We have come to end of another fun week with the coconut kids! You'll have to watch for future posts to find out why we are called the coconut kids :)

Today we continued to learn with mice. We practiced being mice with Hickory, Dickory, Dock. We also had some fun at the water table and practiced our ABC's.

Our story today was about a mouse and all of the yummy, colorful foods he ate for lunch. We also had some apples and carrots for our snack, just like the hungry mouse.

Have a nice weekend! Please add a comment to let me know that you are seeing this blog.

Bryan LOVES to point to each letter as we sing our ABC's!

Abi & Brandon like to sing the ABC's!

Today we enjoyed a story about a mouse that wanted to bring a nice, red apple into his hole. The apple was too big....ask your child what the mouse did to get the apple inside his house.

Both classes worked on ABC's today.

The morning class enjoyed a story with Ms. Diane's class. We named animals and colors. We also imitated the movement the animal did.

The afternoon class worked on matching and naming capital letters.

It was another fun day at school!

Little Bloomers

As you know, parents play a critical role in the development of their children’s language skills.  But how?  If you want your child to develop excellent language skills does that mean that you must invest in picture flash cards, educational computer games, or fancy baby compact discs? No, no, and no. Language is best learned through a natural, social context which cannot be provided via computer.

The best way to help your child develop tip-top language skills is to talk with her.  This can be done easily throughout the day by talking about your daily routines, building upon her questions and comments, and spending time reading and discussing favorite picture books.

As the year progresses, you will see posts for simple yet effective ways to help develop your child’s language skills. So here is tip number one:

Expand the Conversation

Studies show that parents who ask more questions, encourage more conversational turns, and build on the information that the child offers have children with more sophisticated language than parents who do not.  Once your child expresses an interest,  that is your cue to keep the conversation going. It is a great opportunity to introduce new vocabulary, concepts, and to demonstrate conversational turn-taking.  Here is an example:

Child: I see truck

Dad: Wow! That is a big truck, isn’t it?  See that big yellow one?

Child: Yes.

Dad: That’s called a dump truck. It carries loads of dirt and rocks.

So here is a good example of Dad expanding on his child’s interest in trucks by introducing new vocabulary and reinforcing the concepts of size and color. Research shows that building upon your child’s interests to expand and enrich conversations has big results that can be seen as early as 18 months of age.

Opportunities to expand conversations can occur any time and any place;  at the grocery store, during dinner, at bath time, any time! Just remember to follow your child’s interests, keep it simple, keep it fun, and watch your child’s language bloom. 

If you are interested in reading more about how children learn, I recommend Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff. 

We had to watch out for a hungry bear today!! Your children loved the story, The Little Mouse, The red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear, by Don and Audrey Wood. We had a chance to share a red, ripe strawberry, too. Mmmm.....

We also enjoyed some coloring in the afternoon. We used little red crayons to color a strawberry as we laid on our tummys.

In the morning, we pretended to be the mouse from Hickory, Dickory, Dock.

We practiced building at free choice.

It was a great day!!

Today we read Mouse Mess by Linnea Riley. We learned that mice are awake at night when we are sleeping and that they like to eat many things, especially cheese. We worked some mazes to help the hungry mice find some cheese to eat as we worked on naming colors and grasping our crayons. Then we ate some string cheese ourselves! We enjoyed building with some blocks at free choice time.

Please sign & return the permission forms so I can include some pictures of your children learning at school!

In this story three white mice play with paint and learn how to mix colors.

Welcome to our class blog. we are in the very beginning stages of learning how this works...it will get better :)


We're ready for another week! We will practice our concepts, numbers & letters as we read stories about mice!