Pics of Three's from Tuesday

On a side note, our student whose father is serving in the military was "training" here in the states for the last few months. Although he has been away from home, he was in the U.S. and safe. His child was responsible for the prayer at snack today and first was thankful for mom. The child quickly changed the prayer to include dad who is going to "Turkey" today and will be gone from home and family for some time. Please keep the dad, child and family in your prayers for many months ahead. We are grateful for his service and for the sacrifice his family is making for all of us!

Two Busy Days

Let's start with the four's on Monday. Sorry we didn't get to post on Monday. It was a busy day. Our letter this week is A. The kids had a great time with the Big Event. They were to pick an ant (raisin) off the letter A and grab an animal (plastic action figure-type) and act like that animal. Afterwards, we gave them a chocolate Andes mint. Yum.

We talked with the kids about St. Patrick's Day and leprechauns! Many knew what a leprechaun was ... to our surprise. Nonetheless, we read book about a lil leprechaun. Afterward, we did a little exercise involving recollection. We discussed the nature of "main characters", "setting", "problems to solve", etc. Those that were paying attention on the rug did very well.

We also colored a fun lil leprechaun by using our fingers position like "love" with the three middle fingers folded down and the thumb and pinkie sticking out. This was the ears and beard of the leprechaun. They turned out cute. The kids worked hard on manipulating their fingers and coordinating their writing finger to trace around.

We visited Madame and had lots of laughs ... as usual.

Finally, we did some Monday Math involving sorting (and eating) Lucky Charms cereal.

On Tuesday with the three's, we celebrated the letter A by turning our capital letter A into an alligator! We also celebrated the number two by discussing pairs and did an activity on the rug. The kids were to reach into a bucket of dried corn and find an object. They then had to locate it's "pair" on the tray outside the box. All did very well.

Lastly, we glued pairs of items on our large number two made from construction paper.

Thanks To Everyone

First, thank you to everyone for donating items for our breakfast and coming in to help. We really appreciate your efforts and we hope you had fun with the kids.

We started the day by making a cute owl craft with torn paper. They turned out nicely, the kids had fun. One child brought hers to me and comments, "Isn't this CU-HOOT?". Very funny child. I guess she "gets it", huh?

We read a fun story about a farmer's wife who gives her animals a tub. They didn't like it so they ran away. Turns out they were better off on the farm ... tubs and all. They enjoyed this and we did some re-enactment afterwards.

We sang a song about rhyming. It features Rocco The Rhyming Rhino. So if you hear about Rocco, that's who he is.

One of our moms came in to help with our math assignment ... puzzles. She talked with them about how to solve this problem. Look at the pieces. Look for clues. Sometimes it's a color. Sometimes it's a shape. Then, she put them to work. They got to see what she was referring to right there on the spot. A great lesson. Thanks, mom!

We have been keeping some index cards with numbers for each child. Every so often we bring it out and the kids are to make marks on the cards according to the number on the card. We will do this for a few more weeks then send them home. We encourage you to review them with your child. Ask them to help you count. The way we count in the room is to touch the item when you count it. This way, you don't get lost counting faster than touching, etc. We must tell you that they are doing SUPER WELL with number recognition. Just fascinating. Many times, we will leave the year and many students need to work on this over the summer. That is not the case with this group. We are really doing a super job. And we have noticed the change in the last four weeks or so. Thanks for all your help.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Chalky Sand

We started the day by letting the kids "shave" large pieces of chalk with a grater. They loved this! Our intent was to mix with salt and make our own sand. It worked out nicely. Mrs. E. read Eric Carle's Hermit Crab book and then the kids "painted" with watered down glue. They sprinkled on homemade colored sand viola! Our own sandy crabs!

We also played around with the letter "O". The kids got to glue fruit loops onto an orange letter "O". They enjoyed this and wanted to eat them ... naturally. However, as they were in the basement supply cabinet for who know how long, we asked them not to! Whew!

Finally, we sang a song about a farmer feeding his animals and everyone got to participate in making animal sounds. Way fun!

Have a super weekend. We will see you on Tuesday.

What A Beautiful Day!

The weather was so nice we got out twice! Enjoy the photos from our fun outdoors late in the afternoon.

Our sight word today was FOR. There was much discussion about FOR vs. FOUR. We talked about what each word meant. How it sounded the same but meant different things and were spelled differently. Then, we practiced writing FOR.

Mrs. Erikson had a super art project planned for the kids. How much fun is blowing paint around on your paper with a straw? Lots of fun as we discovered today. The artist she discussed was rather abstract and we imagined we saw lots of images in his paintings. So with ours, we sat down with the art teacher afterwards and looked for "hidden" objects. The kids enjoyed art ... as usual.

Some time for singing. We joined the blue room in a rhyming song and we did one in our room on our own. This one involved the farm. Each child got to place the image of the animal we sang about in the farmer's pen. They started singing along with Mrs. Sapp. Very fun!

Mrs. E. also worked with the kids on numbers. Each child got a number (double digits) card. They had to count out that number of (stale) candy corn and the little wind-up chick followed the kids and (pretended) to eat the candy corn. We did not! They really had fun playing with the chick however, we discovered they ALL are doing super fabulous with their number recognition as well as understanding what the number symbol means. Impressive!

A new star box is coming home. We put a note in your mailbox. There will be a number in the box. The kids must return the box with that many items inside.

We have a new job. It's the peacemaker. Our first little gal got a try at the job today. She did very well. Only two disputes to solve and she did it with ease. Very nice! They will get to wear a cute apron with peace signs all over it when they have this job.

