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.