4/27/2010 - 4/29/2010

Tuesday, April 27th

Today we finished up butterflies. We read Waiting for Wings, a wonderful book from the flowers perspective waiting for the butterflies to arrive. We reviewed that symmetry meant both sides being the same. Looked at many butterfly examples to make sure we really understood the concept and then moved onto our art project. A symmetry butterfly project.

The kids colored beautiful butterflies where they were very careful to make both sides the same. They worked independently of the teacher on this project with great success. :) If you have not had a chance to see this displayed in the room please come in and see. They are beautiful!

We had extra practices today with Ms. Bonnie for our graduation performance.

At lunch we read a Bug Encyclopedia and learned some more fun facts about insects.

Our day ended with bug patterns, insect lacing cards, puzzles, a very fun game of animal/color bingo and the story The Grouchy Lady Bug.

Wednesday, April 28th (Ms. Chrissie's Corner)

Today we started a unit on colors.  As our friends arrived they were curious about a little 3 ring color circus going on at the table. There was a red ring, a yellow ring, and a blue ring all with a couple of objects matching the color near it and a spool of curling ribbon in the center.  I told them I would tell them all about it a little later.  We began our day by journaling to the following prompt: "Do you know this word? RED "  Everyone then wrote the word in their journals. 
 
As center time flew into full swing, I quietly began our project for morning meeting involving the color rings.  I started with one student and gave him instructions to find one object in each color that is on the table in the rings, and put them in the bag. Then find a friend and tell them what to do, and give the bag to them.  Since he was playing with colored blocks, it was the easiest task ever. One, Two, Three! In went a red, yellow and a blue block.  Passing along the instructions was a little trickier.  I had to coach the eye contact, the full instructions, etc.  Just to be sure we had good info, I repeated it all, adding that no repeat objects could go in (i.e., if a red car was in the bag, no more cars!).  And thus the game went on, until all 9 students had a chance to put different objects in the bag.  We drew the line at taking off shirts, just so you know!! And yes, someone actually wanted to just so they could get back to their game!  How funny our kids are at having their fun time interrupted with preschool WORK!!
 
At morning meeting, we took the rings and put them in the middle of our carpet.  I introduced the lesson of colors and asked my friends to tell me what they saw.  Red, Yellow, and Blue were the quick answers.  I asked them what was special about these colors.  Someone thought they were made up from other colors and that was close, but it was actually the opposite.  So we learned the term: PRIMARY COLORS today and that these 3 colors create the secondary colors, but no other colors can make Red, Yellow, or Blue.  One friend thought if we took a lot of pink and added more pink, and more pink, and more pink we would eventually get red.  But I pointed out it would just get pinker, and that Red mixed with White is how we get Pink. 
 
Then we pulled out the bag full of our primary colored objects.  Everyone got a turn taking out 3 items of any color. We sorted them into the proper ring by color and the finder of the object claimed responsibility for his or her creative genius for finding it.  This was a lot of fun for all.  Putting their heads in the bag and rooting around pretending to look for objects was especially hilarious for everyone!  After we all had a turn, we estimated which pile had the most items.  Yellow was hands-down the pile everyone voted on. So we counted Red which had 9 items in it. Then Blue which had 11. Then we counted Yellow, which had 10.  Oh! So close!!
 
Next we read Dog's Colorful Day.  It was a cute story about a white dog with one black spot on his left ear. As he goes about his day, he gets dripped on, splashed, squirted, sploshed, even marked on with a marker! We counted and he had 10 different colored spots from things like jam, ice cream, grass, mud, paint, etc.  Then he takes a bath and he's just Dog again, with one black spot on his left ear.  Maddie was quite relieved and happy about that bath.
 
We started our own messy project!!!  We painted with yarn!  First everyone folded their paper in half. Then we dipped pieces of yarn into primary colored paint trays. We laid the yarn on our paper however we wanted to, making sure to follow the instructions to leave a piece sticking out of the edge. When we had each primary color on the paper, we folded the other side down, pressed and pulled out the yarn. 

The kids then opened the paper and revealed their painting.  WOW!! This was super exciting stuff!!  Lauren was the first one done, and she exclaimed there were 2 ducks on hers! Everyone just had to see!  This resulted in a flurry of activity as everyone hurried to finish their yarn painting to see what they would get.  The results were so cool. I hope you took a minute to enjoy both how pretty they were and what everyone thought theirs looked like.  It turned out to be Primary Color Rorschach's! 

Everyone got a bracelet made from the curling ribbon that was in the rings at the beginning of the day. They all quickly announced to each other if they were on "Team Red" or "Team Blue" it was cute.  I told them that the bracelets would be staying at school until we had a secondary color experiment when we met up with a friend who had another colored bracelet and found out what happens when we mixed our two colors.  When we do that either tomorrow or next Wednesday, each child will get to add a new colored bracelet to their original primary colored one.
 
