Georgia's Pre-K Program teacher newsletter, Feb. 2007

February 2007

Georgia's Pre-K Program Teacher Newsletter
www.decal.state.ga.us

While we try to teach children all about life, they teach us what life is all about!

February brings many exciting days to discuss with the children in your class.
American Heart Month Black History Month Children's Dental Month Library Lovers' Month National Bird Feeding Month National Cherry Month

February 2--Groundhog Day February 9--Toothache Day February 10--Umbrella Day February 13--Read to your child day February 14--Valentine's Day February 15--Gumdrop Day February 19--President's Day February 20--Mardi Gras February 21--National Sticky Bun Day February 25--Quiet Day February 27--Polar Bear Day

An Inside Look....
2 Phonological Awareness
2 Parent Involvement
2 Healthy Treats
3 Changes to the Environment
4 Creating a Classroom Community
5 FAQ regarding WSS
If you have any ideas/activities you would like to share, please contact a newsletter staff member.

Have fun with these dates by planning your own celebration or finding activities in your community!!!

Classroom Tips of the Month

TIP # 1
Remember to make sure that all of your block shelves are labeled with pictures or symbols to aid in organization and clean up efforts. Doing this helps children learn math skills such as sorting and shape identification and size comparison. This will also help children learn responsibility in the classroom.

TIP # 2

Upgrade your daily schedule

for readers and non-readers

to include something for children to manipulate as you

Your Pre-K consultant can

move from activity to activity. also help you with other

This will help children transi- ideas, like how to keep

tion and predict what comes your classroom organized!

next as they move through

the daily routine. (ex.

clothespin, velcro, magnet)

Contact information:
Pre-K Consultant of the Day 404-656-5957 888-4GA-PREK Suspension/Disenrollment Dana Evans 404-463-0009
Dana.Evans@decal.state.ga.us
RC Program Lori Smith 478-471-5311
Lori.Smith@decal.state.ga.us
Newsletter Staff Nicole Cook
nicole.cook@decal.state.ga.us
Diane Griffin
diane.griffin@decal.state.ga.us
Meghan McNail
meghan.mcnail@decal.state.ga.us
Pam Bojo
Pam.bojo@decal.state.ga.us

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

Did you know????
Auditory discrimination is a skill that children need to develop prior to or in conjunction with phonological awareness skills? Auditory discrimination is the ability to notice the difference between two or more sounds. Use the following ideas to help children who are struggling with phonological awareness. It is fun for all!!!

The next activity requires much more careful listening skills as children are discriminating isolated sounds. Say two sounds that are the same /p/ and /b/ and have children repeat the sounds. Talk about how the sounds are made the same way with their lips. Then produce two different sounds and talk about how those are different and how they use their mouth, tongue to make those sounds.

that /p/ is quiet and /b/ is noisy.
/k/ and /g/ are produced in the back of the mouth with the tongue scraping the roof of the mouth. /k/ is quiet and /g/ is noisy.

Which one made that sound? Begin this activity with noisemakers of varying types. Drums, wooden sticks, bells, hand made shakers, maracas, etc. Choose three or four items to demonstrate to students. Then place a barrier in front of the items and let the children identify the object that makes a sound. This activity helps develop listening skills.

It is fun to teach this skill, because many sounds have pairs that are similar in the way they are produced in the mouth but one is quiet and one is noisy. Quiet means that their voice is not on and noisy means that it is.
/p/ and /b/ are produced with both lips popping apart. The only difference is

Don't forget to include this concept on your lesson plans!

PARENT INVOLVEMENT

It can be difficult to get working parents to volunteer in your program. Here is one method that has worked for several programs.

Suggest that parents bring props into the classroom that relate to their jobs or hobbies. Children can use their senses to explore these items.

Try inviting parents into the classroom to share their jobs or hobbies with the class. Every family has a talent or gift to share. The children will enjoy the visitors to the classroom and learn about the world around them. It will not matter if the visitor is a doctor or a housewife sharing her love of a musical instrument.

This can be a great activity to encourage male involvement. Men that are intimidated by volunteering may find it less frightening to come into the classroom and discuss their jobs.
Extend the activity by including some props related to what your guests share in the dramatic play area. You can plan a field trip to

the fire department, police station, or local hospital to learn about more occupations.
Consider taking pictures of all of the visitors to use later in a class book. The book can chronicle all of the visitors and their jobs as well as what occupation each child may want to be someday. Encourage the children to write and draw thank you cards to visitors that took time out of their schedule to share their interests with the class. Also considers sending some snapshots and an article to the local newspaper.

YUMMY TREATS
Apple Smiles
Ingredients: apple, peanut butter( check for allergies), miniature marshmallows
Cut apples into wedges. Smear peanut butter on one side of two wedges. Stick a few marshmallows on the peanut butter on one of the apple wedges and top with the other apple wedge, peanut butter side down.
When you look at this, it looks like a smile (the red part of the apples are the lips and the marshmallows are the teeth.)

Heart Shaped Sandwiches
Ingredients: sandwich bread, sliced cheese, heart shaped cookie cutters, jam.
Have children assemble their sandwiches, either with cheese or jam (spreading is a good fine motor skill). After sandwiches are assembled, press the cookie cutter down on the sandwiches to cut them into the shape of a heart.

