Bright-Eyed Bears Down to Business!

Routines are being memorized, new jobs are easily and eagerly being accomplished, transitions are being made with little or no fuss, and the enthusiasm is contagious!  The Bright-Eyed Bears have been "beary" bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at getting this "school stuff" down! Now, it's your turn for school! :) Mrs. Cummings and I are really excited about seeing all of you and talking with you tomorrow evening (Thursday) at Back To School Night.  We will have a lot of information for you, and we will walk you through your child's day.  There will be the opportunity to sign up for your Parent/Teacher Conference (on October 6), to volunteer your time in the classroom and during Exploring on Fridays, and so much more.  I will explain our curriculum and classroom philosophy, and you will have the awesome treat of seeing some of your child's fabulous artwork.  It's going to be a night to remember!  See you at 7pm in the Theatre.

The children learned the Shorecrest Motto: At Shorecrest Preparatory School we respect ourselves, each other, and the environment.  Everyday, we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing a song about the "Flag of America", and recite the motto.  This week we talked about how we can show respect to ourselves, each other, and our school environment.  Here is what the children had to say:
*We listen to our teachers.
*We share everything!
*We listen to each other.
*We take care of our class pets.
*We hug and take care of Chocolate, our Bright-Eyed Bear friend.
*We never hit.
*We are careful with our books.
*We stop, look, and listen so we can get directions.

I say they are BRILLIANT ideas from these BRIGHT-EYED BEARS!!!

Each child agreed that these rules are important, and so they all "signed" a copy of the Shorecrest Motto with their thumbprint, and it is now hanging in our classroom.

This week we also:
*practiced a fire drill
*practiced making alphabet letters with roll-a-dough.  The children rolled "snakes" out of play dough and made lines and curves to form letters on letter mats.
*measured a partner lying down on the carpet using "Big Line" then  "Little Line" to see how many of each was needed to measure their height.
*practiced using the wooden Handwriting Without Tears shapes to form the letters of our names, then printed our names from left to right and top to bottom.
*learned a lot about our tadpole and hermit crab friends.

AND SO MUCH MORE!!! Enjoy the pictures in the gallery.  Just click on a thumbnail to make the picture bigger and to scroll through all of them.

Have a great day!

Busy Busy Bright-Eyed Bears!

We would like to think that we are opening the door to a whole new world of discovery with Junior Kindergarten.  Your children have walked right through and are exploring, discovering, and learning everyday.  They are AMAZING!  It is so exciting to see connections they make between home and school, the classroom and the playground, and what they learn and already know.  As we worked with the HWT wood pieces last week for the first time, the children experimented with all sorts of ways to use them.  Some made designs with the different shapes, fanning them out over the carpet.  Others used the pieces to spell their names; and still others used them along with our classroom blocks to build elaborate structures.  This week, the children will all have the chance to compose their names out of the wooden pieces.  The pieces are for forming letters in uppercase.  We have a print rich environment to work in in our classroom, where familiar objects are labeled with their corresponding word spelled in uppercase letters.  The children are really good at recognizing their names around the classroom and can even recognize some of their friends names too!  Speaking of friends, the class has really taken to our mascot friend, Chocolate!  Chocolate is a Bright-Eyed Brown Bear who lives in a little tent in our Reading Nook.  The children enjoy "reading" stories to him, and visiting him for hugs.  They have also really taken to Mat Man, our HWT friend made out of the wood pieces.  We are reading books in class about Mat Man to learn about shapes, community helpers, opposites, and rhyming.  The children really enjoyed the book about shapes where Mat Man's body was made out of all different shapes from around our world. They then had the opportunity to make Mat Man using those shapes.  So much fun!

Aside from our human and mat friends we have wiggly and crusty ones as well!  I'm sure you have heard about our hermit crab pets Cool Dude, Sebastian, and Shelly.  It was quite exciting to bring them out of their cage and let them roam about in a circle made of our classroom friends.  The children are learning about how to care for them, what they like to eat, and how to safely pick them up. We have tadpoles too!  The children have enjoyed observing these wiggly, jiggly, friends in their special tank.  We took a walk to the bridge on campus that the tadpoles were born under, read a book about where they come from, and we will learn more with the aid of video and observation this week.  The children will be given their own science journals to record the information with pictures and drawings! :)
There has already been so much to learn and there is still so much to come!  We are having wonderful days together.  I hope your child is enjoying everything even just half as much as Mrs. Cummings and I are! The Bright-Eyed Bears are a blast!!!

Already Learning So Much!

What a busy week we have had already!  The children have been settling into routines, making new friends, learning classroom rules, and playing to learn, of course!  On Monday the children had their first PE class of the school year.  They went to the Mini-Gym for active fun in learning.  Having met Coach Every, Coach Pope, and Coach Cameron last week for a "name game", the class was ready and willing to spend time with them and really enjoyed their PE class.  Mrs. McIvor visited for the first Music class of the year, yesterday.  The children laughed over and enjoyed "The Chicken Dance", meeting Martin, Mrs. McIvor's guitar, and partner dancing.  In the Bright-Eyed Bear classroom we are learning about each other and making new friends.  We've read lots of books about school and friendship such as; Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes, How Joe The Bear and Sam The Mouse Got Together, by Beatrice Shenk De Regnier, and many more.  The children really enjoyed visiting Mr. Murphy in his office and Nurse Confident in the clinic.  We also took a walk around the Lower Division.  They were warmly received by all and learned a few things about our Head Master like the fact that he really likes puffins, and can play a fun game of Simon Says! Mr. Murphy is excited to visit our classroom soon to read to us about bears.

Today, we began working with "Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve, and Little Curve" from the Handwriting Without Tears program.  Those are the wooden shapes (tools) that will teach the children how to form the uppercase letters of the alphabet. Ask your child about the fun songs and actions that we learned with these cool wooden tools.  We even built a "school buddy" with those shapes.  His name is Mat Man!

A Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first full day!

The Bright-Eyed Bears began their school year just as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I had hoped they would!  Although there were some nervous smiles, they were smiles none-the-less. We had no tears! I think the children were as ready for school as Mrs. Cummings and myself.  They were brilliant at picking up our routine of stopping, looking, and listening when the lights go out.  I think everyone made at least one new friend, and old friends enjoyed their time together again.  I saw cooperation, exploration, and lots of delighted discoveries going on in our classroom.  It's going to be a great year!

Next week the children will begin "signing in".  They will all have a laminated picture of themselves to place in the "Bear Hug" of a cutout bear in our Morning Meeting area.  Each day we will notice whose picture is missing (if there are any, which we hope there will not be) and send that friend a big bear hug from the entire class.  We are all about building relationships!

The children will also begin with classroom  jobs next week.  I think they will really enjoy taking part in keeping our classroom running well and the happy, healthy place we all want it to be.

Please enjoy the pictures and slideshows, movies and stories that I will post every Wednesday and Sunday.  I'm looking forward to this beary happy year!

A Bright And Beautiful Morning!

Well, it may have been raining outside, but it was bright and beautiful inside our classroom today!  The children made the room come alive!  I cannot tell you how excited and thrilled Mrs. Cummings and I were to see our little Bright-Eyed Bears today.  I hope everyone enjoyed the morning as much as we did.  It was so nice to watch relationships forming, and to talk with all of you.  I can tell from the positive energy today that it is going to be a fabulous year filled with fun, friendship, and lots of exploration and discovery through play, play, and more play!  We can hardly wait for tomorrow! :)