After recess we came inside and did work in our rhyming book on words ending in "-AP".  This was followed by sound bag with our letter X items.  Zaine brought in X-Rays of his teeth which were quite interesting and he explained all about them.  Jack had a boX which we noticed had the ending of "-OX".  With our snack we enjoyed reading The Alphabet Mystery!  All the lower case letters are primary colors (plus some secondary colors) and it features the letter X quite heavily, so it was a must read for today!  The entire class was glued to their seats waiting to find out how the mystery would end and how the letter X would be used 4 times in a sentence!  Turns out the letters formed the words "I love you Mom" on a birthday cake, and then "xx xx!" for kisses.  We learned X is the special letter used to represent kisses!  And a few students also knew O stood for hugs!
 
XOXO! it's been a fantastic year! Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful children with us!

Thursday, April 29

WATER DAY, WATER DAY, WATER DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The kids were so excited. The anticipation leading up to our activities was almost too much. :)

Our day began with amazing writing of the word BLUE. The independence that all the kids show now in the classroom and in completing tasks is very impressive. Proves that they are all more then ready for KINDERGARTEN.

After reviewing our color knowledge from yesterday's lessons with Ms. Chrissie we read another Louis Ehlert book called Planting a Rainbow. “Every year Mom and I plant a rainbow...” We identified many of the flowers in the book as ones that butterflies love and had fun identifying ones that they had in their own back yard.

We were then off to embark on a Skittle color experiment. The kids did a great job following directions and were thrilled to see the colors swirl together and even a few S's float. Here is the link to this experiment if anyone wants to try it at home. http://prekinders.com/2008/05/exploring-with-colors-experiment/

After a short time of play in our centers it was a whirl wind lunch, a quick change into our suits and then out side for water day. Ms. Jane as usual had wonderful activities set up for us. Duck, duck squirt...relays into a sprinkler, sponge tag, etc, etc. We took a break and sunned in our towels while enjoying popsicles given to us by Ms. Tina and Ms. Sissie. Then it was off to play some more, change clothes, snack and pick up.

I'm sure the kids were wiped out when they got home. I know I was. :)

Have a great weekend.
Cari

4/20/2010

Tuesday, 4/20/10

Ms. Cari added some much needed shelves to our classroom from the church garage sale! However, that meant the counting worm had to be adjusted on the wall. So to put him back up, we played BINGO with the counting worm numbers. Ms. Cari was at home with her little girl Cate, so I was teaching today, and Ms. Heidi was our Pre-K Assistant.  She helped me prepare BINGO boards using our plastic placements. We put 8 random numbers on each one. Going from 16 to 88 (the counting worm was still good from 1-15) that was alot of BINGO numbers! We started Morning Meeting with a butterfly lesson about the lifecycle of a butterfly and then we got down to some serious Butterfly BINGO business! 16 was called out first and whoever had it on their placemat took it off and put it back up on the counting worm.  It was alot of fun for the kids and made them work more than I thought it would so it was good learning time for them.  It took quite some time too!  Harrison got Butterfly Bingo first, followed immediately by Maddie.  After that everyone was breaking out of their bingo chrysalis left and right until we hit 88. Ms. Heidi helped us get our game going, then returned and finished it while I set up the butterfly life cycle project.  I was really happy for her assistance and she has a wonderful teaching in the moment talent that kids respond so well to.  (Anne Good was in for Ms. Bonnie at Music today and the kids had a good time there as well! So thanks to all the subs who have helped this year - everyone has been "exemplary"!)

Because Butterfly Bingo took so long, we went straight to centers and worked on a quick Butterfly Life Cycle art project individually during that time. The kids glued pasta that represented each stage onto the appropriate square wherever they felt it should go. It was quick and they went right back to the important work of discovering the bugs in the science center, playing with the blocks, or joining friends who were involved in quite a large picnic scene.

Right before we left for music time, we read "Are You A Butterfly".  It was funny when Lauren asked "Who are they talking to?" because the book is narrated in such a way that it is directed to an audience of students, asking questions of them while teaching about the life cycle of a butterfly in a fun and informative way.  The kids like the part where the caterpillar eats so much it feels like it is going to burst ("what's BURST?!" Zaine asked  "POP!" I answered to many giggles).  We turned the page and guess what...the caterpillar popped open ride down the middle of its back, wiggled out of its old skin and emerged bigger than before.  We learned how eventually it's ready to form its chrysalis, glue it onto a branch and hang out while it turns 16 legs into 6, small eyes into big ones and grow wings and antennas.  Very cool stuff.   Are You A Butterfly is a delightful book to read - you should check it out if you get the chance.

The letter of the week is Q and we put some quarters and a q-tip in the sound bag.  We noted that Q has a best friend named U.  They go together everywhere, except if someone brings a Q-Tip, because a q-tip is really 2 words, just a Q, and then the word TIP, and we could all see that instead of the best friend of U, there was a dash.  Whew - I got away with that one! The TIP was a perfect segue into our rhyming workbook though, and while the kids finished lunch we clapped out words from the alphabet that ended in IP. We found DIP, HIP, LIP, ZIP, etc.  When our friends were finished with their lunch, they got their rhyming book, opened it to the IP page, and chose 3 of the rhyming IP words to write down, using the resource of the white board we had done the work on together as a class.

