We read the book Not a Box by Antoinette Portis. The children were given paper with a box on it, and they had to turn it into whatever they wanted. This is one of my favorite activities because it shows each child's creativity.

What did WE do with boxes?

What a fun filled week we've had answering our focus question what can we do with boxes? The children were divided into three groups. Boxes were chosen, ideas were voted on, and the creativity began!

Group 1 Race Car: Emory, Marcelino , Rett

Group 2 House: Easton, Lily, Emilee

Group 3 Airplane: Grace, Milo, Quinn, Georgiana

After two days of constructing they were finally able to play in their own boxes as well as their friends creations.

St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin

Special Visitor

We were so lucky to have Mr. Butler from UPS visit with our class and help us follow up with our focus question, "which jobs involve boxes". Mr. Butler talked with the kids about different boxes, what they can hold, how UPS ships packages, safe driving, and much more. The kids absolutely loved it! Thank you, Mr. Butler!

Q is for QUILT!

This week our class made a quilt together and each child got to design and decorate their own square. On Friday during circle time I put all the kids name in jar and Ms. Diane picked one name out that would get to keep the class quilt. Our LUCKY winner was....

Marcelino

Different Boxes

During one of our circle time this week I shared several difference pictures of boxes. We discussed what they were made out of, what they could be used for, and how different their size, shape, and colors were.

Tooth Fairy

We had a special visitor come to St. James this week. The tooth fairy came and talked with our class about taking care of our teeth and she even sprinkled us with a little a fairy dust to help us remember the things she taught us. Thank you Twinkles & Ms. Jordan.

Candy Hearts Sorting and Graphing

We incorporated math with candy hearts graphing! I gave each child a box of candy hearts and they had to sort, count and graph the colored hearts! Fun and yummy learning moment!

Letter Heart Game

It's review week which means we do not have a letter or number of the week. We spent one of mornings playing a game where the students had to identify the lowercase letter then find the upper case match. I used the whole alphabet and I was very pleased to see how many letters they knew that we haven't covered yet.

Let’s Talk Science with Candy Hearts

Valentine’s Day Fun

Wrapping Up our Exercise Study with….

Field Trips and Guacamole, Smoothies, & Energy Balls

This week we discussed what we can do to take care of our bodies and what our bodies need to move and exercise. We talked about how our bodies are like batteries, and we need to keep them "charged" or full of good things to have the energy to play and learn.

We made energy balls, smoothies, and guacamole. I asked them all to at least try one bite of everything, and if they didn't like it, they didn't have to eat it. I was pleasantly surprised by how many of them enjoyed eating everything.

Our exercise study has started and we now have a class gym!

Do you want to build a snowman?

The students had fun building their name snowman! I gave them snowballs with letters of their name in random order. They had to put them in order correctly and glue them to their paper. Knowledge of letters and words is an important component of literacy. The idea that written words are composed of letters that represent sounds is called the alphabetic principle. Children's understanding of the alphabetic principle is a predictor of future reading success.

Patterns

Guiding children to understand patterns is a foundational skill in mathematics. As they learn to label patterns by having one name stand for something else, they are creating an algebraic representation. Patterns help children know what comes next and to make predictions about things they cannot yet observe. This week we worked on patterns and how we can create them anyway we want as long as they repeat. We used colored cubes to practice and then by then end of the week we were able to create our own.

Torn Paper Snowmen

Tearing paper might not seem like a big workout, but it helps children strengthen their hands and fingers, enhances hand-eye coordination, fosters bilateral coordination, and supports pincer grasp development.

Obstacle Course

Navigating through an obstacle course builds strength and improves body movements. Coach Nicole set up an obstacle course during our PE class and the kids loved it! There are several benefits to utilizing an obstacle courses with preschoolers like motor skills, strength and balance, and coordination.

PreK Christmas Program

This time of year it is easy to get caught up in the rush of the Christmas holiday and lose focus on what is the true meaning of Christmas. I am so blessed to be able to teach our students about Jesus’ birth and talk openly about God at St. James. The children have memorized songs, lines, solos, and moving parts which requires a tremendous amount of focus and commitment. It isn’t easy to perform in front of a large audience especially when it is full of your loved ones. I am very proud of this group and all their hard work.

Santa'sWorkshop

Our Bread Study has come to an end, and we are in full Christmas mode! Santa's Workshop is open and the kids have been cranking out some super cute ornaments to decorate our class tree!

Oh Christmas Tree…

Each child painted their own interpretation of a Christmas tree. I love every one of them, and I can see each personality displayed.

