Happy Halloween!

Our letter this week is "D". So we began the day (as usual Monday's go) with the Big Event. You might recall we do this weekly because studies show that by involving multiple senses in the learning process, students are more apt to grasp what's being taught. In this case, it's the alphabet and the sounds made by letters. So with the "D", we had a "Dig for Dog bones". Mrs. Sapp hid mini dog bones (real) in a bucket of colored rice. The kids got to choose which digging utensil they would use to locate a bone. Then, we had them put the bone on a Doll.

We followed up the Big Event with our typical letter-writing exercise. Everyone is doing very well with these.

We are talking community this week. So, we had a brief discussion about what the word means to them. We had some very insightful responses, like: "It's when someone shares with me and I share with them". And, it really kind of is. We explained it this way: "It's like a neighborhood. In fact, it IS a neighborhood. It's where we all live, work, and play together. So, it's important to be kind and share. But to be helpful and caring, also." They seemed to grasp the concept pretty well. So we worked together putting together an imaginary community. Mrs. Eastman had a vey large pocket chart and some laminated images. She invited all the children in the group to select an item from the circle. We discussed them and put them together in groups. There's that word again. We gave the children an opportunity to group items together (remember our math focus this month and into November?). From the images on the rug, the kids could select a person, a job, the transportation for that job, and a location. They all did a very, very good job. We will continue discussing the community this week as we end the week with our trip through the community and to the Fire Department (on Friday).

In anticipation of the field trip, we did a little number recognition (and ordering) activity as individuals. The kids got a xerox of a long fire hose. They were instructed to put the numbers 1-10 in order on the hose starting from left to right. Just about everyone performed very well. There are still a few of us that are either (1) still working on number identification, and/or (2) don't understand the concept of ordering (age appropriate ... this comes later for many!) These went home today so you can work with your little one if he/she brought something home that looked a little "off".

Mrs. Eastman brought in a pumpkin for a little treat. She filled a cup with a solution of yeast, peroxide, and food coloring. Even though she experimented at home over the weekend (and that went well), it flopped at school. So we had the kids all gathered around. We were excited to watch them observe the solution foaming and oozing out of the jack-o-lantern's mouth. We waited. And waited. Shucks! It didn't work. So we improvised. We didn't want to leave them hanging. Of course, we explained how that's what experiments are. Sometimes they don't work as planned. That didn't appear to appease them. So we rounded up some alka seltzer, put it in a cup and added food coloring and peroxide and stuck it inside the jack-o-lantern. Viola! They loved it. Whew!

Finally, we read a book about emergency and dialing 9-1-1. We followed up with a rhyme and felt board activity and a discussion about what an emergency is and what that means to actually use a phone and "dial" the numbers.

A Fantabulous Day!

Boy did we have a fun (and busy) day. You tired your teacher out! Of course, our day began with our parade! The kids had so much fun seeing all of you and showing off their costumes. We got to go right down to the festival fun after the parade. And, after that, we went to gym! Not so much learning the first half but lots of fun!

We had a shadow from The Phoenix School today. She also attends church at St. John's and is interested in a career with children. Her name was Rory and she spent the first half of the day with us.

Because our letter was H, we made hedgehogs from triangles and circles. They turned out really cute. Then, we did our sight word (THE) song and followed-up with the writing page. Everyone is really getting good at writing!

This week we talked about monsters so we made a fun monster craft from toilet paper rolls. The kids had fun naming their monster and just dreaming up fun while getting creative with the decor.

We had such a busy morning and we decided a little yoga might calm us all down. Mrs. E. led the way with some deep breathing and some toe-touching. It worked! Thank goodness!

We also talked about how a bunch of words together make sentences that tell stories and do so much more. With that discussion, we shared the notion of "syllables" with the kids. We went through a list of kids' names and clapped everytime we stopped to emphasize a syllable. Then, we sent the kids to their desks and gave them a picture of a cartoon monster with large teeth. They also got some candy corn and were instructed not to eat it ... yet. Each time Mrs. E. spoke a Halloween term, they were to determine how many syllables were in the word. Once they did that, they were instructed to put that many "candy corn" teeth on the monster! This was great fun. One little classmate kept clapping out every word we said from that point on ... for the rest of the day! We just laughed and giggled at his excitement.

To end the day we did a little sugar cookie decorating. The kids got a sugar cookie with a dollup of orange icing. They used their fingers to spread it out on their cookie and decorated with some chocolate chips. To tell the truth, we were stuffed by then! So we did a quick scissor-cutting exercise. The kids got an orange piece of paper that was folded in half. There were some black lines on the paper and they were asked to cut on the lines then open the folded paper to see what they got! A jack-o-lantern!

Have a super weekend!

P.S. our fire dept. field trip is FRIDAY NOT WEDNESDAY of next week.

What A Great Day!

Today was our Halloween Parade and it was a blast! We had so much fun and the kids were sooooooo well-behaved. Sometimes at this age, they tend to run to their parents when they see them and your teachers freak-out because we are afraid we will lose someone. They all listened to instruction and stayed in our beautiful line! Love 'em!

After our parade, we went back to our room and read a Halloween mouse book. Then we went downstairs to share music time with The Music Lady and the Orange Room. Again, so well-behaved and had a blast. She was getting them to move around, sing, dance and make funny faces. Check out some of our pictures! LOL.