At the end of our day, we listened to Eric Carle read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to us on CD.  We had several copies of the book and sat in pairs around the table.  As partners, we turned the pages to the story as we followed along.  We enjoyed this so much, we did it twice, changing who was "more" in charge of the book.  Even after two tellings, there was begging for more, more, more!  I told them that after snack, I would put it on repeat and they could listen to it over and over again until pick up time. However, during snack time we would retell the story ourselves using The Very Hungry Caterpillar felt board.  This turned out to be so much fun everyone wanted a turn putting a piece on the board.  Luckily the caterpillar went to town on Saturday and ate alot so everyone was assured. I made them guess what order he ate the food items - cupcake, ice cream, salami, pickle, cheese, lollipop, sausage, watermelon, etc.  I would give the child a super quick flash of the page in the book if they needed it which made us all laugh as they tried to see where in the line up their food was.  We finished the felt board, check the book to see how good we were, and as usual, impressed ourselves.   Eric Carle serenaded us to a perfect finish of a glorious day.

Wednesday, 4/22/10

Today we created beautiful works of art a'la Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar style.  Ms. Cari planned ahead and had already had a day of painting in preparation.  Today we cut out landscapes and a sun from each student's own artwork, then created a hungry caterpillar with pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, and a pom-pom head.  It's both beautiful and adorable, and totally reminiscent from a page in Eric Carle's book!  It was an excellent project for following instructions and working independently exercising fine motor skills.
 
We discussed what a Life Cycle is today.  Before leaving for chapel, we read Gotta Go! Gotta Go!  This is a delightful story about a caterpillar hatching from an egg, who instinctively knows what she knows, and what she knows is she's gotta go, gotta go, gotta go to Mexico! Cha-Cha-Cha!  We threw in the Cha-Cha-Cha part because we liked it that way! Turns out the little creepy crawly bug eats and inches her way day after day on her way to Mexico but never even leaves her meadow.  Exhausted, she makes a chrysalis and when she awakens she is a beautiful Monarch butterfly who still says "I know what I know, and what I know is I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go to Mexico!"  She eventually arrives after flying over cities, forests and rivers and finds so many Monarchs there they turn everything black and orange.  She dances with the butterflies and after awhile she knows it's time to fly back home.  She finds her meadow and lays the first of many eggs.  Its the reason for everything.   Going back to yesterdays project, we discussed how everything in a life cycle goes around and around - we started with a butterfly egg, the creepy crawly bug hatched, became a caterpillar, formed a chrysalis, the butterfly flew out and then the butterfly laid eggs.
 
Today's rhyming words ended with UT.  The students have the hang of this and can practically do it all by themselves now.  We worked together at the table today from start to finish.  I included using the words in sentences as we clapped them out such as NUT which was our favorite because I called them all a bunch of nuts.  Letter recognition, sounds, pre-reading and vocabulary all rolled into one exercise!  Good work for our brains!
 
Today we also celebrated Lauren's birthday.  She brought us some cupcakes for our snack!  Happy Birthday Lauren!!  Afterwards, I read "When the Fly Flew In" because when we came back from the playground a fly flew in with us.  Several of the kids wanted to chase it down with our fly swatters and bug nets, but we decided not to after reading the story about the disasters that can happen when one goes after a ziggy-zaggy fly!
 
Tomorrow we are looking forward to Ms. Cari's return!  Butterflies are her absolute favorite and we haven't had a turn examining the caterpillars that have arrived at school for hopefully a butterfly release day by the end of school. 

Thursday, 4/23/10

I was so happy to see the kids this week. I missed them. But we are so lucky to have Ms. Chrissie. Isn't it great that since October only one time your kids have had to have anyone else but she or I. :) And the one time they need a sub it was Ms. Melissa and she is pretty great too.

This was the week of the Butterfly. My favorite! We put all our great knowledge to use. We began our morning making caterpillars. During AM Centers the kids created beautiful butterfly wings with watercolor paints. We talked about “symmetry” before we began this project. We examined butterfly wings and saw that they were the same. They were symmetrical. So we tried really hard to create our own symmetrical wings. At the end of the day we wrapped our caterpillar's that had eaten all day with toilet paper to create their cocoons or chrysalis. We hung them up in anticipation of the beautiful butterflies that will emerge next week.

What was really fun was to have real caterpillars feeding in a special container. They will form cocoons and then we hope by the end of the school year (in just 2.5 weeks Yikes!!!) we can release them as beautiful butterflies. This will be very fun to watch.

We learned in a very cute Fancy Nancy book, Explorer Extraordinaire, the difference between a butterfly and a moth. Ask your child which one lands with its wings up and which one fly more at night?

Our first “chapter” book came to a close. The Dream Tree. Where a caterpillar wonders what it is like to be a butterfly. The kids loved it! I plan to start another chapter book with them next week.

We played a really fun game of ABC fly swatter game. The kids loved it. I had 3 kids, 3 fly swatters and 3 letter cards laid out on the table. The first fly swatter to hit the letter I called out from the 3 available choices won! A simple game created much enthusiasm and I was very impressed with everyone's quick reflexes and knowledge.
Since next week we have Water day to look forward I am going to wait and have our Hungry Caterpillar picnic the following week. Please look for a sign up sheet next week.