GingerbreadManMath

One of the many reasons I love St. James preschool curriculum is that it allows for children to learn through play. Play is the natural way in which children learn and during play children practice their skills and make sense of new knowledge and experiences. We played this game in the fall with pumpkins so it's only appropriate that we play with gingerbread men now. This is a fun way to practice counting and number recognition. I would have all the children put their heads down and have one child remove a number. They had to then figure out what number was missing and when we did that, we would clap that many times. I was blown away with their sharpness and how quickly they found the missing number. I even tried to trick them by mixing the number line up but they surprised me and figured it out each time.

EgyptianFair

We took a journey back in time and visited an ancient Egyptian Marketplace. The sixth-grade class worked extremely hard in preparation for these presentations, and we so enjoyed learning all about their different lives.

Baking Unit

Our class bakery is up and running! The kids are loving this center!

Taste Testing Bread

I thought it would be fun to taste test different kinds of bread. We tasted brioche, french loaf, italian bread, bagels, focaccia, sour dough, and cinnamon bread. We took a class vote and tallied the results. This was a great teaching moment to help connect quantities with their written number symbols, or numerals. Displaying numerals with representation of their quantities help children associate the amount with the numeral. At the end we found that the italian bread (and butter) won class favorite and bagels least favorite!

MakingButter

As we tasted different breads I decided to let the children make butter to try along the breads I brought. We used a mason jar with some heavy cream and a pinch of salt. Then as we read The Sandwich Swap, we shook till we couldn't shake anymore. TADA, butter was made!

It was a fun learning experience.

Flour Sensory Bin

Sorting and Graphing

Sorting & graphing helps children look at numbers in different ways. Starting graphs when they are young helps them count items quickly, organize, compare, and discuss information. We used skittles on a turkey body to make graphing fun!

TxDOT

With help from Dana Moore and the a few other TxDOT employees we were able to answer our focus question; How are roads made? Who builds and repairs roads?

The students had a fun morning learning about the materials used in making/ repairing roads, the importance of buckling up, creating a route from their house to the school, and so much more! HUGE THANK YOU to TxDOT for an awesome morning of learning and fun!

Transportation Day

R is for Railcar

A very big THANK YOU to Hillary Fowler, owner of Alley Cats Coffee, for having us visit her railcar coffee shop. What a fun morning of delicious treats and learning a little bit about the history of the railcar!

Reading with 7th Grade

What a fun learning opportunity for 7th grade as well as PreK. We are pretty lucky to have such awesome lower and middle school students take the time to come and read to our class once a month.

Friday Fun with Table Manipulatives

I placed several different table learning centers out today. All the options had different objectives from graphing and sorting, fine motor, and counting and number recognition. The kids enjoyed these activities and working together this morning!

Pisfor....

PumpinPie

We baked Pumpkin Pie and it was so much fun! We discussed why bakers wear aprons and hats, the difference between wet and dry ingredients, and why we measure the ingredients before we add them in. Ask your child what ingredient they got to help with it and if it was wet or dry.

PaintedPony

We are so fortunate to have fun parents who take time out of their busy day to help enhance our learning experience. Georgiana brought her precious pony, Prince to visit St. James! We loved getting to feed Prince treats and we even got to adorn his beautiful white coat with colored paint! What a awesome day to be a PreK student at St. James.

Police Officer

Thank you so much, Mark Neal, from the Texarkana Police Department for coming out to visit our PreK students! What a fun morning!

Handwriting Without Tears

Part of Pre-Ks curriculum is Handwriting Without Tears and we started working in our Kick Start Kindergarten workbook. We teach in the following developmental order: vertical and horizontal, magic C, big and little curves, and diagonals. We begin with capital letters as a group, seperate from lowercase. Instead of teaching 52 letter symbols with different sizes, positions and confusing starting places, we divide and conquer and start with 26. We begin with F & E and the reason we start with those is because of the simplicity with lines and the amount of steps it takes to make the letter.

Chester Hunt!

This week was all about Chester the Raccoon and The Kissing Hand! We learned it's ok to be scared and nervous, and no matter what, our mom's & dad's love is always with us! The kids have all enjoyed reading your notes, and we even made "Our Class Kissing Hand Book" which includes your notes and hand prints. Now, throughout the year, if they get sad they can go to our library center and find their notes from you. Finally, we had a CHESTER HUNT with both Pre-K classes! And oh my, did the kids love this! We had a special delivery of clues that led us all around campus and when we returned to our class, Chester had left us a special surprise. Please enjoy the video of our hunt today!

Centers, Table Work, Outside Time

Let’s Measure!

HOW MANY BLOCKS....

