Rumney Preschool
Ms. Murray's Classes
Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
Welcome back from winter school vacation! It was awesome to see your kids again — they certainly missed seeing each other and playing together at school. I hope you all had a nice school break and hopefully didn’t lose power for too long. On Tuesday, the kids enjoyed the tent and tunnels in the morning. They loved crawling through the tunnels at the same time to meet up in the tent together. In both classes, we enjoyed the book Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner. It discusses animals who live under the snow in the winter and how people sometimes glide right over them! Something we discuss quite a bit in the Wed/Thurs class is the illustrators decisions while drawing the pictures. They have learned that when the illustrator draws something really small, it sometimes means that the object is far away, and the opposite when something is big, it usually means that’s the focus of the page. They are enjoying learning about authors and illustrators. Another teacher in our building gave me some packing materials that were hard pieces of cardboard that the kids used as ramps for the cars. They were so creative! Some used them as ramps and some used them as tunnels. They had a lot of fun playing with them. The kids know that when the curtains are down, that shelf is “closed” but have been really respectful by asking an adult to take out certain things they are interested in that are behind the curtains. Ask Your Child: Mon/Tues: Did you play in the tent and tunnels in the classroom? Did you have to crawl to get through? Wed/Thurs: Did you play in the mud outside? What did you make? How did you dig up and move the mud? Have a great weekend, Deanna
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Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
We had a great week of playing inside and outside. Sledding season has begun! Despite the fact that this week, there was barely any snow, they still enjoyed sledding fast down the hill. This was the first time for some friends sledding at school, and we talked about the rule we have of sledding down the hill and walking up the stairs. On Tuesday, we had a pretty small crew! We spent the entire outside time being snow plowers with shovels. They enjoyed “plowing the roads” — they love to do hard work! In both classes, they broke gold coins and gems out of ice cubes. They had so much fun retrieving the treasure! They continued to ask for warm water and connected that warm water melts ice faster than cold water. We will be wrapping up our pirate unit next week. We had a lot of fun being pirates and learning with pirate-themed things. Next on the docket is dinosaurs, per the request of the Wed/Thurs class. Ask Your Child: How do you use sleds outside? (Down the hill, up the stairs). Why should you go up the stairs? Have a great weekend, Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
Another fun filled week in the books. Both classes have been building upon their friendships and it’s wonderful to watch. In both classes this week we did a sand in a bottle project. There were different colored sand and they had small scoopers and funnels with a small bottle. They added the sand to the bottles by scooping it into the funnels. They enjoyed layering the different colors to make fun patterns. Once they were done, I hot glued the caps on so the sand would stay inside. Some friends decided to shake up their sand and mix all the colors together and some decided to keep them layered, both looked great! On Tuesday, we played a nuts and bolts game. The nuts and bolts are quite large and they spin down on their own — they loved them! They had so much fun putting them on and watching them spin down, then turning them over and watching them fall. Also on Tuesday, we did a fun porthole art project. There were cut outs of fish, sharks, and jelly fish. They put them on a sticky porthole and filled it around with blue tissue paper. The Wed/Thurs class will do this next week. On Wednesday, we had so much fun out in the rain. Lots of kids played hide and seek with Haley and other friends collected water and made some mud pies. On our way inside, we had to stop and jump in the puddles! They got soaked but had the best time. On Thursday, we re read the book called The Three Little Fish and The Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist. After, we talked about the three little pigs story. They made noticed a big similarity: “not by the skin on my finny fin fin” is the same as “not by the hair on my chinny chin chin”. They also noted how the animals in the story are different but the story is still the same. There’s some higher level thinking happening! Ask Your Child: What did you do on the playground? Did you use anything from the shed? Have a great weekend, Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
I hope you all had a nice fall break, it was great to have a fun week back at school! We have started our pirates unit and they are having so much fun! They have enjoyed playing in the ship and rocking boat while dressing up as pirates. We played pirate bingo this week and they learned some of these new terms: anchor and looking glass. In the Monday/Tuesday class, we had a nice time playing board games. This week we played a tea party game, a Stone Soup memory game, and a snake color matching game called Hiss. They loved matching the colors on the snake matching game! On Tuesday, we played some drums at the end of our day. They had a really fun time playing them and then following along to my beat by going fast, slow, and one hand at a time. The sensory table has sand in it now with treasure, gems, treasure chests, scoopers, and funnels/sifters. They have really loved the funnels and sifters. On Thursday, we read a book called The Three Little Fish and The Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist. They immediately picked up on the connection the the three little pigs story. Throughout the book, they noticed similar themes. Next week, we will read a three little pigs story and discuss the similarities and differences. Ask Your Child: What was your favorite thing about being a pirate? Have a nice weekend, Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