3/23/10 – 3/25/10

Tuesday, 3/23/10

Today we became astronauts. Our small class of 7 began our day drawing what we might see in the day time sky and the night time sky. Ms. Chrissie had found us some really neat paper and very special crayons. The same crayon colored two different shades depending on which paper you used. And then the children used my white board as a resource where I had written “Day” and “Night” to label their own papers. I loved the independence displayed by the children when asked to complete this task. :) This week we are exploring the stars in the sky and the moon. I wanted the children to start thinking about what they might see in the night time sky from their own back yards. And of course contrast what that might look like in the day.

Then it was off to MM where read Stars. This book confirmed for us that our Sun is a Star. We also learned that not all stars are yellow. Some shine blue and some shine red. We were all surprised to learn that stars shining blue are the hottest and stars shining red are cooler. Because of the colors we would have assumed the opposite. Especially since our beautiful blue planet Neptune is cold. Our star the sun is right in the middle of those two temperatures so it shines yellow.

Then we were off to create our astronaut space helmets. This was met with much enthusiasm. Every one spent a lot of time decorating their helmets. Using space stencils, stickers and foam space stickers. They turned out very cool and were a perfect addition to the rocket packs each child received. I had put them together before class and the kids helped with the tissue paper flames that would shoot out the bottom.

In the afternoon we put on our space gear and were ready to blast off our stomp rocket in the gym. It is the simple things in life that are the most fun. A simple toy that you jump on and as a results sends a foam rocket flying into the air is great fun. It was a contest to see just how high our rockets could fly. Stone and Harrison's flew the highest when they touched the very top of our gym ceiling.

Wow!!! 4...3...2...1...BLAST OFF!

And we can not forget how gorgeous our weather was today. We had a wonderful time playing outside on the playground and our day ended with a birthday party and doughnuts for Harrison. :)

Wednesday, 3/24/10 (Ms. Chrissie's Corner)

We had a blast on Wednesday rolling around the galaxy learning about constellations (a 4 clap word! - we sounded out each syllable with a clap) and then creating our own galaxy art project with constellations of our own!

At morning meeting, we read the book "I am a Star" which took us on an illustrative journey through the images one would see through a telescope and taught us about astronomy. Those students knew that people who are especially interested in this month's curriculum in the planets and solar system might someday want to go to college to study to become astronomers or astronauts. This conversation took an interesting veer off to discuss the fact many daddies and mommies went to college and some of them met each other there. As stories began developing, I quickly got the class back on our correct orbit! :) We discovered that the North Star never moves from its position in the sky, and sailors use it to help navigate, and that it also has another name "Polaris".

Our big project of the day was to make our own constellations. We dunked marbles into glitter paint and put them into a big tin can with a piece of black paper. After alot of rolling and shaking of the can, our friends opened the lid and discovered the galaxy they had created. We discovered that if we made it a 2 or 3 step color process, removing one set of paint dunked marbles and replacing it with new paint-coated marbles, it created an interesting effect. Some friends were willing to invest the time, others went for immediate gratification and either chose 1 color or said "put them all in at once!". We tried it all! After the paper came out of the can, the stars were applied to create the constellations. It was interesting to watch the process each student used to choose where and how to put their stars. They even knew if they were using a hot colored stars (blue) or cold ones (red)! Be sure to view the the photos of this project.

We also worked on a dot to dot exercise. Each child was given verbal instructions one-on-one on how to complete a dot to dot (to first find the number 1, look for number 2, put the marker down on the dot and then draw the straightest line they possibly could to number 2, pick the marker back up off the page, and find the next dot they should go to). I got alot of "I know how!" But, dot to dots can present different challenges depending on their approach. Some go too quickly, missing the marker in their haste to finish, others miss some of the instructions, and some may skip numbers due to numeral recognition. As a method of kindergarten preparation for following verbal instruction, and to help them slow down and do neat work, (and receive guidance and praise for all effort), the instructions I gave were to write their name neatly in the top corner, and to work slowly and neatly so their lines would be straight. I watched up to about #4 on the dot-to-dot, and if they were on target, I left them to finish by themselves to see how they did independently. Friends who wanted/needed more guidance received one-on-one help as needed. I was very pleased with our students work and their ability to follow the instructions. Ms. Cari and I will continue to give the class more work that will be representative of what they will see in Kindergarten next Fall. (wow, can you imagine it?!)

Chapel was exciting today as Ms. Sissie and Ms. Tina took everyone outside to enjoy the fresh air and the SUN! What a wonderful thing our Sun is to our planet...and to our happy children who got to enjoy alot of it today. In fact, it may be time to send in some sunscreen. By the time the day was through, we had a couple of friends who had some pink cheeks!

After recess, we took turns rotating at three table centers of the rocket game, light bright, and beating Ms. Chrissie at Space Go Fish! We took our space memory game cards and turned it into a 4 person Go Fish game. I found, yet again, that our class is full of kids with minds like sponges and they have amazing memories of who asked who for "the alien" or "the planet Venus". They were sure racking up the pairs!! I lost several hands, a little pride, and possibly some hearing due to the gales of laughter and taunting preschool smack talk as they soundly beat me fair and square! All too soon it was time to eat snack and head for home after another great day at school!

