared your e-mail and contact information on the list that was in the hall. Some parents are planning play dates in case there is a strike. Also do not forget, if you are not in Ray boundaries you will not get into Ray for kindergarten unless you go through the lottery process. Please get on the CPS access and enrollment website to sign up your child. We love seeing our pre-k students year after year, but for this to happen you must go through the lottery process! Our pre-k curriculum is often driven by student interest, and often year after year students are interested in similar things. 3 year old students often experience these themes only on the surface. During the 3 year old year, our goal is to help students function, attend, interact and play with independence. When studying a theme, many 3 year old’s background knowledge is more limited (due to having less years on this plant) and they are only getting simple facts about the topic of study. 4 year old students typically come into a theme with a broader level of background knowledge. This allows me to help them target what else they want to learn about and dive deeper into during the theme. This is one reason we use KWL charts (Know, What to Learn and Learned) with the class. Together we decide what direction we want our learning to go in. With second year students we do more research and encourage students to use the books (with teacher assistance) to find facts and explore them more deeply. We encourage second year students to use more of their own writing (inventive spelling) and also to draw and diagram in more detail. Basically, themes may be similar from year to year, but what students get out of those these is drastically different when they are 3 to when they are 4. Next week, we will continue with our apple study. We will be making apple sauce and tasting apple cider. We will be reading Apple Farmer Annie, How to Make Apple Pie and See the World, by Marjorie Priceman, An Apples Life by Nancy Dickmann, How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro. We will be finishing up our apple age picture and starting apple stamping and creating apple diagrams. We also will begin to start reading books about Pumpkins and Halloween in preparation for our field trip on October 31. Permission slips will be handed out Friday October 7th. Please be sure to remind teachers of any allergies your child may have because we will be doing some tasting next week! Have a wonderful weekend!
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May 2017
AuthorMandi Heiser is a Preschool teacher at William H. Ray Elementary in Hyde Park. Categories |