Mrs. Dougherty's Class Connection

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend and the beautiful weather we had. Our classroom was nice and cool today! Each week from now on I will be placing a weekly calendar on the blog to let you know what we will be doing all week. Along with any reminders that I have for the week, I will be listing a few of the activities we will be doing throughout the week. Thanks for all the notes regarding extended day/library. If your child will have the same schedule each week, just one note is neccesary.
Here is a look at our week...

Monday
No School

Tuesday
Today we continued with our theme, Meeting and Making New Friends and the letter Mm. We are doing a great job of getting to know each other and getting along with everyone. It is a great idea and help to your child to review our letter of the week at home. During circle time we go over the sound and name of the letter. As a class we play games to recognize pictures that begin with the letter Mm sound as well as pointing out words with the letter Mm.
We are now into the swing of things and the children seem to be following our schedule very nicely.
During free play this week we have ice melting in the sensory tub! The children are using squirt bottles, filled with warm water, to melt the ice. The easel is also open to anyone who would like to paint. I am sure some of your houses are getting filled with some artwork by now :)
For our art project today we had our first recyclable art day! I put various items on the table and the children could create anything they wanted to. I was so happy to see their imagination soar...we have some great artists in here. I would appreciate any donations of art supplies for our recyclable art, such as...paper towel tubes, cardboard, foam, ribbon, pipe cleaners, buttons, etc...
Today was an exciting morning! We got to go to Library Class. Mrs. Conn invites the 4 year old class to attend Library 2xs a week. On Thursday we attend in the afternoon. She has kindly fit us into the only 2 open spots she has, so we are very happy. The class attends for 20 minutes and Mrs. Conn reads some great books to us!
All of your child's work from last week and this week will be coming home this week.
I kept rest towels here over the weekend, since we only used them for 3 days last week and this week was a shortened week too. They will all be coming home on Friday.

Wednesday
Today we will practice printing the letter Mm. We have been working on printing our first names too! Everyone is doing a great job at holding our pencils and crayons the correct way.
For art today we will be making monkey puppets!!

Thursday
Today we will be looking at different words that begin with m and matching pictures to them.
*Library in the afternoon.

Friday
We will be going to the gym in the morning! We will play games and have some free time to play with the balls and hula hoops.
For our art project today we will be making a special project for our grandparents...Grandparent's Day is this Sunday.

September 11th is Nicholas' Birthday!!

Have a great week and please let me know if you have any questions!
Mrs. Dougherty

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend! This will be our first full week of school and we are ready for it! The children seem to be really getting into the swing of our routine.
Last week we were able to accomplish a lot! We played together, worked hard, and did a lot of different activities throughout the day. One of their favorites last week was when we played with the bean bags, they will be sure to come back out soon! We ended letter Mm last week and by the end of each letter your child should be able to name the letter, and tell you the sound. We are working on printing the letters, and this will come with time. This week our theme is "Our Five Senses." Each day we will be working on a different sense. Below you can find out which activities we will be doing on each day. It is going to be a fun week! Our letter of the week is Ss.
For the last two weeks many forms have been coming home. Here are just a few reminders of the ones that I need back:
*Purple Information Sheet
*Questionnaires that were given out at the preschool open house.
*Milk Order Forms
*Picture forms are due back on Wednesday.

Here is a look at our week ahead...

Monday
Sense of Sight
During Free Play today, in our sensory tub, there will be colorful blocks for the children to use their sense of sight to see and their sense of touch to play with.
For our art project today we will be making an American Flag and an American Eagle in rememberance for September 11th. These will be displayed in the hallway for a week or two, and then will be sent home.
I will be introducing Letter S today and we will start working on our letter Ss packets.
In the morning we will be playing "What's Missing?" by using our sense of sight to find out what is missing from a group of objects. In the afternoon we will use our sense of sight to go on a nature walk and then report back what we saw. This week we will also be learning a 5 senses song.

Tuesday
Sense of Hearing
Today in the sensory tub will be a variety of instruments the children can play. For art we will be doing our recyclable art.
We will work on our letter Ss picture cards today. In the morning we will be going to Library class.
In the morning we will go on an instrument parade and listen to the different sounds each instrument makes. In the afternoon I will make different sounds behind the children and they must guess what the sound is!

Wednesday
Sense of Taste
Individual Picture Day :) We will NOT be painting or doing anything too messy today, so feel free to dress up your child for pictures.
For Art today we will use stamps to decorate the letter S.
We will be working on printing letter Ss today and we will be starting our second Bible Story in Religion. In the morning we will be having a taste test. Each child will close their eyes and either eat a fruit snack or a pretzel and they must tell the class what they think they just ate and use descriptive words to explain the taste.. In the afternoon we will be tasting different foods and sorting them by salty and sweet.

Thursday
Sense of Touch
In our sensory tub will be different objects, all with different textures for the children to play with.
For Art we will be doing recyclable art.
We will be playing different games at the carpet to help learn the letter Ss sound and name, as well recognizing words and pictures that begin with S. In the morning we will be making "My Textures." In the afternoon we will be going to the Library and also play a feeling game, where each student has to place their hand in a bag and guess the object using their sense of touch before taking it out of the bag.

