PRESCHOOL
UPDATES AND INFORMATION 

                    Boonton High School                                                     John Hill School                                                            School Street School

What a fun week we have had in Mrs. Burke’s class! We began our ‘Main Street’ theme, where we turn our centers into popular spots on Main Street! Our Dramatic Play center is a pizzeria, Literacy Center is the post office, Blocks is a construction site, and our Science center is a dentist's office. We have many new roles in our centers, such as server/customer/chef/hostess, postal worker/passport maker, supervisor/carpenter/electrician/plumber, and dentist/patient/x-ray technician. All of these centers required a variety of boxes; take-out boxes, boxes for construction materials, and package boxes for the post office, so we took some time to discover exactly what we can make out of all of these simple, cardboard boxes. We each got our own box, read Not A Box, and came up with some great ideas! We are using boxes, and a lot of other recyclable materials, for our construction site. We also painted a mailbox for our post office, and are creating custom take-out boxes for our pizzeria! (Also, we got so many boxes because of some new super cool things we have in our classroom, like natural ‘tree’ blocks and a big light-table, check it out!) 

Our class worked together to build our new light table. We took turns with the screwdriver and practiced waiting patiently for a turn. The class enjoyed exploring the new manipulatives. We used the primary colored shapes and learned about secondary colors. 

The weather was quite rainy and cold this week. We completed indoor Gross Motor skills in our classroom. Students played bowling, an indoor version of soccer, and caught pom-poms with cones. We are looking forward to some warmer weather to get back outside.

Graphics Practice: The students were introduced to drawing ladders. They used the private speech, “line down, line down, across, across, across” for each object. Afterward, they identified that the ladders were similar to the letter H. They continued to review drawing the letter S for snake, fishing hooks, and apples on the line. 

Math: The class was introduced to the hexagon shape during Venger Drawing. Some objects that the students created with this shape were a flower, the sun, a window in a boat, and a clock.

Science: We received a light table in the science center! The students are pretending to be x-ray technicians as they examine various animal x-rays using the light table. It is perfect for our pets and vets theme! 

We had such a fun week in preschool. Our Dramatic Play Center is now a Pet Store, where we will be building math, literacy, and social skills during our pretend play! During play students are taking turns, sharing, waiting, controlling their impulses, and expressing their feelings through gestures, actions and words. The children are enjoying taking care of their pretend pets!

In Math, we practiced matching quantities with their numerals- the children had to count the animals and circle the corresponding numeral. In Literacy, we enjoyed reading the stories “Pet Store,” “Lulu Gets a Cat,” and “The Night Before the New Pet.”

For our gross motor play, the children enjoyed riding tricycles, playing red light- green light, walking on the balance beam, and playing with instruments.