A Nice Winter Day

Wow! The weather was so not like winter! We went outside to play today and everyone loved it. We also decorated bags for our Valentine exchange on Tuesday the 14th.

Our letter this week is Y. So we made the letter with our bodies. We also noticed that if we made the Y and T together ... and quickly, we might fly! So we "flew" down to French class doing the Y and T.

Madame taught us "bla" is the color for blue ... among other things!

The kids are getting so good and fast at their handwriting sheets that we will have to present a challenge next week when we do the letter of the week!

Finally, we worked on our letter craft ... which was a Yak!

Have a super day off on Wednesday!

A Wintery Mix

Well, upon waking this morning it wasn't snowing. Then, on my drive to school I was battling snowy rain. Quickly though, it disappeared. We had a mixed up day, sort of.

We worked on our sight word -- SEE -- a bit. We sang our song, spelled the word and wrote it on our worksheet.

We followed up on our mitten story by Jan Brett by estimating how many 1 inch cubes would fit on a construction paper mitten. Wow! We were all fooled. Some guesses included, 10, 11, 16, 24, 4 and 5. It actually held 45! We altered our guesses as we went along ... and saw that it would be much more than 10! They were pretty good at making new assumptions after seeing where 10 got us. It was quite impressive. One sweet little guy then wanted to try to cover our entire rug with 1 inch cubes. I think we may have been there all day if we tried that one! But a good idea nonetheless.

Since we had been studying about penguins and today was so yucky outside, we watched a bit of the March of the Penguins. They had many insightful comments and questions after having studied them and now watching them in action on the screen. They could tell the movie took place in the cold and remembered the Emperor was from Antarctica ... the only cold penguin-living place! Wow! It was both a joy and a reward to listen to their comments based on what they had learned (and retained) a few weeks back!

We did a snowman glyph activity where the kids listened and added various items like hats, scarves and mittens based on their gender. We sent those home with the instructions on the back side. You can check and see how well your little one did!

One of our little gals was a guest reader today! She did a super job. Her story was fun. The kids were entertained and she was quite proud! We were, too.

Just a little heads up about Valentine's Day. We will celebrate in the classroom with activities. If you and your child would like to send in Valentine's to distribute, please do so. There are 20 children in our classroom now. We will decorate white bags with handles one day next week. The kids will go around the room independently and put Valentine's in each student's bag. There is no need to label them (this is actually easier as the kids can just parade around and deposit cards vs. trying to locate the right bag with the right name). We will exchange cards on Wednesday the 14th.

Mrs. Sapp brought in a "bag" that was on her front porch. We weren't sure what the bag was or why it was there. So, we began routing through it. We found two sticks. We found a scarf and a hat. Then there were these two very large google eyes and three large buttons. We laid all the items out on the rug. We examined them for a second. I know! Can you guess? They did! It was a snowman!

Have a safe and fun weekend.

We Napped, Melted and Licked Our Fingers

The Music Lady was in today. She sang a song where the kids pretended to sleep and had to wake up when they heard the alarm clock. Then she sang a song and had them "read" music. They were to clap when they saw the appropriate symbol. They did very well listening and participating.

Mrs. Eastman played a game with the kids. We had some snowmen (laminated construction paper) and a sun (again, paper) and clouds. The kids had to put the melted snowmen in the pile with the sun and the "snowman in tact" in the pile with the cold clouds. This was a sorting/matching exercise. Everyone got a few turns and did fantastic. Then, the kids had to pretend THEY were snowmen melting. Mrs. E. was the sun. When she came closer to you, you melted and fell to the ground.

We made our own sort of melted snowman using marshmallow fluff, mini chocolate chips and a candy corn for the nose. The kids smoothed out the spoonful of fluff (licked their fingers) and applied the rest of the pieces to the melted snowman. These are edible and they came home with you today.

Our letter this week was W. So we had the kids play with wiki-wax sticks. They made the letter with the sticks then ran their fingers (imaginary pencils) over the letter.

We had a super day. Enjoy your weekend.

The MItten

We had a new sight word today. It was "SEE". When we introduce a new word, we write it on the board first. The kids are supposed to sound it out. We didn't even finish writing the second "E" today and they knew the word! Then we asked them to go back to their desks and complete their SEE book.

We also read the story called "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Most of you know this story ... I know this because many of the children knew it. After reading, we did an exercise at our table. They had to put the pictures of the critters that were in the story on the left side of the page and those that were not on the right side. We played a little trick on them, ALL the critters were in the story. Many of them got confused as to what a badger, hedgehog and mole were and put them in the wrong place. Oh well.

We also acted out the story using a large, white sheet as our mitten. The kids got puppet masks that looked just like the animals in the story. Everyone got a turn to SQUEEZE into the mitten. Then, the bear sneezed and the mitten blew away. Boy did they LOVE this.

