Friday, March 22, 2019

March 18-22, 2019

Happy Spirit Week at HCA!


Monday started with a visit from Blaze the Dragon in the morning car line.



 Then, we had a great time at the parade showing off our outfits for our
favorite actor, athlete, or book character.





Tuesday was Music and Masterpiece Day!


Nora brought in her artwork to share.

We ended the day with a school wide dance party!





On Wednesday, we dressed up in our Disney or Superhero gear.



On Thursday, we wore our favorite accessories! We participated in a scavenger hunt around school with our early childhood friends. We attended the first grade's prayer service.





Friday was all about showing off our dragon pride!




Our friends in Nursery invited us over for a very special treat! Braden's cousin, Nick Hague, is an astronaut for NASA and is currently in space working at the International Space Station. We watched a live video of him doing a space walk! The boys and girls were in awe and asked so many great questions.


Look closely - you can see Nick working!

Flight Engineer Nick Hague

We even watched a video of the launch!



We had a great week celebrating all we love about HCA!


Reminders:
  • Show and Tell will be on Wednesday, April 3, and the topic will be something to do with spring.
  • Please remember to sign up for a time for Parent/Teacher Conferences on April 11-12: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0844aea722a1f85-prek.
  • Save the date for the Nursery/Pre-K prayer service on Thursday, April 18, at 8:15 am.

Best wishes for a relaxing spring break! Classes will resume on Monday, April 1st. 

Friday, March 15, 2019

March 11-15,2019

We had a great art class this week! The boys and girls worked on their Monet lily pads!



While half the class was at art, the other students had some time for free choice at centers in the classroom.

Braela and Austin used the blocks to make their own Jenga game!



The boys and girls had a great time working at stations in physical education class!












We even got to play outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!








Hope to see you this weekend at Shrek Jr.!  Performances are 7:30 tonight and 1:00 pm and 7:30 pm on Saturday! Tickets can be purchased at the door! 


Since next week is Spirit Week, we will not have show and tell.  Please refer to the email Mrs. Richards sent for more details! Have a great weekend!

Friday, March 8, 2019

March 3-8, 2019

This week in Pre-K, our theme was rainbows!

On Monday in Religion class, we talked about how God made the world full of color. The boys and girls shared how much they prefer color over just "boring" black and white and how happy they are that God made them all different colors as well! We talked about the colors of the rainbow and the students colored their own rainbows.


Then, we made Color Books. Students had to draw something on each page that came in that color. They came up with some great ideas!

Charity drew a red stop sign.

Blaine drew a blueberry.

Austin drew his yellow folder.

Lily drew the green grass.

On Tuesday, we played "the best game ever" - according to the kids! The students were given dice and told they would be rolling numbers and that was how they would color the rainbow. First, they completed the key for what color each number would be. Then they took turns rolling the dice with a partner until they were able to color in their rainbows completely. They had so much fun!


They colored beautiful rainbows and asked when we could play the game again!



Miss Webb made beautiful mosaic rainbows with the class for our bulletin board.





On Wednesday, we did a leprechaun directed drawing and painted watercolor rainbows behind the leprechauns. Check out the fantastic work of our amazing Pre-K artists!



On Thursday, we learned some fun facts about rainbows in our Weekly Reader
Did you know:
  • Rainbows are really collections of light?
  • To make a rainbow, you need sunlight and water?
  • That when there is a double rainbow, the colors in one of the rainbows is reversed?


We did a great science experiment called "walking rainbow." 
We started with some cups filled with colored water and some empty cups.


I told the students that we were going to make the water "walk" into the empty cups. I told them that we were going to use paper towels to help make the water walk. We talked about how we use paper towels to clean up spills because they "absorb" water (or, as the children said "suck up" the water). Then, the children predicted what color the water would be in the empty cups. They activated their prior knowledge from a previous science experiment we had done on primary and secondary colors (I was so excited they remembered it!).  We all had to be patient as the water began to walk - and we observed a rainbow form! The boys and girls LOVED it!


Then, Miss Webb came along and made sure we even got some pink at the end of the rainbow 😉


Finally, today, the students made rainbow book and practiced reading it to one another!


It was a great week all around!

Important news:
  • The date for the Nursery/Pre-K prayer service has been changed. It will now be on Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 8:15 am. 

Don't forget to mark your calendars for these other upcoming important dates:
  • Tuesday, April 23, 2019 - HCA Night at Panera 4:00-8:00 pm
  • Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - Early Childhood Celebration 


Get your tickets now for HCA's production of Shrek Jr. on March 15-16, 2019! Tickets and more information can be found here. We are excited for a wonderful show!

Have a great weekend!

Friday, March 1, 2019

February 25 - March 1, 2019

We had an exciting week in Pre-K with some breakthrough achievements with Montessori lessons!

Scarlett and Jordyn used the Golden Bead
Material and Large Number Cards to count
and show quantities by units, tens, hundreds,
and thousands.

Blaine worked on basic addition skills.

Lily started spelling with the Movable
Alphabet and Phonetic Object Box 1.

Scarlett started writing sentences using the Movable Alphabet.

Kellan mastered naming the seven continents.

The Pre-K students all work so hard on their lessons every day. It always makes us so happy to see the pride on their faces when they complete a challenging lesson independently for the first time.

While we love our Montessori lessons, it is always hard for parents to fully understand the amazing work the children are doing in the classroom because not much comes home in their folders everyday. This week, we instituted a "Selfie Station" in the classroom. We told the boys and girls that if they are especially proud of a lesson they are working on, they may clip a camera card to their work and we will take a picture to email home and share with you. They are so excited! Get ready for some emails!



This week, we started talking about Dr. Seuss in honor of his birthday on March 2. In our Weekly Reader, we learned about Dr. Seuss' life and the books that he wrote. The children were excited to discover that Dr. Seuss loved rhyming words and even made up some of the words in his stories.


The students practiced writing some rhyming words of their own like the words in Dr. Seuss' stories:



Finally, we introduced the students to a new rhyming lesson that they can choose to work on during our Montessori work period. The students learned how to match rhyming objects to the pictures on the cards and were so proud of each other when they matched the words correctly.


Listen to their rhyming words:



Reminders:
  • There will be no show and tell next week.

Don't forget to mark your calendars for these upcoming important dates:
  • Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - Nursery/Pre-Kindergarten Prayer Service 8:15 am
  • Tuesday, April 23, 2019 - HCA Night at Panera 4:00-8:00 pm
  • Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - Early Childhood Celebration 


Get your tickets now for HCA's production of Shrek Jr. on March 15-16, 2019! Tickets and more information can be found here. We are excited for a wonderful show!

Have a great weekend!