Grace Garden Preschool

Dear Caterpillar Families,

It has been a “love”ly week in the Caterpillar room!  We’ve been talking a lot about love
and friendship as we prepare for next week’s Valentine exchange and Red Lunch party. 
The biggest point I wanted to touch on with the Caterpillars is that there are many kinds
of love:  the love our parents have for us, the love we have for our family, the love we
have for our friends, and the love we have for ourselves.  Our reading center was filled
with books on the subject of love, and a few of our class favorites this week were I Love
You With All My Heart by Noris Kern, Mama, Do You Love Me? and Papa, Do You Love
Me?, both by Barbara Joosse, The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond and I Like
Myself by Karen Beaumont.

We did a neat experiment this week using Borax laundry detergent.  After twisting pipe
cleaners into heart shapes, we submerged them into a solution of hot water and borax. 
The solution started forming crystals rather quickly, which we were able to observe with
the naked eye and with magnifying glasses.  The Caterpillars loved that the pipe
cleaners were so fun to twist and bend, and that they could easily begin again if they
didnʼt like the shape of their heart.  And they really loved coming into class the next day
to see how much the crystals had grown overnight!  

We had a big push in literacy this week, which was very exciting for all of us!  We read
the first of several short decodable books.  They are known as “decodable” because all
of the words in the book (other than the popcorn words) can be sounded out.  First, I
made a list of all of the words that would be in the story.  During Circle Time, we went
through the list, word by word, and decided if it was a popcorn word or sound-out word. 
The popcorn words were easy for these guys, so we went straight to the decodable
words.  The Caterpillars know that “putting sounds together is how you read a word,” so
we did just that!  In just a short time, we had sounded out the words, zip, pig, wig, big,
bib and sits.  After we had this list of words, I encouraged the kids to use their
imagination about what kind of story would have those words in it.  This is a really
important stage of literacy, and one that is sometimes overlooked in strict, phonics-based literacy instruction.  Using their imaginations like this to put meaning behind
these words helps with comprehension of what they will eventually read.  After all,
reading is not just about putting sounds together, itʼs about understanding and relating
to the words those sounds create.  

Once everyone had a turn to share what they thought the story would be about, I passed out the books and we looked through them
as a class, paying close attention to the pictures.  As I told the Caterpillars, pictures can
be really good clues to help us figure out what the words are.  Then we used our pointer
fingers to read each page, word by word.  Then we asked ourselves, as good readers
do, “Does that make sense?”  Each Caterpillar had the chance, if desired, to read a
whole page aloud by him/herself.  There were a lot of prideful smiles on their faces after
we finished!  It feels so good to be a reader!  

Next week, weʼll continue our love-fest with a celebration of Valentineʼs Day and our
Red Lunch on Tuesday. 


Have a great weekend!
Ms. Katie