Our Music Lady was in today. She showed the kids how to use triangles (musical instrument) and they pretended to be an alarm. She sang a song about kids sleeping and they ran their "alarm". One little gal suggested the teachers go to sleep and they would wake us with their alarm. Course, we didn't argue.

We worked with numbers today when we completed a new book about the mitten and how many animals were found in it.

Lastly, the kids made a class book by drawing a picture and writing the name of an item (could be an animal, a food, or anything) they hoped to find in a lost mitten one day.

Have a super Thursday off. Maybe it will snow?!

Tuesday With Madame

Did you know Madame Smail is celebrating her 40th year teaching French here at SJEEC?! Can you believe that? Several parents have told us in past years that THEY had madame when they were attending school here as a small child. She is a wonderful contribution to our school. The kids enjoy her so much!

We practiced writing our W today and we sounded out lots of W words. We also made a walrus craft that will go in the kiddos' portfolios.

We did a fun exercise at the table with colors. Mrs. E. brought in mini M&M's and the kids had to put the colored M&M's on a printout of a snowman ... he too, had colors on his buttons, hat, etc. Then she said we could eat the M&M's!!!!! Yeah!

We read a cute story about a bear who searches for the meaning of "I Love You With All My Heart". He gets his answer when his momma tells him she loves him with her mouth that kiss, kiss, kisses him; and with her eyes that sparkle when she sees him; and with her arms that squeeze him.

Finally, we had fun building indoor snowmen (and secretly identifying letters). The kids matched hats with a letter with the belly of a snowman that had the same letter on it. Then, they got to "decorate" or "build" the rest of the snowman with button eyes and chenille stem arms, etc.

You should be proud of your kiddos. They are so good at this "school routine" by now. Very good at listening and sitting still on the rug. We are so proud!

Have a super day off on Wednesday!

Monday Was Fun

Another jam-packed day on Monday. This post is a day late ...

On Monday we celebrated the letter W with a Big Event involving whales. The kids were asked to Wash the Whale With a Washlcloth then Wave a Wand and make a Wish. They had fun ... as silly as it was.

We read the book, Snowmen At Night. They really enjoyed this story. Some mentioned they had it at home or had gotten it at the library.

Mrs. E. conducted a science lesson using magnets. This was really fun. Involved a lot of stuff we need to be working on ... like writing numbers. She reminded them how magnets work. Then the kids each got a magnet (all were different shapes and sizes) and a pencil and a sheet to record their findings. When invited, they took their magnet to the rug and collected as many paperclips as their magnet would hold. They then counted and wrote that number on their record sheet. Finally, they drew a picture of their magnet. They really seemed to have fun with this. After it was said and done, each child reported on their findings! They did a super job reporting.

We also worked on beginning sounds with a Winter Wear book. The kids were to look at the pictures (we reviewed together on the rug) independently then write the letter for the beginning sound on the page to name the object on the page. We mentioned at conferences that this was a "next steps" so we weren't too concerned but some got it and other had difficulty. No worries though ... we have lots more planned where beginning sounds are concerned.

We had an indoor snowball fight of sorts. The kids received a piece of scrap, white paper with a letter written on it. We went around the circle. They identified the letter. Then crumpled it up and we had a snowball fight. They tossed the scrap paper around a bit. Then they stopped. Picked up one. Went back to the circle. And one by one, we "opened" our snowballs and identified the new letter we had.

Since the sun had popped out a bit, we thought we should go outside for a Walk on our W day. So we Waved to passersby on our Walk and Wobbled like penguins. They kept saying what a fun Windy Walk on a Winter day that we were having!

At the close of the day, we worked on Scholastic and then said our goodbyes! Hope you had a nice Tuesday off. See you Wednesday!

Finished Up Our Senses Discussion

Boy we packed alot in today! As you can see by the pictures, we had a fun day.

The kiddos started out having fun in centers. Check out our band on the stage in the dramatic play area. They will be sad when we switch out that center!

We discussed our eyes and their color. Showing the kids how to "chart" was fun. They immediately began to make observations from the chart results. So we went over the numbers to determine the most popular eye color in our class. We put out pictures of eyes in different colors and mirrors so they could "double check" if they were unsure.

Next, we made some fun puppets with extra big noses. We reviewed our sense of touch and had the kids pick image cards with things we can touch and things we cannot. They picked a card, put it in the right category and explained why it was a good/bad thing to touch.

At the end of the day, we let those that wanted to to taste the juice of a lemon. We talked about the terms "sweet" and "sour". Next, they tasted something sweet ... sugar. "What can we make with these two ingredients", we asked. LEMONADE! and so we did.

One child brought a book in several weeks ago to read to the class. We had forgotten about it, but he read it to them today. They kids were so excited to see this lil guy get an opportunity to read, that they asked if they could bring a book in. Mrs. E. told'em that this would be a super idea and that we would schedule those that wanted to for Friday's moving forward. That list will come around. If your child is not on the list, it's because he/she told us they did not want to read to the class.

Have a super weekend.