Georgia's Pre-K Program teacher newsletter, 2008 May

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

May 2008

"Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness, to teach him how to develop that uniqueness, and then to show him how to share it because that's the only reason for having anything." - Leo Buscaglia

The focus of the May newsletter is on SPACE!
May:
American Bike Month Flower Month
Important Dates to Remember:
May 1--Mother Goose Day May 1--Space Day May 3--Constitution
Memorial Day May 5--Cinco De Mayo May 6--National Teacher Day May 9--Family Child Care
Provider's Day

May 11--Mother's Day
May 12--Kite Day
May 15--L.F. Baum's Birthday
May 16--First U.S. Nickel Minted
May 18--Visit Your Relatives Day
May 18--Peace Day
May 19--Victoria Day
May 25--National Missing Children's Day
May 26--Memorial Day (Observed)
May 27--Masking Tape Patented
May 29--John F. Kennedy's Birthday

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

An Inside Look...
2 Phonological Awareness 2 Parent Involvement 2 Simple Science 3 Changing Your
Environment 4 Recipes 4 Helpful Websites 5 Pre-K Mentor Teachers 5 How to Become a Mentor
Teacher 6 Kindergarten Transition
CONTACT INFORMATION: Pre-K Consultant of the Day 404-656-5957 888-4GA-PREK
Suspension/Disenrollment Contact your Pre-K Consultant

PQA TIPS OF THE MONTH

Tip # 1

clothes should be displayed on

B5--The "meets" column hangers so children can clearly

states that an adequate sup- see their choices. Additional

ply of quality dress-up

clothing choices can be stored

clothes, including clothing in drawers, storage bins, or

worn by both men and

tubs if they are neatly sorted,

women be accessible: Dress- organized, and clearly labeled up clothes should be organized with words and pictures.

and visible so children can

clearly see what's available. Quality clothing items should Clothing should be rotated to foster meaningful role-play

maintain interest throughout experiences. Examples of

the year. Some of the dress-up quality items include:

Fantasy costumes and clothing items (e.g., story book characters) Community worker outfits (e.g., mail carrier, doctor, fire fighter, police officer) Fancy dress-up clothing (e.g., sequin dresses, suits, dressy hats, gowns) Attire that is reflective of cultures (e.g., African da-
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RC Program/Attendance Lori Smith 478-471-5311 Lori.Smith@decal.ga.gov
Newsletter Staff Nicole Cook nicole.cook@decal.ga.gov Peggy Kosater peggy.kosater@decal.ga.gov Meghan McNail meghan.mcnail@decal.ga.gov Pam Bojo Pam.bojo@decal.ga.gov Lori Smith lori.smith@decal.ga.gov Monica Warren monica.warren@decal.ga.gov

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ACTIVITIES

The Pre-K Content Standards address the

all of the components listed above?

various components of phonological

Are planned phonological activities

awareness:

based on the needs of the children

within a group?

1) Differentiates sounds that are the same Does your assessment documentation

and different.

support what you are planning?

2) Repeats rhymes, poems, and finger plays.
3) Recognizes the same beginning sounds in different words (alliteration).
4) Shows growing ability to hear and discriminate separate syllables in words.
5) Creates and invents words by substituting one sound for another.
Including all of these components is important in developing a solid foundation for pre-literacy.
Do your lesson plans reflect planned instruction for phonological awareness?
Do the activities vary using some or

Songs, Poems, & Fingerplays
Star light, star bright, Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight.
Nine Little Planets Tune: "Ten Little Indians" One little, two little, three little planets, Four little, five little, six little planets, Seven little, eight little, nine little planets Spinning round the sun.
Saw A Rocket Tune: "Clementine" Saw a rocket, saw a rocket, Saw a rocket just now. Just now I saw a rocket

And it shot up to the stars. Watched it climb, watched it climb, Watched it climb just now. Just now I watched it climb On its mission to Mars.
Four Little Stars Four little stars winking at me. One shot off, then there were three! Three little stars With nothing to do. One shot off, Then there were two! Two little stars Afraid of the sun. One shot off, Then there was one! One little star Alone is no fun. It shot off, then there was none!
Documentation of a daily phonological awareness activity on your lesson plans is under the Partially Meets column of Section C4 on the PQA.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT IDEA

Host a Pre-K event focused on "space." Invite family members to join their children to explore "space stations." Suggestions for creating simple stations include:
Building pop rockets
Making comet models
Creating space ships
You can also create a weather station.