Thursday, 3/25/10

Today was the last day in our Solar System unit. Thank you every one for sending your child in their planet color. We practiced our song in the am with great success. And now I have learned that is when I need to video tape. I was not thinking and right after an amazing time with Ms. Jane I asked them to line up and sing our song so that I could video tape for your guys. Mistake! They were exhausted and wanted nothing to do with Ms. Cari's plans. :(

In the am we made a card for Ms. Jane, since it was her last day with us. No one had any trouble telling me what they loved about Ms. Jane's classes.

They were given a Space Code rocket ship to decode and color. This was a challenge and one we will try again. The goal was to look at the code box where it told us that all pictures of the sun were to be colored yellow and all pictures of the star paint red, etc. I had friends who just started coloring with out hearing all my instructions. Others who only had patience enough to circle the image and not color the entire box and just a couple who saw the project to completion. That sheet is in their red folders. If you would like to have them finish coloring their sheets that would be great practice for them. Even if they say resist because they just don't like coloring insist they finish. There is a lot of coloring in Kindergarten. Much to my own son's chagrin when he told me at the beginning of the year that all this coloring is a “waste of his time”. :) We have not choice. It must be mastered.

I met with each child individually to wrap up our planet fact sheet. Just about everyone was able to tell me one or two things they liked about their planet.

Our focus today was the Moon. We read Moonshot, or I should say paraphrased (it is a long book). It has wonderful illustrations about the flight of Apollo 11 and the landing on the moon. “Cold and quiet, no air, no life,...” Apparently the kiddos knew much about the things told in this book due to the help of “Space Buddies” and one other popular show I just can't recall at the moment. :)

After we experienced this adventure through print, the kids had a chance to make their own moons out of grape play dough. They also drew themselves as astronauts and placed their American flag in place.

Ms. Lyneve let us borrow a really fun box full of Moon toys. The kids spent all day playing with the astronauts and space shuttles. Really helped us to reenact the scenes from the book we had just read.

In stead of music today Ms. Chrissie took the class for some special space time. They viewed constellations on the ceiling, read some fun books and even made up a new space song. :)

At lunch time we read a sweet book, Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. Based on the song of course, a little girl makes a wish on a star and this star takes her for an adventure in space. She sees the sun and the planets and gets dizzy while riding the rings of Saturn. :)

Ms. Jane is always wonderful, but today she out did herself. I told her we were studying the Solar System and she came up with really fun exercises all related to our unit. She had mini hula hoops that they held around their waste as rocket ships. They would blast off and then run around the gym to the theme music of Star Wars! Then they would land on a planet when the music was off and then blast off again when the music came back on. They raced past meteors and gathered moon rocks and much more. The kids had a wonderful time.

We finished our day with a quiet afternoon of play. We read The Berenstain Bears On the Moon at snack time. And saw that they put a flag on the moon just like we did.

Next week...EASTER!

3/16/10 - 3/18/10

Tuesday, 3/16/10

I had the children begin with their Journals this morning. I asked them to write the first letter of each or our planets. We sang our planet song many times to help jog the brain. I had our planet word cards on the table as a resource as well. It ended up being a group effort but we accomplished our goal. :)

At MM we learned more facts about our planets and even learned a silly sentence that was meant to help you remember the order of the planets in the solar system. Just like our song helps us to remember. We created our own silly sentence with random words. This is a great exercise for home. Name letters in the alphabet and have your child come up with a word that begins with that letter. After writing our letter G on the dry erase board it was off to AM centers.

We took all the planets we had created last week and began creating our solar system. This was a multi step process that all the kids did really well on. They each had a black paper with their painted Sun. We worked on finding our planets and putting them in the correct order in relation to the sun. We then added Saturn's and Uranus's rings. They punched our stars and glued them where they liked. I then put their silver finger print above their special planet. The idea was for them to create a little person/being that would represent themselves on their planet. :) My friends had their own ideas. :) We have some elaborate little aliens that are gracing our solar system now. All in all this was a very fun project to see to completion.

The rest of our day was low key. We played in the gym and when returning for PM Centers played quietly in our room. I had each child meet with me to add another fact or two to their Planet Chart. I love that they are able to recall facts to me now about their planets. They have really taken ownership of having a special one assigned to them.

Wednesday, 3/17/10 (Ms. Chrissie's Corner)

Today was interesting.... it was one of those days where you teach "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again...and then change plans".

We had several activities revolving around rockets and space exploration. At morning meeting we read from "The Best Book of Spaceships" and learned about how a rocket is built, how it lifts off and clears our atmosphere to enter space where there is no air, and no gravity. You can ask your child about such terms as the stages of a rocket ship, what gravity is, what our sun is, a meteor, a comet, an asteroid, a solar system and a galaxy! Between the entire class, we answered them all! We also read the book, "Stars, Stars, Stars" this afternoon and enjoyed answering what you use to look at stars (telescope) and what constellations are. Everyone knew that planet Earth was in the Milky Way galaxy and as the book reviewed each planet, they were right there shouting out what they knew too. So at the end of the book, I decided to quiz them (shhh! they didn't know it was their first pop quiz!) on their planets. They all got A+ too! I read the descriptive facts given at the end of the book for a planet and they told me which planet it was. I was very, very impressed. So impressed, in fact, that when I turned the page and saw all about a dozen glossary words like the ones mentioned above, I promised to reward them with a bone for the class if they did half as well on those as they did with their planet knowledge. And you guessed it! They earned that bone fair and square!

