Category Archives: Uncategorized

We had an awesome trip down to the Chicago Children’s Museum at Navy Pier. Even though it was raining, we had a fun time exploring all the learning areas of the museum inside! The children were great, and were engaged in many different activities! I loved being able to walk around and visit with each group to check in on what they were learning, playing, and creating! This was a perfect end to our inquiry unit into community helpers where they got to explore and role-playing various jobs in our community. Today they were postal workers, plumbers, paleontologists, archaeologists, architects, engineers, explorers, fishermen, grocery workers, bus drivers, firefighters, veterinarians, problem solvers, and more!

So, without further ado; here is our picture slideshow! Enjoy!

***As of 3-30-16, I added all the photos that were emailed to me by parents who chaperoned the field trip! I hope you enjoy the updated pictures!***

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Friday, March 18th our school observed The United Nations International Day of Happiness; which is observed on March 20th (it fell on Sunday this year). This observation day of Happiness was brought to our attention by a parent in our room Sheila Sheridan! She wanted to support an act of kindness to help spread happiness around Peirce! Shelia created a “Happiness Wall” in the main first floor hallway, where students, teachers, and staff have been visiting the wall and writing things that make them happy. We also had a school wide dance party to the song, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams on Friday at 1:30 p.m.!

Below are pictures from our “Day of Happiness”! What makes you happy? Leave your comments below!

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March 2nd was a fun filled day in room 121! Many of the children have taken an interest in finding rhyming words within stories I’ve been reading, and what better way to expose them to more rhymes than with the beloved stories from Dr. Seuss! Also, Dr. Suess stories offer many opportunities for students to ask questions, think philosophically about topics that they can relate to…yes, even three year olds can think philosophically! Example from today’s story, “Green Eggs and Ham”, we discussed that the main character had never tried green eggs and ham, but was most certain he did not like them. This led to a life lesson about “trying new things is okay. How do we know if we like or not like something unless we try it?” This is a HUGE lesson with young children when it comes to exploring their world. In the story, “Cat in the Hat”, the two children in the story experience challenges that force them with choices to make “in the moment”. How would you react? What would you do in that situation? Would you tell your mom what had happened at home? Or would you tell the truth? These are excellent questions and connections that young aged children can make.

Here is a fun article that gives you “11 Important Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss”. How many of his books do you have in your child’s collection? What lessons could you teach your child through his stories?  11 Important Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss

Enjoy our slideshow of our Seuss-tastic day!

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Two Fridays ago, our AM class had the opportunity to meet their 3rd Grade Reading Buddies from Ms. Jump’s class! They had a great time getting to know each other and creating a counting detective book together! Using our preschoolers fingerprints, our 3rd grade reading buddies helped the preschoolers read and count the amount of fingerprints they should put down into their “detective book”. Thirty minutes went by fast! The preschoolers are already asking me, “when are our buddies coming back down?” I think that’s a good sign!

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On Wednesday, we were lucky to have TWO Chicago Firefighters come and visit our preschoolers in the AM and PM classes. Each firefighter came to talk to the children about fire safety and what it is like to be a firefighter! This was an excellent experience to wrap up our week and a half study on Firefighters within our inquiry into community helpers! The Chicago Fire Department sent over a huge box of coloring books, and fire prevention information for your family! These materials were sent home in your child’s folder on Thursday. One of the things that the firefighters told the children to do at home, is to create a “safety plan” in case there was an emergency! Over the weekend, take some time to create and practice your family’s “safety plan”!

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We are super excited to have Ms. Jump’s 3rd graders pairing up with our preschoolers for a reading buddy program! Every other week, our 3rd grade reading buddies will come down for 30 minutes to read to the AM and PM classes! Each 3rd grader has been paired up with one child from each AM and PM class.

Having reading buddies within our school is one way we help to foster many of our IB learner profiles and attributes. It helps build confidence and self-esteem for our older students to read to younger children. No matter where they are at in their reading ability, it offers them practice to help build their oral fluency, questioning, and comprehension skills. In return, our preschoolers are getting a one on one connection with a young person to look up to. They are being modeled reading skills that can help encourage them to want to learn how to read, as well as listening to story, answering questions, and connecting to another young person that is a few years older than they are. The benefits of this program are endless, and we are super excited to get this started!

On Friday, January 29th, the 3rd graders came down to visit our PM class for the first time! It was a lot of fun, and we were so thrilled with the connections the children were already beginning to build. Enjoy the pictures below of our afternoon together!

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Our preschoolers in the morning class were thrilled to have Lucinda’s mom, Eleanor come to our classroom! Eleanor is a food scientist for the Kraft/Heinz company, and she works specifically with their cream cheese!

During her presentation, she showed the children what she wears at work to do her job, and even taught the kids how cream cheese was made! The best part was the cream cheese taste test! Yum!!!

Of course while she was there, there were not a lot of questions…but after she left, they were very curious about her job and wanted to wear a lab coat with their name on it just like hers!

If you too have a fun job that you would like to share with the children, please let me know so we can arrange a time for you to come in. It can be a quick 10 minute presentation.

THANK YOU FOR COMING IN!!!

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Happy New Year 2016! We jumped right back into the swing of things this week with mitten math and independent skills!

Tuesday marked the beginning of our “Winter Clothing Club” campaign to encourage the children to be independent and dress themselves! It was amazing what a sticker chart and a photo on our “wall of fame” will do. All but one child did not ask us to put their jacket on for them. They all did it on their own! This proves that they know how to do it if given the opportunity to try! For each child to make the winter clothing club, they need to show us five things: 1. Put on their jacket by themselves 2. Zip up their jacket (with minimal help for the little ones) 3. Put on hat 4. Put on gloves/mittens on their own 5. Put on their boots! If they can do all five steps on their own, they get their picture taken all bundled up and put on our “wall of fame”! As the month goes on, we will post more pictures of the children when they make the club!

Our overall lesson theme this week is around the topic of “pairs” and the two stories, “Three Little Kittens” and “The Mitten”. Our small groups have had targeted lessons on counting, one to one correspondence, creating “a pair”, listening to another version of “The Mitten”, and sewing their own mitten! We have had a lot of fun exploring the difference between mittens and gloves and the uses for each. On Wednesday, we took a survey on what they wore to school that day; mittens or gloves? We did a human graph to show the results, and also created a name graph to record their findings!

Enjoy the picture slide show above! Have a wonderful weekend! Keep warm!

On Friday, December 18th our school had our annual “pajama day” before winter break! It was a fun day filled with hot chocolate and candy cane stirs, a gingerbread themed kitchen, and holiday music playing in the background.

The week leading up to pajama day we had “gingerbread man” week where we read five different versions of the gingerbread boy/man story! We compared and contrasted different versions using a Venn Diagram, and also sequenced the original story using pictures. On Thursday  used our five senses to explore and taste test a gingerbread man cookie. It was a lot of fun, and the children enjoyed the activities!

Enjoy some pictures from our special week!

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I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed, so I just created a request for my classroom at DonorsChoose.org:

Light Up A Child’s Life!

It is a project to help replace our very old light table! We are requesting for two new state of the art light cubes, along with a light cube accessory kit! I wanted to request these light cubes last year, but they were sold out by the distributor. They are now back and stock, and I would LOVE to have these portable light table cubes to use throughout our classroom.
Give to my classroom by November 5, 2015 and your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code SPARK on the payment page and you’ll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100).

If you chip in to help my students, you’ll get awesome photos and our heartfelt thanks!

Thanks so much,
Miss Hopkins

P.S. If you know anyone who may want to help my classroom, please pass this along!