Ask families to create barometers, hygrometers, and rain gauges to check the weather in space. Another suggestion would be to create an area in the classroom for night sky watching. Use telescopes to gaze at the stars and planets.
Take families on a "spaceship journey." Make a spaceship from a large cardboard box and ask the class to decorate it.

Send pictures of your successful event or other ideas you may have to involve family members to Lori Smith at lori.smith@decal.ga. gov.

SIMPLE SCIENCE FOR CHILDREN

Activity One: Take children outdoors for a moonwalk in their "astronaut" costumes. Their mission is to collect moon rocks. Place found rocks in science with arts materials such as various paint types, white glue, tissue paper, sand, and sparkles. Ask the children to decorate the rocks to create a collection for the area. Demonstrate to the children how to use balancing scales to weigh rocks. Encourage them to use magnifying glasses to explore rocks.

Activity Two: Create a moonscape in your sensory table by placing sand, large rocks, plastic space ships, astronauts, and a U.S. flag in the area.
Activity Three: Create telescopes by placing two layers of black tissue paper over one end of a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll. Secure the tissue paper with a rubber band or tape. Using a straightened out

paper clip, poke holes in the tissue paper. When you look into the open end of the tube, pointing it towards the light or a window, it will look as though you're viewing a galaxy filled with "stars."
Post pictures of planets and other space objects in the science area and encourage the children to use an open-ended telescope to view the pictures.
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CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT for Space

DRAMATIC PLAYAREA Create outer space in the center. Build a spaceship from a large cardboard box. Hang different planets and stars from the ceiling, make space suits, display dried and evaporated types of food in the center. Create a space station and have the children count down to the spaceship blasting off.
SCIENCE AREA Dancing Sultanas--Explore the nature of gases, floating, and sinking with this preschool science activity from Felicity.

What You Do: After showing your children pictures of constellations, give them a piece of black paper and a hole punch. Ask them to punch holes everywhere they want a star in their constellation. Let them add anything else they want to the picture. To make the constellation more visible, place a yellow piece of paper behind it, or just hold it up to the light
MATH/MANIPULATIVES AREA Create a matching or memory game using different types of planets.

Materials needed: A bottle of soda water and a handful of small sultanas (raisins).
Description: Talk with children about the difference between water and soda water (the addition of gases which makes the water bubbly). Open the bottle and add a few sultanas. Watch them dance as the bubbles collect around them! Close the lid and they stop dancing. Ask the children to explain why this happened? This is a great activity for problem solving and predicting.

Add a collection of glow-in-the-dark stars (the ones you stick on a ceiling). Conduct patterning and sorting with them.

WRITING CENTER Add words to your writing center like:

Space

Outer Space Stars

Planets

Jupiter

Mars

Venus

Earth

Uranus

After talking about the moon, show real photos of the moon to youngsters then let them make craters in the sand table. Smooth the sand out and allow children to drop various objects, such as marbles, ping pong balls, golf balls, etc., into the sand. Have them observe the "craters" they made in the sand. Ask questions about the craters like, "Which one is the deepest, biggest, or smallest?"

ART AREA

Cosmic Design

What You Need:

Paint

Spray bottle

Paper

Crayons/Markers

Art Supplies

What You Do: Dilute white paint with water and pour it into a small spray bottle. Let the children spray this mixture onto black construction paper. This will make the paper look like outer space. Next show your children several pictures of the solar system. Invite them to design their own solar system on the paper.

Hole Punch Constellation What You Need: Black Paper Hole Punch Art Supplies

Neptune

Saturn

Moon

You can also add pictures of different planets to word strips. This will address the needs of the readers and non-readers in your classroom.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS Blast Off! A Space Counting Book by Norma
Cole Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch I Want to Be an Astronaut by Byron Barton It Came From Outer Space by Tony Bradman Me and My Place in Space by Joan Sweeney Mooncake by Frank Asch Our Stars by Anne Rockwell Papa Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle The Big Dipper by Franklin Branie The Earth and Sky by Jeunesse Gallimard and
Jean-Pierre Verdet The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons Curious George and the Rocket by H.A. Rey and
Margret Rey Elmo's World: Space! by Random House Mouse on the Moon by Anna Milbourne and
Rachel Wells I Am an Astronaut by Cynthia Benjamin and
Sagasti

For other book ideas, please visit our website under teachers and look for Book List.

