Grace Garden Preschool

Hello, Caterpillar Families!

This week we began our two-week unit on dinosaurs. This is always one of the
highlights of our curriculum because the kids are so incredibly interested in the subject.
It never fails to amaze me how many facts these smarties know about dinosaurs!
Really, it could be them teaching the unit, and thatʼs no joke! I wonder what it is about these prehistoric creatures that makes them so very interesting to children... could it be their size? Their power? The fact that theyʼre no longer around? Whatever it is, it holds from year to year, and I just love seeing the sheer excitement on their faces as they so casually list the very complicated dinosaur names. Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Pteranodon... how in the world did these four- and five-year-olds get so smart?!

We started the week off by making a K-W-L chart about dinosaurs. For those of you
unfamiliar with these, a K-W-L chart is a graphic organizer to help students “file” what
theyʼre learning. We made a chart with three sections: K (for what we already Know),
W (for what we Want to know or what we Wonder) and L (for what we Learned). As you
might have guessed, our K section filled up extremely quickly. I was running out of
room after just a few minutes of writing! The W section was a little trickier for the
Caterpillars to fill up, not because thereʼs nothing they wonder about or want to know,
but because itʼs a little trickier for them to put these thoughts into words. Also, how
many four- and five-year-olds do you know that want to admit that there are things they
donʼt know yet? As our unit progresses, weʼll fill in the L section. Please take a minute
to check out our K-W-L chart next time youʼre dropping off or picking up!

We also spend some time this week on the letter Kk. Weʼre almost halfway through the
alphabet now! Making a list of Kk words proved to be a little tricky since most of the
words the kids suggested actually begin with the letter Cc. However, we still managed
to come up with a fairly good list. We have continued to use our Letter of the Week as a
foundation for Show and Share. The students have been bringing in an item that begins
with the letter of the week, concealed in a bag. They offer clues and then call on their
classmates to guess whatʼs in the bag. After each guess, we “stretch out” the word to
isolate the beginning sound. Even the best guesses can sometimes be eliminated just
by listening to the beginning sound!

Next week, weʼll continue our Dinosaur unit by making some amber fossils and some
Dinosaur soap! Have a fantastic weekend!

Love,
Ms. Katie