If only things had worked out as easily for our rocket experiment. It began well when we viewed about 15 minutes of a dvd about rocket ships and astronaut life from the Kennedy Space Center. Then armed with knowledge, we headed outside for our own little lift off experiment with vinegar and baking soda. But, "Houston, we had a problem!". We tried several times and then decided to be like the scientists who surely had to try more than once to get a rocket ship into space and try again another day (maybe with new batteries?!).

We now had plenty of time to make astronaut snacks for later in the day. We made pudding in ziploc baggies. Each student poured in their own powder packet and I added milk to a baggie with their name on it. We zipped it back up and commenced with shaking and squeezing for 90 seconds. We got in alot of counting practice! Ms. Tina came in to help too, which was wonderful because next we made Tang! We added Tang powder and the kids screwed on their lids (with their first name initial on it) and shook the Tang for another 90 seconds. As a class, we carried our rocket ship food to the kitchen refrigerator just in time for chapel.

It was rather chilly outside, but we needed fresh air, so we played outside. It was a wild playground day and I sure hope all that cool, crisp almost-spring air chased away the crazies from cabin fever we all seem to have!

After recess, we all worked on a dot-to-dot rocket ship and then played quietly with Concentration, Light Bright, Moon Rocks, Prisms, Geo-Wheels and Tanagrams. I played in the Concentration game and I have to say the friends I played with have amazing memories! And finally, the success story of the day - the astronaut snack was a big hit! We cut the corners off the ziploc bags and practiced being astronauts and slurped the pudding right from the bag! The Tang was great too. When is the last time you've had Tang?!

Thursday, 3/18/10

Today was our day for conferences and we were blessed to have Ms. Melissa take over the class for the day. I had full confidence that the children would have fun and learn in our absence. :) Here is Ms. Melissa's journal about her day with my wonderful class.

Ms. Cari and Ms. Chrissie were out of the classroom most of the day on Thursday at parent conferences, but Ms. Melissa got the opportunity to be the substitue teacher for the day. (Personal Note from Ms. Melissa--If you've never volunteered to sub in a classroom, you are really missing out! You find out so much about the kids' day and how every little thing--from the dress-up corner to the kitchen--is a learning opportunity!)

The kids came in and wrote their name on a special rocket journal page, and counted the numbers of letters in their name, writing that on their journal page as well. This was great preparation for an activity that we did later in the day. The class also led Ms. Melissa through morning meeting--they really know their routine!--and we read "Hedgie Blasts Off" by Jan Brett. Hedgie is just the janitor at the Space Center, but he is one heroic hedgehog when he's given the opportunity to go up into space and save the day! We learned that every hedgehog--and person--is important and has the chance to do great things. And we also learned about propulsion when pressure blasted Hedgie and all the coins out of the crater and helped the flowers bloom again. We also thought it was funny that all the important scientists in the book were dogs!

To leave morning meeting, each child wrote the letter "G" on the board and made the "G" sound. Of course, when the sound bag items came back out later in the day, we talked about the two sounds of "g"--hard G (as in Griffin) and soft G (as in Giraffe). That "G" can be pretty confusing!

Just as we'd done with the rocket journal page, we got out some special colorful rocket shapes and wrote one letter of our names on each shape. Each child built those letters into a tall name rocket, and then added a special "blast off" rocket with the number of letters in their name. This was a great graphing opportunity! We could see that Emmie Rose had the most letters in her name with 9, and Will and Jack had the fewest number of letters in their names with 4. There were more kids with 6 letters in their name in the classroom than any other number.

Lauren shared a great joke with us at lunchtime that made us all laugh: Why did the cookie go to the doctor? Because he felt "crummy!" After lunch we had our awesome gym time with Ms. Jane, along with Ms. Lyneve and Ms. Leigh's classes. She had us running, jumping and even already looking for Easter Eggs!

Ms. Cari and Ms. Chrissie had a break in all their meetings in the afternoon and were able to come back to the classroom to try a real rocket experiment! Just like with Hedgie, the pressure built up in the rocket--but unfortunately, our rocket didn't go flying like Hedgie did. It made some serious noise but we had a little malfunction on the flight deck and it never quite worked correctly. Back to the drawing board!

3/9/10 - 3/11/10

Tuesday, 3/9/10

Today was great. We began our Solar System unit today and I felt like all the kids were excited about this new adventure. Especially the boys. :) Our block center has Planet Heros, Spaceships and a space station. It was like a magnet all day for the kids.

