Wow! Another short week...just one short regular school day due to snow. We accomplished so much though.
As promised, here are a few more vet hospital photos. The whale came in for a check up. Go figure.
We worked on the letter A. The kiddos made stick art. A is for alligator. They also sorted short and long a sounds.
Some of the kiddos chose to play with the snowy sound sort. They matched the small toys to what sound they made. This game is always a favorite.
The Friday kiddos had hot chocolate and created a paper cocoa mug according to how they liked their cocoa.
We then graphed our cocoa mugs. We discovered that more friends liked chocolate chips and marshmallows in their cocoa than just marshmallows or plain.
To round out the day, we glittered the snowflakes that we cut out last week. I had to put a sign on the door to warn all that entered "Caution: Glitter Zone." We had glitter everywhere!
Keep warm. I hope that we have more than 2 days of school next week! We have a lot of playing to do!!!!!!
52 "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."
This week we studied Luke 2:52. We discussed the vocabulary words stature and wisdom. We then drew pictures of how we can obey God just as Jesus did when he obeyed Mary and Joseph and returned to Nazareth with them. The kids also measured their height with snowflakes.
We read some snow themed books such as "The Jacket I Wear In The Snow," "Making Tracks," and "The Snowy Day." These stories where a great way to kick off snowman season. I love snowmen!!! We have a lot of snowman activities planned over the next several weeks, and maybe even some real snow outside to play in!
We made a really nice snowy day picture. Using puffy paint, the kids spread it out with a craft stick, then made tracks with sticks and little people and animals. We completed the picture by adding a Peter Character.
Love It!!!!!!!!A short 2 minute video made by Cal Barr based on the well known Children's story by Ezra Jack Keats,
starring his little brother.
We practiced fine motor skills by making play dough snowflakes and snipping snowflakes out of paper.
Our winter writing center encouraged creativity and independence.
The little snowmen added pizazz to the block center. The kids used the big blocks to make snowy mountain tops that the snowmen could climb.
We practiced our color words and labeling diagrams.
This snowman was also a math lesson. We drew it together. The trick was I only drew half of the snowman. We discussed symmetry and the kiddos helped me complete the drawing so that it was symmetrical. The kiddos wanted to add a flower, carrot nose and scarf. We then labeled our snowman with sentences that contained our sight words!
Our K4 day wouldn't be complete without
dramatic play. This month we have set up a veterinary clinic. The kiddos liked to take care of the animals. I'll be sure to post better pictures later this month.
We had a special treat on Friday. Some of the eighth grade safety marshalls put on puppet show for us. The kiddos laughed so hard. I think a few of my kiddos were late to car pool...sorry!
Next week we will continue skip counting by ten. We will also spend time learning about Martin Luther King, Jr, fairness and equality. As it stands...snow is on the way so hopefully we get a day off, but not two! I miss my kiddos :-)
We did our best to keep warm this cold winter week. The kiddos love to have their feet painted. Most of them were ticklish, but we made it through the project with not too much of a mess.
Our little penguins make a warm welcome sign on our classroom door. Yes, I painted my foot as well. I'm the big mommy penguin on top.
This week was the letter P so we played with pennies. I gave each child a baggie and their instructions were to count out ten pennies, put them into the bag and put the rest back into the jar. Quite a few were spot on, but many were not. This made the lesson more effective. We were able to practice many math concepts such as counting on, more than/less than, adding, and subtracting. When we were done correcting the bags, we had 10 bags with 10 pennies in each bag. So, you guessed it, this lead to a discussion about skip counting by 10's.
We also used number cards to clip on a line. The number line will be up again next week so that the kiddos can practice ordering the numbers or finding the missing numbers.
P is for polar play. The kiddos created polar play-scapes with white floam, drink holder icebergs, and small polar animals. They practiced using vocabulary such as glaciers, icebergs, igloos, arctic, etc. They also were able to create habitats for all of the polar animals that we have been learning about.
P week wouldn't have been complete without puppets and popcorn!
After watching a portion of "March of the Penguins," the kiddos ordered their penguins 1-16.
Arctic animal week is always one of our favorites. We talk about many of the animals that call the snow and ice their home. We didn't quite finish our writing project so I wanted to save that for next week. The picture gives you a little sneak peak! Who doesn't love a pink penguin :-)
To ring in the new year, we had a poppin' good time painting with pop rocks. I added pop rock candy to the kiddos finger paint and pop, pop, pop!
We spent a lot of time reviewing the calendar. Our favorite way to remember the days of the week and months of the year is through fun music and movement. The kiddos helped change the calendar from December to January and we played guess the missing number to fill in the days.
We read "Squirrel's New Year's Resolution" by Pat Miller. It is a delightful book about a squirrel and his search to make a resolution. The kiddos caught on quickly and came up with some great resolutions.
Our New Year's Resolutions
SO resolves to tickle people more.
TL resolves to have more fun.
PW resolves to play with his sister nicely.
JO resolves to help others when they are in trouble.
AD resolves to help take care of others when they are hurt or sick.
TJ resolves to spend more time with her family eating food.
MS resolves to give to others who don't have as much.
Children learn about the world through their five senses. My kiddos spent the week using their senses to participate in language, math, science and art activities. Since we just finished our bear unit, I found a really simple video on you tube about Betsy Bear and her hunt for dinner using her five senses. It was very low quality, but the Bear's voice made all of the kids giggle. We spent the week doing many sensory activities and ended the week making "Five Senses Betsy Bears." We used jingle bear ears, google eyes, a cotton ball dipped in orange extract nose, a peppermint mouth and sand paper paws.
To kick off our sensory experiences, we did candy cane science part 2! I got it right this time and used baking soda. We reviewed the chart that listed our observations from the previous experiment. This helped us to remember what happened so that we could compare our results. The first obvious difference that they picked up on was the bubbles! They came up with some great descriptive words...fizzy, bubbly, foamy, noisy. These observations directly contrasted with the previous experiments descriptive words...smooth, slimy, silky, quiet.
They enjoyed exploring our sense boxes in science. Their favorite by far was the sense of touch box. It contains dozens of objects with differing textures as well as mystery balloons. After discussing the contents of the box and identifying words to describe each texture, the kiddos were free to explore on their own. I heard some great vocabulary.
Notice the child in green. He is feeling the mystery balloon and trying to figure out what is in it. He did it! He found a bag with flour and determined that the balloon felt the same as the bag of flour when he squeezed it.
We used jingle bells and other instruments during circle time to explore our sense of hearing.
Most, if not all of our exploration opportunities are multi-sensory. One of my favorite early literacy activities is to use cooked spaghetti to form letters and words. I took this activity and put a holiday spin on it. I used food coloring to dye cooked linguine red and green, sprinkled some glitter and added a few drops of peppermint and voila...linguine letters.
Our classroom moms came in on Thursday to help us celebrate Jesus' birthday. Mrs. W and Mrs. D did an awesome job! They brought us Christmas brownies, juice and popcorn for our sense of taste. The kiddos got to make "eye spy" ornaments. This activity fit perfectly in to our lessons. Great minds think alike :-) What a great ending activity for our Five Senses Unit!!!!
My intention was to publish this the first day of break. Didn't quite make that deadline...but finished before the break was over! Today feels like Sunday, which is going to be great when it feels like Tuesday, but it is actually Friday.
My best wishes to you all for a happy and prosperous New Year!!!