B E C R E A T I V E
"For many students, their teachers may be
the only adult with whom they have a
meaningful conversation all day."
-Vickie Gill
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RECIPES FOR CHILDREN

MOON ROCKS
2 cups peanut butter 1 1/3 cups honey 2 cups raisins 2 cups dry milk 3 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (keep
1/2 cup separate) Large zip top bag
Mix dry milk, raisins, and 3 cups of graham cracker crumbs. Add honey and peanut butter, mix well (hands do best). Roll into small balls. Place remaining 1/2 c. of graham cracker crumbs in a large zip top bag. Place several balls into the baggie and shake, then place on a cookie sheet. Chill before serving.
*Do not serve to children with peanut allergies.

SPACE PUDDING
Boxes of instant pudding (one box for every two children) Milk Zip top bags (one for each child) Measuring cups Prior to making the Space Pudding, talk to the children about how astronauts have to eat differently when they are in space because of gravity. Pour half a box of pudding into each child's Ziploc bag. Measure enough milk (according to instructions on pudding box) to make half a box of pudding and allow children to add it to their pudding in the bag. Seal the bag. (Make sure it's sealed tightly!!) Children can squish the bag around with their hands, mixing the pudding with the milk. When all of the pudding is mixed, cut a small hole in the corner

of the bag and let the kids suck the pudding out!
MOON COOKIES
You will need two tubes of pre-made sugar cookie dough for a class of twenty.
Cut a portion of dough for each student. Ask them to flatten out the dough then use their fingers to make moon craters. Bake cookies according to package directions. Cool before serving. You can also decorate the cookies with food coloring in moon-like colors.

HELPFUL WEBSITES

Here are some helpful websites focusing on space.
www.tooter4kids.com/Space/ Spaceindex.htm
www.planet-science.com
www.angelfire.com/dc/childsplay/ Themes.htm
www.hummingbirded.com/space.html
www.prekinders.com/space_kids.htm

www.preschooleducation.com/space. shtml
www.first-school.ws/activities/ onlinestory/science/space1.htm
Be sure to visit Bright from the Start's website for additional resources for your classroom. If you have ideas for our website, please send them to monica.warren@decal. ga.gov.

"I touch the future; I teach."
-Christa McAuliffe

PQA TIPS continued

(continued from page 1) shiki and kufi or head wrap, Latino shirt with serape, Native American attire)
Work attire (e.g., overalls, suits, dress shirts, blazers, uniforms from local businesses)
It is important that all of the children have elements from their lives they can identify with and extend through their play and thoughts.
Tip # 2 C3--The "exceeds" column states that children are involved in developing classroom rules: Establish no more than 4-5 classroom rules. They should be displayed using simple words and symbols/pictures and posted at the

Be sure to read the PQA clarifications and defini-
tions!!

children's eye level. The rules should be concrete and include only what the children "can" do (e.g., "walk inside" rather than "don't run inside"). Refer back to the rules often, since this may be a child's first formal learning experience. Developing rules with children encourages them to share in responsibility for taking care of others and the classroom. Young children need explicit information and guidance from you in order to understand, establish, and follow rules governing classroom behavior. Remember, you are instrumental in laying the foundation and involving children in the process.
For more lesson plan tips visit our website and look under Pre-K/Teachers/ Teacher-PQA Resources/Planning.

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GEORGIA'S 2007-2008 PRE-K MENTOR TEACHERS

Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning thanks the following Georgia Pre-K teachers for their time and effort this year in our Mentor Teacher program.

Christi Bedwell Jo Bradford Sherry Burden Ivy Chapman Cecille Cooper Michelle Darr Katrina Dozier Denise Ellis Marilyn Fober Laura Green Michelle Hallman Rena Hendley Constantine Humphries Valerie Hutcheson Cheryl Johnson Stacy Marshall Ellen McNeil Donna Nelson Kimberly Pearce Becky Smallwood Lisa Seawright Donna Smith

Kiley Bosworth Ashley Brim Geraldine Barnett Anita Collins Le'Tonda Corker Lynn Dobbs Connie Ellington Sheri Evans Diana Grandison Gabriela Guerrero Brenda Harria Jennifer Hilling Debora Hunt Genevieve Johnson Katrina Kingsley Kathleen McGrath Dennise Minshew Jean O'Shields Kay Pollard Kim Reid Stephanie Shumate Misty Smith

Elaine Swartley Becky Thomas Tory Updyke Mary White Patricia Wilson Liz Yow

Kim Terrell Paige Tiller Angel Weeks Melissa Whitley Shelley Yeatman

Mentor teachers played a significant role this year assisting with the New Teacher Institute. They worked closely with representatives from Georgia State University.
Each mentor was assigned to teams that helped out at various locations around the state. Mentor teachers also provided guidance and support to new teachers who work in their counties.
This is the fifth year of the Mentor Teacher program. We continue to have success with our program because of your dedication and involvement!