We had a fun cold and snowy week. Wow, did they have so much fun in the snow! In both classes, we enjoyed reading a story called Crash! Boom! A Math Tale by Robie Harris. The story is about a child elephant building with blocks wanting to build it as tall as the elephant. While reading, each child had a block and got to stack it on the tower in the middle. It was so fun to watch them stack it any way they want, and then the next friend put theirs on. The Wed/Thurs class enjoyed stacking them precariously and cheering each other on. On Tuesday, the kids collected pinecones outside in a dump truck and brought them inside. After lunch, we picked some paint colors, and rolled the pinecones through the paint. They loved it! In the Wednesday/Thursday class, we have been learning about tally marks. They have learned that once it gets to five, the line goes across. This week we did a tally vote asking “Do you like snow?” We went around the school and asked that question to different grown ups we bumped into and marked it on a tally mark sheet. On Thursday, we voted on what we want out dramatic play to look like next. The vote was between pirates and dinosaurs. Pirates won by 1 vote! After fall break, the classroom will be pirate-themed. We learned the steps of putting on our outdoor gear this week. Now with the snow here, it takes us a little bit longer to put everything on. Time for gear is built into our day. I was reading about winter/snow gear in an early childhood classroom the other day and came across a lovely bit of information I want to share: "Teaching children to get ready for outdoor time is part of the curriculum and therefore is NOT a waste of time. Skills learned in getting dressed:
Ask Your Child: Mon/Tues: Did you paint with pinecones this week? What colors did you use? Wed/Thurs: Did you paint on snow this week? What was that like? What colors did you use? Have a great weekend, Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
I really missed those Monday/Tuesday kiddos! I look forward to seeing them next week. On Wednesday, the kids enjoyed wearing their costumes and having their costume parade! It’s a tried and true tradition at Rumney and it was great to see older kids and hear them say that they remembered when they were in the preschool costume parade. We had a fun time outside this week on the playground and at the rock garden. Many friends loved climbing on the climbing tree. This is building their stamina! We worked on the -at family this week as we talked about rhymes. The words we used were: cat, rat, bat, hat. They loved making a haunted house with -at family rhyming words with Crystal. Ask Your Child: Did you like wearing your costume at school? Why or why not? Have a great weekend, Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
Another fun fall week in the books. It’s great to watch your children learn and grow. Please note that dress up day for the Wed/Thurs class has CHANGED to next Thursday, October 27th. On Monday of this week, the kiddos enjoyed making witch potions! They used vinegar and baking soda and loved mixing different colored vinegar to make mixed up potions. It was so exciting for them to have the potions explode over the top of the little cauldrons. The Wed/Thurs class will do this next week. On Tuesday, they enjoyed playing animal bingo. We played so many rounds, I can’t remember how many. They made different animal noises and learned some animals they may not have known about such as an ibex or opossum. On Wednesday, we also played animal bingo and shape/color bingo. Crystal had one group and I had another. After we finished playing, we switched so they could play both! On Wednesday and Thursday we learned about wind! I have been eagerly waiting for wind and air to come up as an interest for them. On Wednesday, they made some ghosts and a few friends went over to the air purifier and watched them fly. I encouraged them to bring their ghosts over to a small fan and we watched what would happen. On Thursday, they did more exploring with wind and air using a make-shift wind tube that I put over a small fan. They used scarves, paper, coffee filters, and tissues to see what happened. They really loved this! Ask Your Child: Mon/Tues: What happened with the witches cauldrons? Did you make potions that exploded? How did you make them? Wed/Thurs: What were the fans for in the classroom? What did you do with them? What floated? A fun event happening tonight is Moonlight Magic in Montpelier. There will be fun performances and other things happening around town. Have a wonderful weekend! Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