After music we got to go the Halloween Games in Kilbourne Hall. We fished for treasures; bowled; threw hoola hoops on pumpkins; played Plinko and much more! Thanks to all the parents for putting this together. The kids really enjoy this part of the day!

Following our festival fun, we went to our room and made a fun ghost craft (thank you Mrs. Pawley for helping out with that!). After our craft we got to eat fun cookies with orange icing (that we spread onto the cookie with our finger!). The kids got to decorate their cookies with mini chocolate chips. Yum!

Finally, we did a little scissor-cutting exercise at the end of the day. The kids had a piece of orange paper that had lines drawn on it. When you cut on the lines then open up the paper, you have your very own jack-o-lantern!

Have a super Trick-or-Treat if you are attending. And, enjoy your weekend. Hope it doesn't rain all weekend!

Our Sight Word Is "THE"

We began our day with the Music Lady. Yep. Did our jobs and got right downstairs. The kids are always so "into" what she is doing! She keeps them singing and moving. It's fun to watch.

When we came back upstairs, we read the book "Go Away Big Green Monster" to the kids. If you aren't familiar with the book, it's about a child telling the monster to go away. Each page features a different characteristic in the monster's face. Following the story, we did a group activity on the rug. The kids each got a picture of a monster with different characteristics. They had to recreate their face using felt and construction paper/laminated lips, eyes, etc. Most did really well. I think the challenge was not in repeating the monster in the picture but in actually locating the item they needed to complete their face!

Later began talking about sorting and classification. This is were we look at items and try to discriminate what is different or alike. The kids did a very good job at explaining sorting to me when they used the term "splitting up". It IS kind of like that. On the rug, we spread out different pictures of monsters. Mrs. Sapp instructed the children to "put all the monsters with one eye" (all the monsters that were blue; all that had teeth) together in a pile. They got to see that we can sort and group things in different ways. Then we tried to "sort" the kids in our classroom (their idea) according to: hair color; eye color; those with laces on their shoes; girls from boys. They had fun with this. They came up with their own group ideas and we followed through. You can even see in the pictures they thought the girls with light-colored hair should sit ON TOP of something (table, chair, etc.) while the girls with dark-colored hair went UNDER something. They even tied in our previous discussions on spatial relationship!

We practiced writing our sight word: THE on our sight word book.

Finally, we did a little monster glyph (listening) activity. These went home today. Many did very well. A few had difficulty. The kids had a black and white drawing of the Big Green Monster and when Mrs. E read the instructions (if you are a boy, color the face purple, etc.) they followed along.

We had a fun and busy day!

Letter H Week

The kids are getting the hand of the letter worksheets. They get them done lickety split and they work hard on them!

In honor of the letter of the week, we made a "House" letter craft. The kids are getting better with their glue sticks. Some are still having trouble listening to instructions. The glue ends up on both sides of the paper. We will keep at it!

Today Mrs. Eastman brought in supplies for a fun little treat at snacktime. The kids got to make pumpkin faces with cheese shapes and bread!

We made a little pumpkin book for you and your child to enjoy at home. This wrapped up our focus on spatial relationships. We read the book together on the rug.

We will soon be working with the kids on name recognition. There are several who are struggling with identifying their own name in print. You can practice at home to get ready for our upcoming efforts.

Hooray For The Letter H!

This week our letter is H. We had fun putting our palm in front of our mouths and saying words that begin with H. There's a little puff of air that comes out when we make that sound! As usual, we followed up with our Big Event. The kids were asked to go into the Hall and Hunt for Letters H on the wall. When they located one, they were invited you yell "horray"! That was fun.

Our number of the day was 8! Our little ones love to choose the number so we had two kiddos do this today and added the numbers together. Quite a difficult concept at this age ... but don't you know one little gal was right with us when we were showing them the plus and equals signs! Our numbers were 2 and 6. We showed the kids how to use their fingers to add these numbers!

While practicing our letter-writing, everyone did very well. From time to time, we will send home some letter-writing practice sheets. These are for you to observe what we observe at school. Lots of hard working kids. We also figure everyone can benefit from practice. This group of kids is so eager to learn and we are thrilled to "get in on that" and keep 'em going.

We are talking "monsters" this week. We figure it's a nice time to discuss these make-believe creatures. We read a book about a little monster boy who was afraid about PEOPLE! It was the old-age "monsters under my bed" but in reverse. The little boy in the story was afraid to go into his "cave" at night for fear there would be little girls and boys hiding in his closet, under his bed and behind his chair. This brought up all kinds of stories from our little ones. They worked through that fear of their's and told us there was no such thing as monsters. Just about everyone had a monster story to share with the class!

In honor of monsters, we made goo today. Of course, Mrs. Eastman embellished a little and told the kids we were using monster "snot" to make the goo. Really, it was glue. They had fun with this little bit of craziness. Many were brave souls who stuck their hands in and felt around.

We have a large "parachute" in our classroom so we read a poem about crows and put construction paper crows with numbers on them. The kids got to shake, shake, shake the parachute until the crows fell off. They were invited to grab one and identify the number on it. Several children got it right on the nose. We tricked 'em up a bit as their were double-digits on some crows but the kiddos id'd both letters as individuals and that's okay for now. We will keep working on our number identification.

Don't forget, this Friday is our Halloween Parade. Please send your kiddos to school in their costume (please leave all accessories to costumes at home). Send in a bag to put their costume in because we will change out of it after the parade. Later in the afternoon they will go to another room in the school for a little carnival fun!