Friday, June 1, 2012

Unicorn News from May 21st to June 1st!

The Unicorns continue to be very busy!  We are busy with field trips, butterflies, mixing colors, painting, dancing, the 3 little pigs, Kindergarten, Spanish....the list goes on!  We are waiting for caterpillars to arrive, but in the meantime we found a caterpillar in the classroom!  I guess if you wish hard enough, you never know what might happen!

Claire was our Friend of the Week last week and Callie will be our Friend of the Week next week!

The Unicorns' favorite part of the Staten Island Children's Museum

Fueling up for the museum visit!

Making new colors!

Patrick painting.

They grow big bugs in Staten Island!


Block Harbor

Friend of the Week describes her illustrations.


Tss, tss, tss!

Ms. Adrienne acts out Caps for Sale with the Unicorns.

Painting butterflies.





Book baskets with our 5th grade helper.

Dancing with Ms. Adrienne.

Kneading playdough balls and finding color surprises!


Books We Read

The Adventures of of Taxi Dog
Rain Song
"Hello-Hello"
The Three Little Rigs
The 3 Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
The Happy Bee
Butterflies
Art Dog
Rotten Island (by William Steig!  Thanks Aubrey and Monty!)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (continues!!! Charlie found the 4th ticket!)
No Fighting, No Biting
Silverlicious (thanks Callie!)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Inch by Inch
Mr. Seahorse

We've made 2 new book baskets: "The 3 Little Pigs"
                                                        "Ocean Life"

Looking Ahead
  1. Monday, June 4th:  Callie is the Friend of the Week.
  2. Tuesday, June 5th:  Clerical half day, pick up at 12:00pm
  3. Thursday, June 7th:  No school for children.



Friday, May 18, 2012

Unicorn News from 5/7/12-5/18/12

Unicorn action from the last 2 weeks!!!


This includes 2 Friends of the Week, Evan and Georgia,
a trip to the Staten Island Zoo and the May birthday 
celebration!  Happy 5th birthday to Georgia and James!

Friend of the week shares his poster!

Questions and comments!

A real ham of a peacock!





Unicorns in the workshop, It's Alive!

Lucas pets a box turtle.

A bearded dragon!



Creating a marble run.

Giavanna, Samantha and Georgia make a different marble run set-up.

Graham reads The Rescuers to the Unicorns! 

Stella and Giavanna add stairs to their structure.


Friend of the Week tells about Trixie,  her favorite animal!

more questions and comments

The marble runs grow bigger, like the Unicorns!

mini-choice





Price reads The Wolves in the Walls.

Larry, Friend of the Week's dad, brings Model Magic for the Unicorns to create animals.



Monty creates dot art with paper, dot markers and sicssors.

Tom and James built an elaborate structure.

Happy 5th birthday Georgia!

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear James!



Pollution Patrol alert!
The Unicorns are upcycling!!!!  They started making beautiful bookmarks with used paper, stamps, crayons and dot markers!

Books we read this week!

The Tiny Seed
Mermaid Sister
So Happy!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (our new chapter book!)
Splish, Splash, Spring
3 Billy Goats Gruff
I Love My Mommy Because.......
The Grouchy Ladybug
Jack and the Beanstalk
Franklin Wants a Pet
The Wolves in the Walls
Amos & Boris
A House for Hermit Crab

****Looking Ahead****
  1. Claire will be the Friend of the Week!
  2. Tuesday, May22nd, trip to Staten Island Children's Museum.  Remember to pack a bag lunch, no snack and label lunch bag with your child's name.
  3. Wednesday, May 23rd, the Pre-k will start a weekly dance and movement workshop sponsored by the PTA!


Friday, May 4, 2012

Unicorn News for the week of April 30th

The Unicorns planted seeds, explored rainbows and continued concocting formulas!


Callie carefully plants.

Tom and Ms Fensterheim plant.

Georgia adds the new mystery ingredient.

Evan chooses a solid ingredient.

Lucas mixes blue, blue and blue to make dark blue!

Rainbow colors everywhere!

