Mrs. Rachel's Kinder Prep: Our Class Was a Zoo!

What a fun week we had learning about zoo animals! As their teacher this year, I am realizing sometimes it is the simplest things that bring the most joy and the most fun! Mrs. Andrea and I are truly blessed to be their teachers.

We enjoyed reading about fun at the zoo this week with the books Giraffes Can't Dance, Walking Through the Jungle, Zoo Opposites, Zoo Borns, and Whose Feet Are These? We also sang fun animal songs, including "The Zookeeper" and "Zippity Zoo Zah". Our letter of the week was the letter Nn. All of the friends in our class are doing very well identifying the letters, writing them, and sorting initial sounds. For those of you wanting to review what we have learned so far at home, the letters we have done to this point are as follows: M, T, F, A, and N. Some fun activities to practice these letters include laying out or writing letters on a mat or tray and having them find the letter with the sound you say (or building words depending on readiness), letting them trace letters (or words) in shaving cream, building letters (or words) with small pieces of food (such as cereal or raisins), and looking for these letters in books.

To go along with our zoo theme, we had lots of fun in our learning centers. We used animal crackers to introduce the use of a ten frame, played a giraffe dice game where they had to find numbers, practiced lacing zoo beads, "rescued" zoo animals wrapped in rubber bands, and counted Popsicle sticks while building animal enclosures in play dough. We also showed our creativity by using process art to create our own zoo animal of choice (which went in portfolios) and drawing a zoo mural, practiced making patterns and doing the fine motor skill of tearing by making tiger stripes, and practiced our cutting skills by making paper plate lions. You can find these roaring in the hallway! We even made hand print giraffes that went in portfolios.

In our literacy centers, we did initial sound matching with animals, read a zoo book together, and built our names with animal name puzzles. (We will send these puzzles home next week to continue to work on building and tracing names at home.)

Our outdoor fun this week included washing animals in our water table station and learning to play follow the leader (animal style)!

We continued to practice our verse of the month (Genesis 1:31). We also continued our focus on creation, talking about the sun, moon, and stars. You might ask your child a few more questions about the creation story... We had good discussion about it this week!

Thank you for giving us the joy and privilege of being your child's teachers. We look forward to seeing them Thursday! Give them a hug from Mrs. Rachel and Mrs. Andrea.

This week, see if your child can...
1. Say their Bible verse with the motions!
2. Write the letters M, T, and N!
3. Make a pattern out of toys or food.
4. Hop on one foot all the way to 20!
5. Cut something with scissors. (Many of us need to work on cutting.)