Friday
Class Picture Day :)
We will be going to the gym today in the morning. I will play some games with the children and do a few exercises so that we are not too sweaty for our class picture. Once again, we will not be painting today to keep our outfits nice and clean.
Sense of Smell
We will be finishing up letter Ss today and making a Sun puppet during art time. During the morning we will discuss good vs yucky smells and graph our answers. In the afternoon we will be doing an air freshner experiment and we will see how long it takes to smell different air freshners. In the morning and the afternoon we will be having a Popcorn Party! This will help culminate our 5 senses unit. We will use our 5 senses as we see the popcorn kernels, listen to them pop in my air popper, smell the popcorn as it starts to pop, feel the popcorn when it is all ready, and the best part will be tasting the popcorn! You can ask your child how they used all 5 senses!!

It will be a busy and fun time this week!
If you have any questions, please let me know!
~Mrs. Dougherty

After 3 weeks of Preschool, we have had a lot of fun! Here are a few pictures from our free play time. I hope you enjoy, it seems like they are :)
Preschool Fun!! on PhotoPeach

Last week we had a blast learning about our 5 senses! The children are still pointing out letter Ss words they find, which is always great to see. Picture Day went great too, everyone smiled very nicely and we all looked beautiful! The pictures should arrive in a couple of weeks. This week and next we will be very busy learning all about the letter Aa and apples. Fall time is one of my favorite times of year for teaching. There is so much changing around us, and so many fun activities we can do. In the newsletter I have asked that each child bring in one apple during our apple unit. We will be using these for different activities throughout the week. Here is a look at our week ahead...

Monday
To start out the day today during free play we painted apples on the easel with red, yellow, and green paint. We also did our art project, sticking apple stickers on the letter Aa. In our sensory tub we had water with animals in it. I added some apple scented soap to the water, which made it extra fun! During circle time we learned about the letter A, and started our letter A packet.

Tuesday
Today in the morning we will be working on letter Aa picture cards and also playing "pass the apple," which is just like hot potato but with an apple. In the afternoon, we will be working on our picture cards, as well as coloring an apple basket. We will also be practice printing the letter Aa in applesauce!

Wednesday
We will be making an art project today that will hang in our windows for the rest of our apple unit. In the morning and afternoon we will be having an apple tasting! We will be tasting different apples in the morning and in the afternoon. After tasting 3 different kinds, we will each pick our favorite and graph the results.
**Our first field trip permission slip and information will be coming home today** On Monday, October 24th, we will be taking a field trip to the Center in Palos Hills, to their pumpkin patch! All the neccessary info will be going home on Wednesday, but please feel free to ask any other questions you may have. I am very excited for it, and am hoping for good weather. :)

Thursday
In the morning today we will be going apple picking in the morning. We will search around the room for paper apples and sort the different ones we find by color.
In the afternoon we will be playing the game, "pin the apple on the apple tree!"

Friday
For our art project today we will be making apple prints.
In the morning and afternoon we will be learning different apple songs. I'm sure your child will be singing them for you all week :)
At the end of the 2 weeks, your child will be bringing home an apple packet that will contain all of the apple projects we did during our unit.

Have a great week!
Mrs. Dougherty

We are on our way into the second week of letter Aa and Apples! Last week we had a lot of fun, and I am excited for this week as well. I hope everyone had a nice weekend, Friday afternoon, we attended the Homecoming pep rally and it was a lot of fun! This weekend is Hawktober Fest and our class will be making a poster for it.
*On Friday, everyone is to wear BLUE to celebrate our school receiving the National Blue Ribbon Award!
*I have had many parents volunteer to be a chaperone on our field trip and we are very thankful :) Just a reminder that if you are attending as a chaperone you do have to pay for yourself as well as your child for a total of $23.00. Your fee does include a pumpkin though :)
*Rest Towels went home last Friday to get cleaned, please remember to send one with your child this week.
*During circle time we are all learning our birthdays. A few of us already knew our birthdays, but it will be fun for everyone to know their special day.

Here is a look at some of the activities we will be doing this week...
Monday
Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed! Today we celebrated Johnny Appleseed's Birthday! During free play we made our own pot for a hat, just like Johnny Appleseed wore.
We did some other apple activities that will go home at the end of the week.

Tuesday
Recyclable Art
Library Class in the morning
We will be looking at the different parts of an apple today.

Wednesday
Homemade Applesauce....Yummy! We will be making some homemade applesauce today.
For Art we will be making fingerprint apple trees.
We will also continue to work on our printing and letter Aa.

Thursday
Recyclable Art
We will be discussing our favorite part of our apple unit so far.
Library Class

Friday
Our art project will be apple puppets today!
We will also be guessing how many apple seeds are in different apples and cutting them open to see.

I hope everyone has a great week!
Mrs. Dougherty