We had a fantastic week! Both classes are making strong connections — it is wonderful to see. Both classes have enjoyed playing with the new spooky sensory table. There is dyed rice and dyed bowtie pasta (that look like bats) with little pumpkins and witch cauldrons to fill up with. I want to make you all aware that I have gone back and forth for years about using food during sensory play knowing the level of food insecurity in our world. With preschool aged children, some tend to be very oral and I would prefer them putting food in their mouths compared to plastic or something unsafe such as water beads. Please reach out to me if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions — I am open to conversation! They have done more “work” on the playground this week. They love the shovels and giant digger. They have been scooping and dumping throughout their entire outdoor time. In both classes, we played a game called “How Many Ghosts are Hiding?” I drew ghost faces small white beans. I put 5 in a small cup and they shook them up and poured them out. The face down ghosts are “sleeping” and the face up ghosts are “awake”. They had to count the sleeping ghosts and then the awake ghosts. I have sent home a ghost game for everyone, including an extra set for any siblings. They will have to teach you all how to play! On Wednesday, there was a fire drill. Preschool is always given notice ahead of time due to prepare and practice. I let them know about the loud noise that would happen and we walked outside to the parking lot before the alarm went off. They were fantastic! They knew that this was an important time to stay really quiet to hear teacher directions and so we can hear any information from Mrs. May. On Thursday we enjoyed playing with all of the leaves at the rock garden. They buried each other in them and could not stop laughing! They also enjoyed climbing the tree at the rock garden. Ask Your Child: What was in the sensory table this week? What did it feel like? Have a great weekend! Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
The weather is starting to turn and they are loving it! We had a great time inside and outside this week in both classes. On Monday, there was masking tape on the tables and they had to use small pretend acorns to line them up on the tape. This is a great fine motor activity to help strengthen their hand muscles. This is a fun activity that can be done at home as well — you could even gather real acorns! On Monday, the kiddos enjoyed jumping off of different objects on the playground. They tested jumping off of the sandbox and the rocks. It was great to see them try new things that could be a little scary. The fall and spooky books have been put out on our book shelves. Both classes have enjoyed the change in books and it’s great to see which books pique their interests. A big hit on Thursday was The Spooky Box by Mark Gonyea. It is a fun story about guessing what could be inside a spooky box (Is it rats? Is it bats?). The best part of the story is that we never find out what is actually inside! It leads to great imaginative thinking. I met Mark Gonyea at a comic con a while back where I bought that book and another one of his called Ten Little Monsters. He’s a talented author and kind person! I discovered a new app called Novel Effect. It is a read aloud app where you find the book you are going to read and it listens to you read it to pair fun sound scapes that match the story. We tried it out on Monday with Brown Bear, Brown Bear and it was so fun to hear the different animal sounds while reading the story. On Wednesday and Thursday, we read Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson — I will read this book with the Monday/Tuesday class next week! The Wed/Thurs class did some directed drawings of the witches hat and bow from the story. We love seeing their interpretations of what those objects look like! We will hang them up around the classroom next week. Ask Your Child: What is your favorite part of the day? Why? Have a wonderful long weekend! Deanna Hi Preschool Families! Announcements:
Another fun week in the books. It was great to watch them grow and learn together. On Monday and Tuesday, we are watching their friendships form! They are enjoying spending time together and learning what their friends like to do that is the same. They like to make connections! Both classes enjoyed “doing work” on the playground this week with shovels. The Monday/Tuesday class used it to scoop up mulch and make piles around the playground and the Wednesday/Thursday class worked on scooping out dirt out of the sandbox. Both classes continued to enjoy taking pictures this week with the instant camera. On Thursday, we spent some time out in the hallway putting up our display of learning on the bulletin board. Please check it out next time you drop off your child! There are fantastic quotes from them on what they like to take pictures of and why they take pictures. Having the children put up the items on the bulletin board, oppose to an adult putting it up, gives the kids more autonomy on their learning. I watched them step back and admire what they just did with smiles on their faces. In both classes, we discussed our daily schedule. Some friends made schedules to take home and some will do them next week (or not! It is still the beginning of the year and I balance the “have tos” and “want tos” while they play). Hopefully they will be able to tell you what they do during the day. Ask Your Child: Mon/Tues: What does your school day look like? After morning meeting, what do you do? (wash hands and eat snack). After lunch, what do you do? (play in the classroom) Have a wonderful weekend! Deanna |
Welcome!Hello and welcome to the Rumney Preschool blog for Ms. Murray's classes! You will find information about what we do every day in preschool along with important announcements. *Photos on the Blog*
If you would like family members to see pictures of your child playing at school, please email me and I will add them to my weekly email list. These photos are not permitted to be posted on social media. Thank you! Archives
June 2023
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