In preschool we introduce units of measurement that children can really wrap their minds around. Usually those are with regular household objects and toys. In these activities children delve in deeper to understand measurement of length and height with blocks and cubes!

How many blocks will my shoe be?

This was a great activity that involved estimating and measuring. I traced everyone's foot on a piece of paper then asked each child how many blocks they thought it would take to go from the bottom of their shoe to the top and wrote down their answers on the whiteboard. Then we measured and counted our blocks and compared the difference with our predictions.

What a wonderful talent show! We realize that any good performance takes time and a great amount of effort and flexibility. Rest assured that this has not been wasted time, rather time well spent. This is how St. James stands out from all the rest. Some of our curriculum objectives that your child has learned through this experience are: following limits and expectations, traveling skills, gross-motor skills, speaking clearly, following directions, attends and engages, and persists.

They also gain a tremendous amount of self-confidence and self-control. It’s not easy at the age of 4 and 5 to perform in front of an audience. We think these children did a remarkable job.

All of this would not have been possible without help from our parents, Mrs. Denise and her middle school helpers, and Mrs. Wright. A big thank you to all of these special people.

Super Duper Hatchers

We used a candling lamp which is a scientifically designed, purpose made lamp for inspecting the embryo development during incubation. The kids loved peeking inside the eggs and watching the little chicks move around.

Super Duper Hatchers!

The kids have loved having baby chicks in class and it's not everyday you get to see them actually hatch! Sadly, our time with them is coming to an end. We let the chicks out to play one last time and this gave us the perfect opportunity to snap some sweet photos- however not everyone wanted to hold a chick. :)

P.E. Stations

In PE, the students worked on eye tracking, also referred to as visual tracking. This is the ability of one's eyes to “track” from left to right efficiently and “follow” the movement of objects.

Coach Nicole set up three stations, one of which was to work on visual tracking. The students had to roll a ball on the line from left to right and only use their eyes to follow the ball, not move their heads.

drive in movie

What better way to end out box study then with a drive in movie using cardboard box cars! The kids loved this and I think you all did a AWESOME job creating vehicles with you child!

Special Visitor

We were so lucky to have Mr. Butler from UPS visit with our class this week! Mr. Butler talked with the kids about different boxes, what they can hold, how UPS ships packages, safe driving, and much more. The kids absolutely loved it! Thank you, Mr. Butler!

Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?

Our Pre-K classes are going to find out thanks to Cherrie Curtis, CEA - 4H and Youth and Development Leader. She brought us eggs, an incubator, and talked to the children about the different stages in the development of the chicken in the egg. Now, we wait 21 days.........

NOT A BOX

We read the book Not a Box by Antoinette Portis. The children were given paper with a box on it, and they had to turn it into whatever they wanted. This is one of my favorite activities because it shows each child's creativity.

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH BOXES?

What a fun filled week we've had answering our focus question what can we do with boxes? The children were divided into three groups. Boxes were chosen, ideas were voted on, and the creativity began! They created a robot, castle, and a rocket, and had a blast playing in/with their creations!

Groundhog Day!

We made our predictions on whether the groundhog would see it's shadow then we watched a video of the event only to find out....6 more weeks of winter.

Candyhearts experiment & graphing!

For our candy heart experiment we labeled three cups (water, vinegar, soda) and we predicted whether the hearts we dropped in the liquid would sink or float. Once the hearts were in we waited a few minutes before we discussed our observations.

We also incorporated math with candy hearts graphing! I gave each child a box of candy hearts and they had to sort, cout and graph the colored hearts! Fun and yummy learning moment!

Friday Fun Centers

FIELD TRIP TO GRIT FITNESS

We took a field trip to Grit Fitness to find out the answer to our focus question "what jobs are related to exercise?" A huge thank you to Amanda Rogers for setting this up and working us out!

LOVE is in the air!

Guacamole, Smoothies, & Energy Balls

This week we discussed what we can do to take care of our bodies and what our bodies need to move and exercise. We talked about how our bodies are like batteries, and we need to keep them "charged" or full of good things to have the energy to play and learn. If we don't fill up on foods full of nutrients, we won't have the "power" or energy to keep going, like a battery when it loses its charge.

We made energy balls, smoothies, and guacamole. I asked them all to at least try one bite of everything, and if they didn't like it, they didn't have to eat it. I was pleasantly surprised by how many of them enjoyed eating everything.

Letter Review

We are more than half way through the alphabet and we working hard every week learning new letters & numbers. I try to dedicate Friday's to letter & number review in some sort of way. Some days we use dry erase boards others days I let them write in shaving cream or flour. Today I had the class spread out on the floor and they wrote on large pieces of paper with markers (a favorite with these kiddos). I verbally gave instructions and they had to use things around the room for help if they needed it. They all did really well!

