Pre-K Blog

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Little Wonders is a wonderful learning center located right here in Missouri City. This is where talent, imagination and professional skills are being dedicated to the teaching of our young children. We understand that children learn differently. Through observation and listening, we encourage each individual's unique learning styles; while focusing on their physical, educational and emotional needs. All of our teachers are professionally qualified with combined expertise in education, speech & hearing therapy, bilingual education and English as a Second Language. With a low student-teacher ratio, we provide your child with the attention they need. Little Wonders Learning Center is located at the corner of Lexington Blvd. and Dulles Ave. In this center, you will find a number of warm, loving teachers committed to putting children first. This isn't your ordinary day care facility.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Fruit Salad!

Our gardening project has stemmed off into two directions. We are learning the parts of the plants and their functions. We are also learning about fruits and vegetables. We had a discussion about how fruit and vegetables grow on plants and trees. The children started naming fruits at the end of our discussion. We thought it would be fun to make a FRUIT SALAD!
We had a homework assignment to bring in any fruit we chose and we would come back to school and have a discussion about the name of the fruit,how it grows, the seeds and anything else we might know about it.
We were very excited to see all the fruit that was brought in.....

To get started we all took turns writing each name of a fruit..









We cut each fruit to look and see what the seeds looked like and the size of it. We discussed how their were some seeds that we can eat because they were sooo tiny we couldn't see them.


Trying to find the tiny banana seeds...


                              We saw that strawberry seeds are all over the strawberry and their are a ton of them!!
After finding the seeds we put each one next to its correct name! We were really good at figuring out the name of each fruit by sounding it out and seeing what letter it began with. This chart showed us how some were extremely tiny and others were gigantic!

We than prepared to make our fruit salad. We all put on a pair of gloves so we could be extra careful and clean with our fruit!


We really didn't even need our teachers help when we began, we were experts at cutting...

and knew exactly what sizes we wanted to cut our pieces of fruit...










Look at how much fruit we already cut up!

 We still wanted to cut more because we were having so much fun!



Hard working and determined to do it all!

                             Ms.Jojo helped and taught us how to cut apples,since they were a little difficult. :o)
After we cut our last bits of fruit we started to fill in our chart...


We used our chart to help us categorize.  The first categories were PLANTS and TREES.  We talked about the fruit and whether it grew from a plant or a tree.  
We took turns writing plant or tree next to the fruits' name...

The next category was BIG and SMALL.  We compared the sizes of all of the seeds.  We wrote BIG or SMALL next to the name of the fruit.

Our fruit salad turned out delicious,we couldn't get enough of it at lunch.We finished it all! We always love doing projects on anything that we can try out and eat! ;-)

Thursday, July 21, 2011

If...

We have been introduced to a special book at story time. It is called, "If..." By: Sarah Perry. This book teaches us to use our imagination and explore different ideas. Imagine things that usually would never happen in our normal world...
Our class has decided to make their very own "If" book! We are all working hard on creating a page of our own. I have to say this may be one of the best books out there!
Here is a little preview to some of our pages....

                                "If grass could walk away." -Ashley
                                            "If trees were rulers."-Trevor
                                "If fruit were paintbrushes."-Madison
                                "If mayonnaise was red."-Kylie
                                "If fish were oranges."-Kaelynn
                                "If lightning was a bee."-Sam.R
                                "If a giraffe was a blanket."-Kiersten
"If a Lego man was a rocket."-Mateo

These are a few of the imaginative pages our class has made. The students are being very creative and artistic using as much detail as possible on their page. They are determined to make this book perfect! We can't wait till our book is complete to show all our family and friends our final piece!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Experts in Baking


Over the past year, our class has been working on creating a cook book. We have really become pros in baking! We know it all! =D
We are proud to see the children remembering key ingredients necessary to bake cakes, cup cakes and cookies.
Bishop came in one morning and told the class about a show he saw the night before where they made a  Honey Cake,so we got to work...
The teachers found and printed up the list of ingredients and directions.  The directions were typed in simple sentence form to help encourage the children to read them on their own.
We sat down with Ms.Ambreen while we sounded out and read the ingredients we needed...
Than we started measuring out the flour...

                                                    
                                      

                                               We were very good at sharing and taking turns!
                                          Over the past year we have focused a lot on measurements.  The children are becoming familiar with fractions in measuring and the difference between a cup, teaspoon, and tablespoon.
Bishop showed us exactly where the measurement 1/2 was!
                                       The next step was to measure out all the sweet honey,this was our favorite part!  It also started a wonderful conversation on where honey comes from, and how it is made.  This particular jar of honey still had the honey comb in it! 












The next day Noah came in with a bottle of sprinkles! He wanted to make cupcakes! Soooo we bought some vanilla and chocolate mix to make!





                                     Like we said before, the children have become baking experts! 
                                     Ms.Ambreen let us do it all on our own, as she watched. ;)
                                          Now the tricky part,cracking the eggs!




When they came fresh out the oven,we got to decorate our very own cupcake!
                                              chocolate frosting on a chocolate cupcake =)
                                                  He LOVES blue sprinklessss very much!
                                         This vanilla cupcake had to be just right with enough sprinkles...

                                                             Our famous frosting face!

                                  

Cooking is an opportunity; to not only learn an important life skill, but multiple lessons and skills while having fun doing it.


Below is a summary of the skills we focus on when we cook in the classroom:

Math skills

  • Counting
  • Fractions
  • Sorting
  • Money
  • Sequencing- what comes 1st, 2nd, 3rd
  • Weighing
  • Measuring
  • Shapes
  • Colors
  • Problem solving-what happens if something goes wrong
Reading skills
  • Improving their reading skills
  • Vocabulary through new words

Chemistry and Science lessons

  • Discovering food groups
  • Making predictions
  • Experimenting
  • How food grows
  • How food changes while cooking
  • Five senses
  • Sensory exploration-with hands on and feeling the ingredients while cooking

Health lessons

  • How to eat healthy
  • Good nutrition

Social Skills

  • Responsibility
  • Safety and Cleanliness
  • Working together
  • Sharing
  • Building self esteem

Fine motor skills

  • Chopping, whisking, kneading, pouring, mixing, cutting, rolling