We began morning meeting with a song we will sing for the next few weeks. A fun planet song to help us learn the order of the planets. It was met with much enthusiasm. We read Dogs in Space. A fun story about dogs visiting all the planets in our solar system. We learned a couple of basic facts about each planet. We followed that book up with The Solar System Book, brought in by Zaine. Jack was the first to pick up that this book was non fiction and our previous book was fiction. We ended our meeting by assigning a planet to every child. As a class we will learn about the planets in our Solar System but each child will focus in on their planet.

During AM centers aside from Planet Heroes and dressing up in Drama we painted our own planets. The kids used droppers and watercolors on coffee filters. They created beautiful planets.

After music with Ms. Chrissie and sharing our U sound bag items at lunch it was gym time with Ms. Jane. The theme of the hour was colors and fun.

PM Centers began with a review of our planets. I had puzzle pieces of the planets to match up with the planet words on our felt board. We decided which planet I was holding up and who this planet belonged to. Then the one who was assigned this planet would find the word on our felt board. The kids did great. Tomorrow they will be using these words as their resource when writing out the names of their planets.

When I dismissed them from the carpet we had more adventures with Planet Heroes, magnetic play and lots for Solar System puzzle building. :)

Wednesday, 3/10/10 (Ms. Chrissie's Corner)

Today we enjoyed our planet Earth! Upon arrival we began a fun art project to create the planet Earth the way astronauts see it from the moon - all blue, white and green color chunks and swirls made out of tissue and painted with liquid starch. It was alot of fun to see the different creations made by our out-this-world preschool artists!

Our new solar unit is so popular with our friends. Everyone came to school today eager to tell me what planet they were given yesterday. And then there are the new items in the classroom: from the library to the drama center to the blocks. So many things to explore we could barely wait to get to it. So we decided quite happily to play first and then have morning meeting prior to chapel rather than the other way around as usual. That's OK, we can reverse orbit every now and then!

At morning meeting we exercised our brains in a big way! We learned so many new things about our planets from a great book called Me and My Place in Space. It was perfect for helping us fill in the next section of the "K/W/L" chart Ms. Cari introduced on Tuesday. Today, we raised our hands whenever something we heard during the story caused us to "have a wondering". And, oh boy, did our friends have ALOT of wonderings!! Be sure to look at the chart. I can tell our students did alot of thinking on the subject of planets and the solar system! What great young minds they have. We found some of the answers ourselves on the pages of the book and in our own discussion during morning meeting. Other answers were discovered when we were lined up for chapel and had a couple minutes to spare during which I opened another book and read a few facts about each planet while we were washing up.

After lunch we enthusiastically ran out to the playground! Yes the playground! Some students actually squealed their way through the gate! It's been so long since we've been outside to play! It was a wonderful afternoon that we milked it for every minute possible.

We returned to our class to work on our Fact Sheets about our assigned planets. Each student wrote the name of their planet on a sentence strip using the resources available from the planet flannel board. Next we wrote things we learned today - Who, What & Where. What planet they have; Where it is in relation to the sun; and What fact they learned about their planet today. We used the book we read from morning meeting as a resource for reminders.

As soon as our work was done it was back to learning with our imaginations and reading books about space, and putting 20 stars in numerical order with our space partner. During snack time, we read the book On the Moon, which one student excitedly remarked, "oh cool, I've been wanting to read that one!". It was a great book about how astronauts get to the moon, what the moon is like, what it is like to go there and to be an astronaut and then come back home in a rocket ship. It even answered one of our "Wonderings" from this morning. It doesn't get any better than that.

Thursday, 3/11/10

Today was all about painting our planets. We whole punched Mercury and Pluto from our left over Eric Carle paintings. I had kids paint Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and Mars with a fun marble effect. The planet circles were put in pie tins and we decided what colors would work best for each planet. Then after globing the paint onto the circles the kids took turns rolling the marbles around in an effort to spread the paint amongst all the circles. There was a fine line in our rolling the tin to paint and rolling with too much enthusiasm and painting the floor as the marbles rolled out. :) It was fun. We added sparkles to Venus and to Mars our rocky red planet. For Uranus and Neptune we used water colors to create the green and blue planets.

After much painting and then cleaning of our room we sat down for morning meeting. I read to them Planets Around the Sun. A great non fiction book to once again back up our learned facts about our planets. We realized how just how big Jupiter is when we read about “The Great Red Spot” a storm on Jupiter. This storm is bigger then Earth. Wow! Another wow moment was when we read that if Earth was the size of a basketball, the sun would be as big as a basketball court. On Tuesday when you drop off take a moment to think that one over while in the gym. It puts things into perspective.

After music and lunch we went out on the playground again. Yea! The kids had a blast. You just don't realize how cooped up winter can make them till you get outside.

We began PM centers at the table with our personal fact sheets about our planets. We borrowed some oil pastel crayons from Ms Leigh and drew and colored our planet. A few of the kids had more facts to add to what they had learned about their planet as well.

We ended our day with a special snack. I cut pineapple rings and placed a cherry in the middle. Can you guess what our planet snack was? :) Saturn of course. :)

3/2/10 - 3/4/10

Tuesday, 3/2/10

The Snowy Owl was waiting to greet the kids this morning perched on our easel. :) We began our day by writing in our new Arctic Numbers book. After working on a similar project in January I feel like the kids “got it”. They worked independently and were proud to show me each page the completed. I loved hearing those that were farther a head help the friends who were just getting started.