Sylvia and Claire try to find the rainbow with their prisms.


Samantha joins the rainbow search!


Our Friend of the Week presents her poster.

The Unicorns listen.
Planting planters for the small schoolyard.

Georgia's special snack, cheese puffs and cheese crackers, yum!

Watering the planted planters!

A member of the salad club!

Tabi is another member of the salad club!

The fish table enjoys the bagel pizzas.
    The Unicorns spontaneously started different food clubs when some  Unicorns became adventurous at lunch time!!!  It definitely became contagious.  Here are the latest food clubs and their members!


Lasagna club:  Lucas, Tabi, Clara, James
Spinach club:  Giavanna, Lucas, Tabi
Pineapple club:  Tom, Tabi, Patrick, Georgia, Samantha, Monty, Evan, Stella
Cheese & Turkey Quesadilla club:  Georgia, Evan, Samantha, Tabi, Tom, James, Clara, Patrick, Shay, Claire, Kate, Lucas
Green Bean club:  Ryan (it's delicious!), Tabi, Georgia
Roasted Chicken club:  Shay, Evan, Stella, Sylvia, Patrick, Kate, Georgia, Gia, Lucas. Samantha, Tom, Monty, Claire, Tabi, James
Rice club:  Shay, Stella, Sylvia, Kate, Patrick, Georgia, Gia, Lucas, Samantha, Tom, Tabi
Black Beans and Peppers club:  Tabi, Georgia
Plantains club:  Tom, Evan
Bananas club:  Evan, Callie, Gia, Georgia, Patrick, Claire, Samantha, James, Tabi, Tom
Taco Meat club:Tabi, Lucas, Gia, Georgia, Kate, Patrick, Evan, Shay, Ryan, Stella
Bagel Pizza club:  Clara, Kate, Patrick, Gerogia, Shay, Ryan, Evan, Claire, Tabi, Monty James
Salad club:  Gerogia, Tabi


This is adventurous eating in Pre-k!!!!!  Just wanted to share the great news!  (The rule is you have to try a food to be in a club, you don't have to continue eating it if you don't like it.  Most of the time the Unicorns continued eating!)


Books We Read
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
Strega Nona
When Everyone Wore a Hat (autobiography of William Steig)
The Littlest Wolf *** by Larry Brimner (I highly recommend this book to parents too!  The Unicorns LOVED it, but I think it's great for parents to read and reflect on how the big wolf treats the littlest wolf!)
That's Good, That's Bad
I Will Never , Not Ever, Eat a Tomato
Ms. Rumphius
How Pizza Came to Queens
alphabet rescue
Milo's Hat Trick
Charlotte's Web


Songs we Sang
"Robin in the Rain"
"Let's Make a Garden"
"Under the Rainbow"

To Note:    We started the conversation about Kindergarten.  It was  anxiety producing for many of the Unicorns.  Thus begins the transitions from Pre-K to K.  It is a process.  We will do many things to help ease the transition to K.  This is what we did this week:
1.  We listed what we knew about Kindergarten.
2.  We watched the 1st 3 segments of a wonderful series of videos on Kindergarten called "Kindergarten"  by HBO family.  There are 3 more videos with 3 segments on each one.  The 1st video prompted a rich conversation about the similarities of Kindergarten to Pre-K  (A big thank you to Emily, who lent this series to us).
3.   We interviewed two kindergarteners.
4.    We wrote the bear fairies to find out when we can take our teddy bears home!!!!!!

Looking Ahead!
Evan will be the Friend of the Week this coming week.
**Look on the door at drop off to find out your child's share!!!  There have been a lot of skipped shares this week due to the change of month!
Tuesday, May 8th:  Trip to the Staten Island Zoo, leave school at 9:30am.  Make sure your child has a bagged lunch and no snack!
Tuesday, May 22nd: trip to the Staten Island Children's Museum
Thursday, June 14th:  Pre-k rides on a NYC Water Taxi
Tuesday, June 19th:  Pre-k Sing Along/Picnic in Carroll Park

I will post volunteer sign-up sheets for the rest of the trips after the zoo trip!!!