Trains!

Happy Monday! We had a great day at school today! We are going to be learning about trains during the first two days of school. Then we will switch our focus to boats.

In the afternoon session, we welcomed a new friend to our classroom!  Welcome, Taylor!

During our circle time, we read the book Freight Train. We learned some great vocabulary words, such as engine and caboose. After reading our book, we sang a silly rhyming song. As we sang the song, we did a flannel board story. The children had to find the correct color of engine, car, or caboose to match the colors in our song. At the end of circle time, each child was given a picture. They had to match their colored picture to the corresponding colored car on a train, which was hanging on our wall.

We started some new centers today! Each child went to a teacher-directed center.

The children at the first center made name trains. First the children had to trace the letters in their name with a black marker. Then they had to put the letters of their name in the correct order. To finish, the children pasted their letters onto a piece of paper and add two wheels to the engine, caboose, and each car.

The children at the second center got to play a train game. The children reviewed their colors and shapes while playing this fun game. Some of the children even got to play this game on our SMART Board!

The children in the AM session also had the opportunity to complete two independent activities. The PM session will also be offered this opportunity this week. One of the activities was putting together an alphabet train puzzle. The children got to work as a team putting the puzzle together. The other activity was a block game. The children were given different train engines with dots on them. They had to first count out how many dots were on each train. They then had to add that many cars (blocks) behind the train engine.

Playtime Fun!

Today the children got to use their special snack mats that they made the first week of school. Miss McCabe told them the number of cracker that they could take. They had to use tongs to count out the correct number from the bowl and place each cracker on the corresponding circle. This helps reinforce one-to-one correspondence and also fine motor skills.

After snack we sang the song "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush." Miss McCabe modeled the different strokes for each part of the song on the SMART Board. The children used dry erase boards to make each of the different strokes during each part of the song. These strokes are great for practicing the types of strokes your child will need to make when learning to write! Please check out the song and strokes in the "Here's the Scoop" newsletter that came home today!  See if your child can show you how he/she can make each of the strokes at home!

 Have a great evening! :)