Lastly, we did a project with zoo animals vs. farm animals. These came home today. The object was to put the correct animal on the correct piece of paper. We tried tried to get them to "sound out" the first letter on the paper if they forgot which color was which. Most did super. For some reason, the image of the cat threw them. Lots of 'em questioned where that lil critter belonged. Hmmmmm....

Remember no lunch is necessary on Friday. See you then!

Great Job With Our One's

Today we practiced writing the number one! We all went up to the dry erase board, one by one. Easy peasy, right? Then we went to the table and practiced again with watercolor crayons. The kids got to write as many ones on their paper as they wanted. Then, we gave them water, a brush and watercolors. They went to town. The "paintings" turned out nice! This marks are start on the focus of numbers.

We did an activity on the rug with magnetic numbers and letters (like you put on the fridge). They had to determine if the item they chose from the basket was a letter or a number. At this age, many children are confused and haven't quite made the distinction yet. Mrs. E. explained that a letter is something you read and a number is something you can count with. They all did very well. In fact, we were a bit surprised because it's a concept that often times comes later. Good job priceless kiddos!

Pur letter this week is "O" so our little ones made magic with the letter and turned it into an owl!

Madame Smail visited and was entertaining as per usual. The kids may share a trick she performed for them. It involved a candle, a flame and a canister with a secret compartment. So if you hear about "fire" you will know what it was from.

Thanks for a great day kids! See you on Thursday!

90 posts and counting

So we have been blogging for a while! This addition marks the 90th post between our three's and four's classes. We think the blog has been a success this year. We may have mentioned we tried it a few years back. Not as successful. Perhaps we were ahead of our time? lol. At any rate, we hope you are enjoying reading about what goes on in our classroom. We also hope it makes you all feel like you are a part of each and every day!

Now that we have review the merits of our blog, let us apologize for not blogging on Thursday or Friday. We will cover that here!

So on Friday we had so much fun we could hardly contain ourselves. Speaking of which, thank you all for bringing in the hard-boiled eggs ... and all the extras! They did not go to waste. The eggs were used in a science experiment we conducted. The kids were instructed to insulate a paper bag with "resources" made available to them including: stuffing for pillows, paper cups, shredded paper, tissue paper and popsicle sticks. They were to "pack" their egg so it wouldn't crack. We did not tell them however, that we would be dropping them from the second floor to the first. Mrs. E. was sure they'd be sad if the egg broke and reitterated the efforts of our lesson were scientific in nature. To our surprise, the kids were sooooooo excited when the eggs broke they yelled and screamed and we laughed. There was one egg that did NOT break. This little gal put hers inside the cup then packed stuff around it. We thought she might cry when it DIDN'T crack! Funny!

Our sight word was SHE so we did an activity together as a group. Each kid found the three letters it takes to make up this word (on cards spread throughout the room) and took them to their table to formulate the word. Everyone scored 100% on that activity! We told you they were smart ones!

We later entertained our parent volunteer with a kite numbers activity. The kids got a kite that had ribbons on the tail. They were to count the ribbons then pick out the corresponding number card that went with their kite. This involved some serious, concentrated counting for those with bigger numbers. Our lesson to the kids has been to put your finger on the item you are counting so as not to get lost. Many did just that and were successful.

Finally, there was a rhyming activity with pictures of ham and eggs. They got a card from the circle on the rug and put it on a velcro board. The next child found the picture that rhymed with it and put it next to it on the board.

Today we celebrated the letter "O". We wrote it and did an "on", "off" movement activity with construction paper oranges. That got the adrenaline going!

During jobs one child announced they were happy with the snow because there is lots we haven't gotten to do this winter without the snow. We thought it'd be fun to make a list of those things. My favorite on the list was "no covering your dad in snow". Funny. Here are others that made the list:

* no snow angels

* no hats on snow angels

* no snowmen

* no princess snow angels

* no snowball fights

* no covering your siblings in snow

* no covering your pets in snow

* no sledding

They did quite well don't you think!

Since this week is all about the farm, we thought it'd be fun to make our own butter! We talked about how it would have been done in the 'ol days. First you needed a cow. We didn't have one so we got our milk from the store (thank goodness). Then we showed them how to shake till your arms hurt. We got to enjoy the fruits of our labor thanks to Mrs. E. who brought in crackers. Yum! By the way, they said they want their butter like this all the time.

The kids also worked on a cute horse craft; we had French class with Madame and talked about tattling. These children work hard to "stay in line" that when they catch someone "messing up" they tell on them. This is normal four/five-year old behavior. We try to tell them that (1) not everyone is perfect and we all make mistakes. In fact, mistakes are a learning opportunity so it's "no biggie"; (2) that they should use their own words and talk with that person directly about what it is they are doing to bother them, etc. They do a great job with this. Now that we have that down, we are putting the kids in charge of the tattling. From here on out, we will have a "peace maker" job. That person will get to wear a colorful vest reminding all in the classroom that's who they go to with their grievances. The peace maker will help them resolve the issue. We shall see how that goes.

Friday is our down home breakfast, if your child is not a breakfast-food person, let us know. Also thanks for your generosity in response to our plea for help that day. Folks are coming in and many are bringing something. Thanks much!

On a final note, one parent shared with us her solution to discussing the birds and the bees with her child. She found a book called "It's Not The Stork" that she felt was helpful. We have not read the book but thought we would pass along the information. We looked it up and it seems to be suitable. It sells for about $11 on amazon.