About Birds

Today we read a book about birds. It was sweet with pictures of art created with clay. The book basically taught the kids that there are a variety of birds and the birds that can deal with season changes.

We followed up by making our own clay art. The kids got an outline of a bird on a piece of cardstock. They each received some playdough and went to town trying to spread the playdough around to arrive at a complete bird. They really enjoyed this project.

Our letter this week is U so today we practiced "writing" the letter with an umbrella, under water, in some rocks. See the pics! They did super.

We also made our version of a bird feeder. This was a super exercise for fine motor development. We could have done it all day. They couldn't stop. We strung cheerios on pipe cleaners and then made a circle shape. These can be hung on a tree branch or bush outside for the birds.

We played a little leap frog and hopped over lily pads and finally sang a song about lines with two sticks that we pretended were lines. We tapped 'em together. Loudly. Softly. Under our chairs. In front of our tummies. Over our heads. They giggled and had fun.

Have a great weekend.

Catch Up

We are a bit behind with our posts. Since last Friday to be exact. So here is what has been going on since then.

Last Friday we finished up our unit on Fairy Tales. We read about The Princess and the Pea. Most kids had heard this before (or seen it on Jack and Ruby). The kids followed up by making their own castle out of shapes. Then, we tallied the shapes we used and wrote out the number. We are still working on exactly how to tally and then record the corresponding number. No worries as this is an advanced theme for these guys.

We also recorded our thoughts on what we would do for a day "If I Were Princess" (mind you even the guys were princesses this week since our letter was Q we went with the feminine of royalty.). There were some interesting comments. No one wished for World Peace ... oh yeah, this wasn't the Miss Universe or anything.

Today we went to art class and Mrs. Erikson had us learning about Alexander Calder. We sent home some information (her newsletter) on him. But Mrs. Erikson talked with the kids about 2D and 3D art and they made their own 3D sculptures.

This week our letter is U so we are going to the pond. We are discussing all things pond (not really a correlation to the letter, oh well. Win some. Lose some). We have been talking about creatures that live at the pond and how some differ from close relatives that live on land. Eg., the toad and frog. We will also discuss life cycles of the frog and butterfly this week. In fact, we have butterflies "growing" in our classroom right now! The kids are watching them move through the cycle. We saw them in the egg stage and now they are in the larvae stage. We have watched them get bigger and bigger. Next is the chrysalis and this is neat because they form a chrysalis on top of the container they came in. We move them to a butterfly garden and wait for them to emerge. We always let the kids release them shortly thereafter. This is pretty exciting for us all!

We made a turtle craft today and discussed briefly tortoise vs. turtle. We will talk more about this on Friday. Turtles are found in water. Their feet are webbed. And, the shell of a turtle is lighter in weight than that of a tortoise. The tortoise's shell is more dome-shaped. He lives on land and has claws vs. webbed feet. His legs are shorter and more sturdy. Both animals are considered reptiles.

We will fill you in on Friday's events later.

Monday & Wednesday Four's

Getting back into the swing has proved a bit challenging ... not much ... just a bit. So we are a day late and covering both Monday and today in this post.

Our letter this week is Q. We had a fun "big event". The kids had to be a Queen and search for a Quarter. One child went to the back of the room wearing a crown. He/she hid their eyes while a teacher gave another child a Quarter. The Queen had to determine who had the Quarter. They enjoyed this little game.

We also had French class with madame. She thought our country was cold!

Since we were celebrating the letter Q, we asked the kids what they would do if they were Queen For A Day. We wrote down their answers and posted them outside in the hallway.

We also began our week of studying "fairy tales". We quizzed the kids about what fairy tales are. To our amazement, they understood they are "stories" that are not real. They also were told that usually these fairy tales have lessons in them. We started the week with Jack and the Beanstalk. Then we followed up with a retention activity. We had little cards with pictures and when we showed each one, the group had to tell us if the character was in the story or not. They did very well with this well known fairy tale. Oh. You can thank us later as we told the kids the lesson with this story was to do as your mother tells you. We also told them it's a good story about faith.

We also completed a little "book" about the shy guy "letter Q" who always went somewhere with his buddy "U". This would have been in your mailbox on Monday.

Today we extended the fairy tale study with the story of The Three Little Pigs. The lesson here was to not rush through things. To take your time, and do quality work. We followed up with a matching lesson. The kids matched pigs to their homes. These were in your mail today. Finally, we had some fun with dominoes. The kids got three dominoes and had to "record" their findings on a piece of construction paper using stickers.

Have a super Thursday off. Hope your Spring Break was great!