Smart Start 2023-2024:Week 10

Letter O Week!

This week our alphabet and art studies collided. While learning about the letter O, its sounds, and shapes we also learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and how one of his most famous works looks like lots of letter Os! Our artists started by painting small, concentric circles on discs which will become ornaments for our Christmas tree. We then moved on to ENORMOUS circles. You will see these giant circles making their way down Main Street on Saturday, November 25th as a part of ArtWorks Christmas Parade float! Watch for our float and be sure to let everyone around you know that your artist helped to create our magic, mobile work of art!

This week we brought out one of our favorite sensory tools: orbeez. We challenged students to use a variety of tools to engineer the best way of getting the orbeezs from the upper sensory bin to the cup in the lower sensory bin with as few escaped orbeez as possible. This is also a popular center. Our students love the way the orbeez feel and they are passionate when it comes to finding a way to rise to the day's challenge.

In the Wiggle Room, Ms. Jessie led our young actors through a movement story about an octopus. Students listened to the story and were challenged to collaborate to act out the plot.

The temperatures are dropping and that means it's time to start thinking about our feathered friends. This week, we watched owls and ospreys via live cams provided by the Owl Research Institute. We also talked about winter birds and how we can help by providing food and water. We used Cheerios to make bird feeders which will be a help to the birds and was a great way to develop our students' fine motor skills.

More letter O fun! Weaving over and under, Legos, and ornament-making. We also played tic-tac-toe, Zingo, and Cooties.

Writing our names in Play-Doh...and then doing a little sculpting, because...it's Play-doh!

We had fun with journals this week thinking about what life will be like when our students are older. Using an "Old Face" filter, we had the class cracking up at their old faces.

More letter O Week fun...