March Week 2

We read several fun books today including a 1970s children's book called "And the Wind Blew".  We made paintings using straws to blow the paint around the paper.  It was an art project more about the process than the end result, the kids enjoyed doing it.  The kids also used straws to blow a cotton ball back and forth between two people.  They were trying to get the cotton ball closer to their opponent! The kids did really well with this game even though it had a winner/loser.  Not winning is really great practice for kindergarten! We also did an experiment where we put water, oil, and glitter in a bottle and took turns spinning it to create a tornado!  We also read "The boy who harnessed the wind"  about a boy from a small village in Africa who figures out how to make a wind turbine and help his village.  We were so busy today I didn't take any pictures.  

March Week 1

Tuesday:  We talked about the clouds and made clouds in a cup.  The kids put droppers full of colored water on top of the shaving cream until it was saturated and started to fall through.  We made rainbow cloud pictures and read lots of books about clouds and rain.  

Thursday: We had a stations day where each child worked on letter recognition and writing with me and then did several games around the room.  They fished for letters, practiced beading, and made cupcakes!

February Week 3

Tue:

We practiced the alphabet and the letter N.  We went through everyone's name to see who had an N in their name.  We made a gift for the birds and read books about Springtime!

Thur:

Today we talked all about the Sun.  We made solar ovens and read books about the sun.  We talked in depth about what the Sun does for our planet and used it to cook smores! We had a great time and learned a lot today!

February Week 2

Tue: Valentine's Day party

 We read several valentine's day books and then decorated cookies for our snack.  After that I taught them to play tic tac toe. This is a great early math skill.  It helps with graphing, thinking ahead, and basic one-to-one counting.  Some of the kids could play and some could not, it is a game that takes practice, but it easy to practice at home!  After that we decorated our valentine's day cookes.  The kids did great passing out valentines.  I modeled how to give them out and how to say thank you loud enough to be heard.  Everyone used their best manners and waited for their turn!  We had a great time!

Thur:  Returned to the theme of honesty.  We read "The Boy who Cried Wolf" and "The Boy Who Cried Bigfoot".  The kids asked a lot of questions about what happened, so we spent a lot of time chatting about the books, it was fun to see them so engaged in the stories!  After we read it the kids colored masks for different characters and they acted out the story.  I think this helped them understand it better.  After that I let them free play with the masks outside so they could create their own story.  It turns out being a wolf is the best part.  

You can't hear every part of the kids dialogue (especially as the wolves attack) on this but here is a video of our re-telling of the boy who cried wolf.

February Week 1

Tuesday: Today we started our new unit on honesty and hard work.  We read the Empty Pot by Demi, one of my top ten favorite kids books.  Here is a synopsis of the book from amazon. 

A long time ago in China there was a boy named Ping who loved flowers. Anything he planted burst into bloom. The Emperor loved flowers too. When it was time to choose an heir, he gave a flower seed to each child in the kingdom. "Whoever can show me their best in a year's time," he proclaimed, "shall succeed me to the throne!" Ping plants his seed and tends it every day. But month after month passes, and nothing grows. When spring comes, Ping must go to the Emperor with nothing but an empty pot. Demi's exquisite art and beautifully simple text show how Ping's embarrassing failure is turned triumphant in this satisfying tale of honesty rewarded.

We painted empty pots while we talked about honesty.  I also told a story with lots of fibs for each child.  Everyone took a turn holding more and more blocks with every lie until there were too many to hold!  We also did the letter L and a sorting activity.

Thursday: Letter of the day was the M.  We played a game where the kids collected hearts with letters A-M scattered down the hall and put them in order.  We also worked on our super secret valentine's surprise.

Friday: Math Stations

After our normal circle time routine we did stations.  We did a heart matching game with upper and lower case letters.  We also did a math heart game where the kids rolled a dice and colored in the matching heart. We had several other puzzle and team work stations.  It was a fun friday!

 We read these two books and then talked about lies too heavy to hold.  I told a story about each of the kids where they decided told lies, and then with each lie I gave them a can to hold until they all came spilling down.  The kids really enjoyed hearing the funny stories and talking about what they should do instead.

January week 4

Thursday:  Today we wrapped up the human body section by talking all about teeth!  I used an egg to represent a tooth.  I drew on it with marker and prompted the kids to figure out how to get it clean.  They came up with the idea of brushing it with a toothbrush and everyone took a turn brushing the egg.  It was super clean by the end of everyones turn!  After that we used egg cartons and playdough to talk about flossing.  The kids practiced flossing on the egg cartons and saw how helpful it is to get food out between two teeth.  We also did a letter review fishing game and a math worksheet.  The kids are making good progress in both areas.  We also celebrated Sophie's birthday! She brought in treats to share with her friends and we played birthday bowling.  We sure love having her in our school!

January Week 3

Tuesday:  Today we talked about the stomach and intestines. To show the students what the stomach does, I put our snack, which consisted of goldfish, graham crackers, and nilla wafers into a plastic bag.  Then I added vinegar to act as an acid to break down the food.  Everyone took turns mixing it up just like our stomach squeezes foods to mix them up.  the kids had a great time thinking of their favorite things to eat and talking about how it moves through each part of the GI tract.  

Thursday:  Today we talked all about bones!  We looked at x-rays from different parts of the body such as, a broken arm, a broken leg, and a cracked skull.  We talked about how the doctors would help fix each of them.  I told them my broken arm stories and how I got a cast and felt better. We also looked at x-rays of animals, the snake being everyone's favorite.  After that the kids created their own "x-rays" of their hands.  They also added a humerus bone to their cut outs and got ready to take them home!  we have also been focusing on doing lots of counting and basic math!  We are making a lot of progress in that area.

Apparently this is the only photo I took this week.