The Best Part of Me

There is a lot of school information going home today in your child's mailbox. Please check your child's mailbox at pickup. Thanks!

Thursday is Valentine's Day. We want to remind everyone that we do not do celebrations at AFC, therefore we will not be handing out cards or celebrating Valentines in any way. The children do a great job loving each other everyday! Thank you for understanding! Please enjoy the blog!

Good afternoon and welcome back from the weekend! The students came in today full of energy and excited to see their teachers and friends. To start the morning, we shared what we did over the weekend. There were several sleepovers at grandparents' houses, movie watching, and playing with siblings. We had a few more friends bring in donations for our "We can share" drive. We will be collecting donation throughout this week.

The students made choices that consisted of building, puzzle making, and creating letters out of blocks and light table materials. Some students went into the gym and exercised and played with Dogwood friends. Other played a letter game and a counting button game in the classroom. Later on, the students made drawings and designs on a big piece of paper brought in by one of our students. We laid the paper out across the floor and it almost ran the length of the classroom! The students enjoyed working on this art piece. We read a book called The Best Part of Me by Wendy Ewald. This book consists of poems written by children about their favorite parts of their bodies. The students wrote about their eyes, legs, feet, hands, back and hair and gave the reasons why they love this body part. After reading, each student shared their favorite body part and why. Ask your child about their favorite body part! We enjoyed a yummy lunch consisting of chicken fingers, fruit and a vegetable.

  

 

 


Have a great Monday!

Fun Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! We have done a lot of artwork today. We began our morning by designing at the art table, building and designing with loose parts and completing puzzles. The students are becoming better at taking on the puzzle challenges and are very proud of themselves when they complete a puzzle.

 

We adventured down to the collaboratory and the kids made cars and paths. Others exercised with bikes in the gym. We returned to the classroom and had several painting choices for the students. One choice was experimenting with color mixing and another choice was coloring with a variety of materials. Other students used paint dotters and created numbers with the dots! We read a few books, did yoga and some dancing before our pizza lunch. Have a great weekend!

Happy Thursday!

Good afternoon everyone! We began our morning by performing our morning routines and talking about our "We can share" drive that we are supporting for the Sycamore class! Some students brought in a bunch of items, such as old hats, coats, gloves, and stuffed animals. Other items included baby wipes and canned vegetables. WAY TO GO, BIRCH! Please continue to support this wonderful cause! The students seem very excited about this project! Ask your child about our "we can share" drive!

  

 

 To continue the morning, the students played a few games this morning, such as Uno and card counting games. Other friends created books with stencils and designs out of the light table shapes. We adventured down to the gym and played and exercised with some Dogwood friends! Another group spent some time in the tinker room. We later read a book and did a letter hunt for the letter A in the story. After reading, the students each took their own book and searched for the letter A in the texts. This was a great challenge and they were motivated to hunt for the letter A! Way to go, friends! Have a great rest of your day!

Obstacles and paths

Build, build, build...we love to BUILD! That's what we have been doing all day! Building with blocks, legos, puzzles, loose parts, obstacle course pieces and collaboratory blocks. We began our morning routine by starting out with a meeting and greeting one another. To begin the morning, some students were interested in building a spider Minecraft out of legos. They did some research on the iPad and used the picture as an inspiration while building. Other friends played an "opposite" card game while others built with loose parts.

 

 

Later in the morning, a group met with some Willow friends in the collaboratory. Here, they decided to build a path throughout the room. Back in the hallway, some friends exercised on an obstacle course. We continued our day by playing with dominos and drawing pictures while listening to some jazz music. Other students completed one 100 piece puzzle and another 25 piece puzzle! They worked together to finish both puzzles and were very proud of themselves. Way to go, Birch!

Hopefully we will get another chance to go outside this week. Rain, rain, go away! Come again another non-school day!

Self portraits and designing

Please note that Ambrose does not celebrate Valentine's Day at school.

Hello everyone! The students have been very busy today! We began our morning by sharing what we ate for breakfast and played a few greeting games. The students made choices in the classroom and were very busy working on counting objects and identifying numbers. A group of students enjoyed playing an Uno game with Ms. Gayle while others played "teacher and student" with the 100's chart. Some of our students who are preparing for kindergarten were the teachers and helped some of the younger students identify particular numbers. At the art center, students practiced looking a different designed tiles and drew their color combinations.

 

       

 

A little later on, a group of students played in the collaboratory with Ms. TC. Maple room and Spruce room joined in on their play! They experimented with the magnetic ball wall and made a variety of tracks out of the tubes. Back in the classroom, the students talked about self portraits. They discussed the differences in their skin colors and eyes and talked about other facial features. The students carried this discussion over to the art center and were given a chance to make a self portrait. They used the mirrors to study their own facial features and noticed their eyelashes, eyebrows, ears, and two holes for their noses! Ask your child to show his or her self portrait to you today! We ended our morning by playing a game of hot potato and read a book that had hidden numbers within the illustrations. The students were up to the challenge and determined to find those sneaky numbers! Stay tuned for more Birch fun!

Thank you, Mother Nature!

What a beautiful Monday is has been! The students came into the classroom really ready to seize this wonderful day! We began our morning by talking about some of the activities we did over the weekend. The students practiced their book making and referred to books while designing their covers and drawing their illustrations. Some students practiced weaving while others played a "button game." Each player took a turn rolling the dice and collecting a certain number of buttons. This was a great counting exercise and the students did a great job at helping one another count their buttons! Other friends played a shape bingo game with Ms. Gayle. 

After playing in the classroom, we decided to take a walk around our lovely neighborhood! We talked about how lucky we are to have this opportunity to go outside and enjoy the weather. While on our walk, we thanked Mother Nature for this day and talked about the things we observed in nature. We saw a lot of birds collecting food for their breakfast and talked about how mother birds bring the worms back to their babies and feed them. We saw a bunch of gumballs and pinecones and lots of neighborhood friends taking their dogs on a walk! Our class also practiced our rhyming skills and counting. We returned back to school and played out on the playscape with our Maple friends. To end our morning, some friends worked with shapes at the light table and created neat designs! Other friends built with loose parts and read their books in our reading area.

We hope you get a chance to step outside and enjoy this beautiful day Mother Nature has given us!

 

 

 

Happy Friday!

Good afternoon! What a crazy few days Mother Nature has thrown at us! I hope you had a nice few days with your child. The students were super excited to be back at school and see their friends and teachers! They were very eager to share what they did on their two days off. We had some students baking banana bread, watching movies, eating waffles, playing with their siblings, and reading books!

We began our morning by playing with letters and numbers on the projector and practiced writing these letters and numbers. Other students began to design with loose parts on our polka-dot carpet. They worked together to fill up all of the black polka-dots. Some students were calling their design a forest and an army. As the morning continued, we exercised in the gym and built a train track in the collaboratory. We returned to the classroom and played a memory and others built with loose parts. Ms. Gayle taught the students how to play dominoes while other students drew self portraits.The kids were very excited for pizza day and enjoyed yummy pepperoni pizza, green beans and fruit. Have a great weekend!