NSU University School
What’s Happening In Our Classrooms?
NSU University School preschoolers are ready to take on the world! This year, they’re busy growing, exploring, and learning about physical science, the animal kingdom, mathematics, technology, and human anatomy. From the classroom to the playground, our youngest students learn that kindness always matters and caring counts.
Students in PK1 celebrated the chilly weather by exploring ice and describing its properties. Activities included ice counting, ice painting, a melting ice experiment, fizzy ice cubes, and an ice cube sensory bin. The students also made their own rainbows using paper towels, markers, and water, and then identified the colors of the rainbow as they sang the Rainbow Colors song.
Our PK2 students explored and learned about farm animals. They discussed farm life, the diversity of farm animals, and the sounds they make. Their classroom experiences included muddy-pigs sensory painting, cotton ball sheep art, and sorting and matching activities. The students also began to practice letter recognition, starting with the first letter in each of their names. Teachers then challenged students to find that letter in many group and individual activities. As students recognized the first letter in their names, teachers began working with first-name recognition.
PK3 students explored engineering in different ways and were challenged to think of innovative ways to build a house utilizing various materials. Together, they constructed houses with blocks and tweezers, made house paintings with Legos, and built towers with cardboard tubes and plates. The students also learned about magnets. They discussed words that describe magnetic metals, predicted if objects around the classroom were magnetic, and tested them to learn if their predictions were accurate.
During Innovation, our junior kindergarten children explored coding. Using motion-coding blocks, they studied coding algorithms to program a robot across different mat/map environments. The children used iPads to play interactive coding games to manipulate figurines and colorful coding tiles, bridging the physical world with technology.
Junior kindergarten students also read the book “You Have Healthy Bones,” collaborated to construct a class skeleton with labeled parts, then created their own individual skeletons. They also studied real X-rays, matching bones to corresponding body parts, drawing hands with bones, cutting out skeleton shapes, observing bones from fish and snakes, engaging in imaginative doctor’s play, and even crafting playdough figures using straws as bones.