Page 2

CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT for Valentines Day & Dental Month

DRAMATIC PLAY:
Create a dentist office, have chairs with magazines/books to create a waiting area. Add dental paper masks, latex free gloves, mirrors, and an x-ray machine made from a cardboard box.
Floss and brushing models--use white egg cartons, toothbrushes, and white yarn to practice brushing and flossing. You could cut out two rows of white egg cartons and glue onto red poster board to simulate a mouth with upper and lower teeth.
Add a men's white dress shirt for a Dentist's coat.
Place Valentines Day plates, cups, and napkins to create a Valentines Day tea party.
SCIENCE:
Ask a local dentist for molds and/or xrays of teeth.
Cut out large, tooth shaped pieces of paper and have them laminated. Let the children use dry erase markers to make "dirty" teeth and then use toothbrushes to clean them off.
Put items in table with soapy water and tooth brushes so that children can clean them. Be sure to change the water daily.
Chalk teeth--place white pieces of chalk in a glass of dark cola for one hour. Provide toothpaste and brush with bowl of clean water. Have children brush off the brown discoloration from the chalk.
Put a white carnation in a cup of water with red food coloring. Over a few days the carnation will begin to turn red and will do that as long as you leave it in the water.
ART:
Add toothbrushes for painting.
Valentines craft box--Add candy hearts, red hots, paper doilies, stencils, glitter, and ribbons so that children can create their own valentine for loved ones or friends.
Dental Health Collage--add magazines

with pictures of food and let children create a collage of healthy/poor choices of food/ snacks for their teeth.
MATH/MANIPULATIVES:
Match Hearts--Give each student a handful of candy hearts that have sayings on them. Have them sort by message and color.
Create several sizes, colors, textures of valentines hearts. Children can match patterns, sort and sequence with hearts.
BOOK IDEAS
The Tooth Fairy by Kristen Hall
Nice Try, Tooth Fairy by Mary W. Olson
Just the Two of Us by Angela Johnson
Andrew's Loose Tooth by Robert Munsch
The Night Before the Tooth Fairy by Natasha Wing
Food for Healthy Teeth by Helen Frost
The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond
My Little Valentine by Carol Roth
The Little Engine That Could Valentines Day Surprise by Monique Stephens
Shades of Black by Sandra L. Pinkney
Night Before Valentine's Day by Natasha Wing
Dinosaur Valentine by Liza Donnelly
Salt in His Shoes by Deloris and Roslyn Jordan
FUN FACTS ABOUT TEETH:
The CROWN is the white part of the tooth that you can see and brush.
The ROOT holds the tooth in your mouth.
You cannot see PULP; it is the inside of your tooth. It is made up of nerves that feel pain and blood vessels that keep the tooth healthy.
You cannot see DENTIN; it is inside of your tooth. It is yellow stuff that is around the pulp.
ENAMEL is the white portion of your teeth that covers the dentin in the crown of the tooth. It is the hardest tissue in your body. It protects your tooth when you chew your food.
CEMENTUM is all around the dentin in the root of your tooth. It is about as hard as a bone.

B E
C R E A T I V E
"Children are our most valuable natural resource."
-Herbert Hoover

Page 3

CREATING A SUCCESSFUL CLASSROOM COMMUNITY (Communication)

Communication Skills of four year olds:
1) Talks in sentences of 4+ words. 2) Talks about activities easily & fluently, without repeating syllables or words. (Some disfluencies are part of normal development for many children between ages 3 and 5.) 3) Non-familiar listeners understand child's speech. 4) Understands & answers simple "who", "what", "where", and "how many" questions. 5) Uses prepositions "on", "in" and "under". 6) Asks questions 7) Recites & sings simple songs & rhymes. 8) Child can accurately articulate in all word positions consistently the following:
-p, m, h, n, w, b, k, g, d, f, y, t, w
Red Flags for speech development in four year olds:
1) Can't state name in full 2) Can't follow three step directions 3) Can't answer simple who, what, where and when questions. 4) Can't produce the ending sounds of words

5) Can't produce most sounds except s, r, v, z, j, ch, sh, and th. 6) People outside of family usually cannot understand child's speech. 7) Does not use sentences with 4+ words and details. 8) Leaves out sounds in the middle of two syllable words.
Suggestions for 4 and 5 year olds:
1) Continue to use natural activities to promote language use & development. 2) Give full attention when child is speaking. 3) Get undivided attention before speaking to child. 4) Pause after speaking to allow child to respond. 5) Provide definitions for new words & use them in context. 6) Encourage the child to ask for explanations. 7) Talk about spatial relationships. 8) Point out things that are the same or different.

9) Encourage the child to ask for explanations. 10) Talk about spatial relationships. 11) Point out things that are the same or different. 12) Continue sorting but point out more subtle differences. 13) Continue to read stories & help child predict what will happen next. 14) Act out stories. 15) Ask child to draw a picture about their favorite part of a story. 16) Ask "wh" questions. 17) Play age-appropriate board games. 18) Have child help you plan & discuss daily activities.
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT WSS
Work Sampling System (WSS) is the new assessment process that Georgia's Pre-K Program is implementing statewide this school year. All teachers will be trained this year and are expected to be implementing WSS after the lead teacher attends training. Each month we will answer questions related to WSS.
1) What should be listed on the observational notes that I take? The observational notes should include the child's name, date and the domains represented.
2) I was just trained in December on WSS, what should I do with all of the work samples and notes I have collected while using the old process? Observational documentation collected up to attending WSS training should be stored on site in the teacher's classroom until the end of the school year for the consultant to review.
3) What are matrices? Matrices are tables or charts created by teachers to collect observational data on predictable skills or behaviors in one or more domains.