Jj is for Jungle

This week we focused on the letter Jj for jungles.  I learned that the word jungle was derived from another language and that it's meaning was an uncultivated piece of dry land.  So, really the lion is the king of the jungle...until the definition of a jungle changed to something that's full of trees and plants.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle

We were very happy to have our guest marine (a preschooler's Dad) come in and talk to the children.  He wasn't able to come in during our letter Pp week for People and their Jobs, but we feel very grateful that he was able to fit us in to his busy schedule.  I posted pictures of him in that blog http://frenchvalleykpreppreschool.blogspot.com/2013/03/pp-is-for-people-and-their-job.html as well as right here:

He's showing us where he's been all over the world.

He showed us some of the things he wears.

He was so sweet to bring the children a t-shirt!  Later, almost all of the children put it on to wear the rest of the day.

He's teaching the children how to salute when there's the American flag (I didn't have one) or when the American Anthem is playing.  (Does anyone have an American flag to donate?)

The plan was to go outside to do some drills, however, it rained on the day he came.  I moved the tables and chairs out of the way and we did the drills inside.

The children are getting ready to do push-ups

It's so cute and funny :)

This is my daughter's push up :).

This week, our center was working with different kinds of rollers and play-doe.  It's very important for children to figure things out on their own.  When they need help - offer guidance, but don't always do it for them.  Sometimes we have to do things for our children when the task is too hard, they are tired and cranky, or when we're in a hurry.  I'm speaking about tasks where there is time to accomplish them and you know your child would be able to do it on his/her own.  I didn't show them how to use the roller, but they were able to figure it out.  When they needed guidance, I gave tips, but said that this is one way to do it.  Children discovered using the end of the roller, the container, and the lid were great ways to play, as well.  Next time, I'll bring out my play-doe toys and cutters.

For art, we finished our decorative kites by adding bows to the tails.  Here are our pictures:

Sometimes when there is 15 minutes left before we go home and we might play with something together:

The children stacked the large blocks first and then the soft blocks on top to see how tall they could make it.

Our weather this week went from cloudy, cold, and rainy to sunny and warm.  Here are photos of the children enjoying the nice weather:

On Friday in both classes, we focused on Language Arts. I asked the more advanced students to work separately on a word building activity.  The other students listened to words I spoke and raised their hand if it contained different sounds.  I also broke words down slowly by sounds and asked that they tell me what the word was.  When I was finished with my groups, I had all of the children work on the different Language Arts and Numbers/Math games.  They were able to choose what to play with.

The week coming up - we'll talk about the letter Xx and Xylophone (music).  We'll be decorating a maraca, which ties into the week after that - Cinco De Mayo.