Messy Monday

We tried a fun science experiment today in Ms. Williams and Ms. Davenport's classes. We made GAK!  We got the idea from Pinterest, of course.  See original post at Joys of Boys blog. 

This is the recipe:

And the ingredients 

The teachers gave each child 2 cups (thanks to Sonic for their donation to last years 5K!)  In one cup they put the borax and water and allowed the children to stir it with a Popsicle stick. Then in the other cup, they put the glue and food coloring and allowed the children to stir it. After everything was mixed, the teacher took 1 Tbls of the borax/water mixture and added it to the glue/food coloring cup. The children stirred it and watched the GAK form!!!

This is the final product!

Fun times at AFDS!!! Have you done a fun science experiment lately??  

Read Alouds

At AFDS we stress reading!  We are a part of the Texas School Ready Program. We are using the Scholastic curriculum. With this program, my staff has learned how to successfully implement Read Alouds into their daily schedule.   Every day each teacher does at least 2-3 Read Alouds. This is an interactive conversation between the teacher and the students.  With this grant program, we received invaluable training. Along with this we received a Circle Manual. This manual was developed by the Children's Learning Institute. In this manual it gives the rationale for Read Alouds. 

-promotes an enjoyable experience with books

-motivates children to want to read

-provides a good model of fluent and expressive reading

-helps develop a sense of story

-builds background knowledge

-builds comprehension

-increases concept and vocabulary knowledge

-provides opportunities to hear and understand a more formal language and

-inspires writing!

We use a Read Aloud Chart to go along with each book:

Because we believe that reading is the single most critical activity for later success, we also include books in all of our centers!  We try to read a variety of genres, read in small and large group settings, and teach vocabulary from the books we are reading.  As you can see from the photo above, we put the vocabulary words in the read aloud chart.  We further teach the children about the parts of the book (cover, spine, title) and the jobs of the author and the illustrator!

Is reading a vital part of your daily routine??

-Traci-

Bike-a-Thon

We are hosting our first annual Bike-a-Thon on March 20th. This is a fundraising event for our playground fund. We are very excited about this!!  My staff and parents have been asking local businesses to sponsor us.  We've been very successful thus far. The kiddos are also raising money by collecting pledge donations. They are very excited about getting to ride their bikes at school.  Stay tuned for the outcome!  We are taking a week off for spring break and will start fresh on the 17th! 

www.allfaithsdayschool.com

-Traci-

First Blog Post

Welcome to my blog.

I am the director of a small private pre-k in southeast Texas, called All Faiths Day School. We have been in business since 1972. 41 years of serving our small, rural community.  I began as director in 2008. Since my start, I've made a lot of changes to our little school.  I have an amazing group of ladies on my staff. I'm very proud of our accomplishments and can't wait to begin sharing our ideas and hard work.

-Traci Turner