December 2012 in the 4's class!

What a great first semester we've had!  I know my blogs have been few this year and I promise to do better in 2013!  Here is a picture review of December!

And of course what would Coop be without our families!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Fall is in the air!

Living in Illinois means living through the interesting weather of our region.  The leaves are starting to turn their beautiful yellows, oranges, and reds!  There is 80 degree weather (like today) and 50 degree weather (predicted for tomorrow), rain, wind, thunderstorms, and shorter days.  The farmers are in the fields, though the harvest this year is not great due to the horrible drought of spring and summer.  The children are full of energy and counting the days until Halloween.  It's a busy and very fun time for preschoolers!

Playing with field corn in the sensory table.  We'll feed it to the squirrels when we're done playing!

A great start!

The first month of school is almost behind us!  It's been a wonderful beginning!  We learned about each other, our families, our homes, and emotions!  We'll begin a journey into Fall next!  Today our class went on our first field trip of the year!  We visited a local park.  It was the perfect introduction to our exploration of Fall!  We went on the hunt for the elusive Beaver.  Though we didn't see the Beaver we did see evidence of a Beaver.  We explored the many large sculptures in the park, visited one of our student's garden plot, saw huge sunflowers, a windmill, and collected specimins that represented fall to us.  We'll explore our findings on Monday!  WELCOME FALL!

There's the Beaver sign!

One More Week!!

Things are starting to get busy at Coop!  In one more week the halls and classrooms will once again be filled with the laughter of children!  On Monday and Tuesday the parents will be cleaning our classrooms until they shine!  The Teachers have been busy preparing their classrooms, lesson planning, and resting!  It's an exciting time!  Our two's and three's classes are full, and our four's has a few openings.  We're all looking forward to another great year!

Assistant Preschool Teacher needed!

Assistant Preschool Teacher needed for the 2012-2013 school year.  Experience working with preschool children and DCFS Head Teacher qualified preferred.  Hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings from 8:45-12:15.  Please email resume to:  coopnurserycu@gmail.com by August 16, 2012.  Coop is an Equal Opportunity Employer.



It's been a busy Spring in the 4/5's class at Coop!  We recently completed our study of art with an Art Gallery opening!  Parents stopped in for a tour and for cookies and juice.  The children used all kinds of art mediums to complete their works of art.  Here a parent and student are looking at art that was created with flour, water, salt and food coloring.  This made a beautiful and tactile work of art!

For earth day we held an enrichment activity on recycling given by one of our parents.  The children learned what could be recycled and what can't be recycled.

We took our annual visit to a local park for an end of the year celebration with ice cream and play!

It's hard to believe that the 2011-2012 year is almost over!  Time does fly by!  We'll conclude our year with an end of the year picnic at a local indoor playground with a short promotion ceremony.  It's been a great year and though always sad to say goodbye to the children and their families, we look forward to a new school year and new adventures!

Thank you to the parents of the class of 2011-2012 for sharing a small part of your child's life with me!  I wish your families a bright future!

Sincerely,

Ms. Anna



100 day in preschool!

Looking over our 100 items!
On Thursday the 4's class celebrated 100 day! Each child brought 100 items from home. We had legos, blueberries, toilet paper sheets, pennies, gum balls from a sweet gum tree, M & M's, just to name a few! We counted to 100 by ones, fives, tens, and twenties. We talked about addition, subtraction, and multiplication, we made counting to 100 books, and we ate pizza to celebrate!

It was a fun morning!

Here we're busy working on our 100 counting book. We made these books by stamping 10 stamps on each page. Some of the children extended the activity by writing, by tens, the numbers to get to 100.

Next week we begin a study of art! We'll visit a local art museum, have one of our very talented former parents do an art enrichment with the class and we'll celebrate the end of the unit with an art gallery opening! It's going to be fun!

Volcano!

We had a lot of fun with "tall" painting! These turned out great and even the kids who don't normally "do" art, had fun with it!

I love to end our study of dinosaurs with an erupting volcano. This year we were all surprised by the explosion! So much fun!

Music Enrichment at Coop!

We are so incredibly lucky to have parents at our school with diverse talents that they are willing to share with our students! One of our Dads shared his rock and roll talents with our classes this past week. The children were captivated and enjoyed singing along to some familiar tunes! Thanks, Adam, YOU ROCK!!!

Preschool Open House

Visit the Cooperative Nursery School on Thursday February 23, 2012 from 5 - 7 p.m. or on Friday February 24 from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. for our 2012-2013 Enrollment Open House!  The Cooperative Nursery School was established in 1946.  Today our school is still parent owned and operated!  The parents of the children enrolled can choose to assist in the classroom about 3 mornings per month or they can choose to be non assisting.

Our class sizes are kept small to create a more intimate and focused learning environment.  Our adult to child ratio averages 1:4 which is well below NAEYC accredited standards.  Coop follows "The Creative Curriculum" which allows children to learn through play.  The curriculum, along with the outstanding adult:child ratio at Coop, helps the teacher to create and teach learning activities so that each child's individual needs are met.  The curriculum allows the children to learn at their own rate and adapts the environment to encompass all learning styles.

Our teachers are accredited and meet all of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services requirements.

So please stop in for a visit on Thursday February 23 from 5-7 p.m. or Friday February 24 from 9:30-11:30 a.m!   



Post Office fun in Preschool!

We've been studying community helpers this week.  Part of our study was visiting a local post office.
After visiting the Post Office, we decided to create our own Post Office in the classroom.  It was a huge success!  The kids had so much fun writing their "letters" and delivering them to their friends and families.  Earlier in the week we had made mail carrier bags out of brown grocery bags.  We'll keep these mailbags for our Valentine's Day celebration!

As you can see our Post Office was a busy place!  Lots of writing, sharing, and language going on!

You can see our mailbags and mail boxes in this picture.

And of course, a post office wouldn't be complete without a sign!

Happy New Year!

Making graham cracker gingerbread houses in the 4's class.

It's been a long time since I last posted! We've been very busy at Coop! We held another successful winter concert right before break. The children worked very hard to learn their songs and they performed beautifully!

The two year old classes went on a field trip to a local post office. They had a great time learning about how a post office works. The three year olds and four year olds will be visiting the post office in January!

Enrollment and open house information for the 2012-2013 school year will be posted soon!