HOW TO BECOME A MENTOR TEACHER
Pre-K teachers interested in becoming part of the Mentor Teacher program have to be nominated by the Pre-K project director of their program. The project director should complete and submit a nomination form. It can be obtained by contacting our office at (404) 656-5957. Ask to speak with the Pre-K Consultant of the Day.
In addition to submitting a nomination form, the teacher being nominated will also be required to submit the following items:
1) Professional Portfolio should include: A. A sample of four, small group activities the teacher uses in her/his classroom. B. A copy of the daily schedule used in the teacher's classroom. C. A completed lesson plan on a specific unit of study. D. A changes to the environment form for the same topic of study. E. A copy of the teacher newsletter that is given to families. F. A copy of one child's WSS checklist and the Georgia Pre-K Progress Report.
2) One-page personal statement describing why he/she would make a good mentor teacher.
NOTE: All of this information must be submitted by May 23, 2008, via mail to: Meghan McNail Bright from the Start 10 Park Place South, Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30303
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SIMPLE SCIENCE FOR CHILDREN (continued)

(Continued from page 2)
Activity Four: Alien Slime -- Pour cup of white glue into a large plastic cup. Add several drops of food coloring. Slowly pour in cup liquid starch as you stir the mixture with a craft stick. Continue stirring until a rubbery putty forms. Keep it tightly covered when not in use.

Activity Five: Fill a ziptop bag with inexpensive hair gel. Assist children with adding glitter and a few stars or jewels that resemble shiny stars. Seal with duct tape.
Activity Six: Draw a large scale example of a simple constellation on a bulletin board or cork board. Attach a string of white lights to the model to represent the

stars. (You may want to change the constellation every few days.) Give children star stickers and various examples of constellations on paper. They can place the stars on drawn examples or onto blank paper to create their own constellations. Create a class-made book with their work.

KINDERGARTEN TRANSITION

As the end of the school year approaches, it's time to increase kindergarten transition activities in your classroom. Hopefully your school has arranged for your class to visit a kindergarten classroom, meet a kindergarten teacher, or even take a practice ride on a school bus.
Classroom activities you can use to help prepare the children for this transition:
Practice classroom morning routines such as a "moment of silence" or the pledge to the flag.
Have children practice raising their hands to answer questions.
Practice carrying items on cafeteria trays (or cookie sheets). This can be done in centers as well as during meals and snacks or on the playground.
Teach children how to open individual milk cartons and straws.
Show them how to open individual condiment packets (ketchup, mustard, etc.).
Practice walking as a group from the classroom to other locations in the building.
Take the children to another classroom so that a different teacher can "teach" them a brief lesson (such as music or P.E.). This helps the children

get used to the idea that they may have other teachers for "specials." Teach them how to properly answer "roll call." Practice getting on and off a school bus. Practice checking out library books (using a card) from the public library, classroom library, or site office. Read books to your class that focus on Kindergarten (Pre-K has a suggested list). Show them how to sharpen a pencil. Plan activities that require cooperative interaction. Ideas include: Working with a friend to put together teacher-made
puzzles. Working with a friend to match simple word cards
with symbol cards. Working with a friend to match other classmate's
name with picture. Building with a buddy.
Remember that these ideas help familiarize children with new concepts and/or routines, so we want to make them fun! Be sure to discuss (in large group, small group, and individually) why you are doing these things.
We'd love to hear and see what you've done with your class. Activity ideas and picture of events can be sent to Monica Warren at monica.warren@decal.ga.gov.

KINDERGARTEN TRANSITION: Suggested Children's Books

Annabelle Swift, Kindergartner by Amy Schwartz Boomer Goes to School by Constance W.
McGeorge Countdown to Kindergarten by Allison McGhee Curious George Goes to School by Margret Rey Elizabeti's School by Stephanie Stuve-Boden

First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg If You Take a Mouse to School by
Laura Numeroff Little Cliff's First Day of School by Clifton L. Taulbert Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come by Nancy Carlson Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten
by Joseph Slate

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