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!