The Christmas rush is over and we are starting 2023 with our EXERCISE UNIT! We were so lucky to have the opportunity to hangout with Coach Chase and try out some fun exercises!

christmas program

This time of year it is easy to get caught up in the rush of the Christmas holiday and lose focus on what is the true meaning of Christmas. I am so blessed to be able to teach our students about Jesus’ birth and talk openly about God at St. James. The children have memorized songs, lines, solos, and moving parts which requires a tremendous amount of focus and commitment. It isn’t easy to perform in front of a large audience especially when it is full of your loved ones. I am very proud of their determination and hard work.

Bread with Mrs. Dorothy

It's always such a treat to have someone come and share their special talents with the children. Mrs. Dorothy, Tracy's mother, is quite the baker. This week, she shared her delicious sourdough bread recipe with the boys and girls. They learned what a "starter" was, as well as how to knead and roll the dough. She explained the importance of following a recipe, and even gave each child their own bit of dough to practice with. Without a doubt, the highlight of her visit was getting to eat some of her cinnamon bread, and take a small loaf home!

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Bread Tasting

We are wrapping up our bread unit and thought it would be fun to taste test some different kinds of bread. We tasted brioche, biscuits, sourdough, bagels, and cinnamon raisin bread. We took a class vote, and the biscuits won the class favorite!

Toys for Tots

Our community service project was collecting Toys for Tots and I'm so happy to share that we collected 218 toys! Friday morning we had a few special visitors come and pick up the toys and visit with our students.

PUMPKIN PATCH

The middle school student hosted a fun morning of reading, singing, planting pumpkin seeds, and so much more for our preschool students. Each middle school student wrote and illustrated a sweet book for their pumpkin patch buddy and read it to them while we were there visiting. They helped them pick a pumpkin that they actually grew and then talked to us about the life cycle of a pumpkin. Thank you, middle school kiddos, for everything you did on Halloween for our class.

PUMPKIN MATH & SCIENCE

Pumpkin math & science was a big hit with the children. First, the boys and girls used yarn to measure the circumference around the largest pumpkin. Next, they estimated the number of lines on the pumpkin. Various answers were given, and Caleb was the winner with an estimation of 22 . Estimations were also given with regard to the weight of the pumpkin. Ace came closet with his estimation of 5 pounds. Finally, we tallied who thought the pumpkin would float in water, and those who thought it would not float. To our amazement it floated! Hands on learning is always the best!

Sorting and Graphing

Sorting & graphing helps children look at numbers in different ways. Starting them with graphs when they are young helps them count items quickly, organize, compare, and discuss information. We used skittles on a turkey body to make graphing fun!

The gardening study was about investigating and learning how to plan and care for a garden, how to grow, who helps in the garden, how to harvest a garden.

Planting Day

We took our tools, seeds, and watering cans outside to our raised bed. Everyone had a turn at putting some seeds in the hole, and covering them up with soil. We planted radishes, beans, lettuce, carrots, and spinach. We also planted chives, cilantro, basil, and mint in containers for our classroom.

Special Visitor

Nancy Bigar from the Miller County Master Gardeners visited our class this week. She shared some herbs and plants from her garden and talked to us about what a garden needs and what we can do to help our garden grow. She even gave us some seeds to plant in our class garden at school. THANK YOU, Nancy, for taking the time to come and visit our preschool class.

I also want to thank Mr. Tyler for building our raised garden bed and the parents and grandparents that have contributed to our gardening unit, whether that be seeds, tools, or books. Because of you, our students get to experience such neat things! Thank You!

Field Trip to H & N

What number is missing?

I placed ten pumpkins numbered 1-10 on the board, and then I had all the children cover their eyes while I removed a pumpkin. They then had to guess what number what missing. This game was so fun and they all did so good!

Estimation Jar

The children were able to explore my estimation jar filled with marbles. They each had a chance to examine it, and then estimate how many marbles they thought were in the jar. I explained that estimating means a real good guess without counting each marble. The total number of marbles was 28, and Caleb was the winner with a guess of 26.

Table Time with Manipulatives

Sweet As Pumpkin Pie

We baked Pumpkin Pie from scratch, and it was so much fun! We discussed why bakers wear aprons and hats, the difference between wet and dry ingredients, and why we measure the ingredients before we add them in. Ask your child what ingredient they got to help with it and if it was wet or dry.

D is for DIAMOND!

I had each child color the diamonds different colors and then cut and glue them in their fine motor journals.

P is for PLAYGROUND!

Let’s make the letter B!