We began Morning Meeting by dancing to a “Word Family” song. We will begin in the next few weeks and to the end of school focusing on word families and very basic pre primary words. Our goal is for the kids to begin learning sight words over the summer before Kindergarten begins.

We learned many facts about the Snowy Owl. See if the kids can recall for you another name for the Snowy Owl. Ukpik! We talked about their yellow eyes and fantastic sight and the fact that their heads can turn fully around in a circle. The kids loved seeing this when demonstrated on our Owl puppet. I brought in a down blanket to demonstrate how the feathers of the Owl are used to insulate their bodies and keep the warm air in and the cold air out. The kids cuddled up in the blanket to experience the warmth as I read a non fiction book, Snowy Owl.

We then moved to our AM Center time and made our very own Snowy Owls. I was so proud of the kids. This was a very involved project that took thinking and many steps and problem solving before our Owls were complete. They were all anxious to get started and many moved on with out my help to complete the project.

After lunch we read a Ukrainian folk tale, The Mitten, by Jan Brett. The kids loved the story about a boy who just had to have a white mitten but lost it when he went out to play. Meanwhile the animals of the forrest crawled into this Mitten...and I'll just let the kids tell you the rest.

After gym time we came back to the room and painted with watercolors all the character animals that had crawled into the white mitten. It was wonderful to have 100% participation and no one rushed through to get to the play dough or blocks. :)

Wednesday, 3/3/10 (Ms Chrissie's Corner)

Two new things in the classroom this week were very exciting for everyone. The new Veggie Tales rug that arrived on Tuesday was still the talk of the town and featured prominently in our morning meeting lesson, and the scale that made an entrance today. You have to love preschoolers! They were all jumping on to see who weighed the most, grabbing each friend as soon as they arrived and getting them on the scale. Some felt if they assumed a "cool pose" the scale would show a different weight. Well, that wasn't the intended purpose of having a scale today, but we had our fun, and then we got down to business! We put into 3 white bags: a 5 lb bag of rice; a cantaloupe; and a honeydew melon. Then we started weighing those. The scale didn't care for our rice, so we removed it and used blocks instead. This was an all day, kid directed project to compare and find things in the classroom they could put in the bags to equal approximately 5 lbs. We found out why at morning meeting.

At morning meeting we all took a letter to sit on, and went around the circle, and everyone sounded out the letters and our friend's had a chance to come up with a word that started with the letter they were sitting on. We all tapped our noses if we agreed that word started with their letter, pronouncing the starting sound, the letter and the word a couple of times. If help was needed, I either gave clues or a word for them to tap their nose if they thought it was a correct word for their letter. We spent about 15 minutes on this during MM.

Then we learned more about the Snowy Owl, from the book of the same title. Specifically, about two important measurements - it's wingspan, which is 5 feet long, and its weight which is 5 lbs. Yesterday the class learned about what it looked like and other facts, so we added to our Snowy Owl knowledge, such as it is an owl that hunts both night and day, how it catches its prey, what it likes to hunt, how many eggs a Snowy Owl lays, etc. We passed around the bag of rice pretending it was a Snowy Owl so we could really get a feel for what 5 lbs felt like. Some felt it was quite heavy, and others thought a Snowy Owl wasn't all that big; but everyone thought it was funny for some reason! Then when we took a tension rod and with the help of a couple friends, a measuring tape, and some masking tape we measured it to 5 feet long, and taped it shut. When I swooped it around (watching out for our globe and our friends!) like an Snowy Owl about to get a lemming (which is a rodent like mouse and the favorite prey of Snowy Owls) everyone was pretty impressed when it landed in the middle of morning meeting on the rug and its wings spread across the width of our new Veggie Tales rug! "Wow! That's pretty big!" said one friend.

This was a perfect introduction to our projects of the day: Weights and Measures. Besides weighing things to 5 lbs on the scale, we would also be helping each other measure our own wingspans as if we were Snowy Owls to see how our wings compare to a Snowy Owl's. Then with my help, we made half of a wing pattern on a folded piece of colored paper and cut it out, unfolding it to find our very own wings! It was fun to see their faces as their wings appeared and then we held them back up to their arms and sure enough, it was exactly the length of their arms right to their fingertips! We are great measurers! Each child began the project as independently as possible and I followed up with help for the tricky feather cutting if needed. I was proud of their efforts because the paper was giving everyone alot of trouble with curling and it took some perserverence to see it through. I hope you got a chance to see the results of our wingspan project displayed outside our classroom! If not, please enjoy the photos taken during the measuring.

After lunch and another day of indoor recess (c'mon Spring!) we went to work on lacing our mittens, a project from the story The Mitten which will be carried through with Ms. Cari on Thursday.

During snack time I read, Owly, a cute story about a young owl who always has yet another question for his mother at bedtime, like how many stars are there, or how deep is the ocean? His mother is a wise owl, and lets Owly find the answers to his questions himself, and so we turned pages counting "One Thousand and one, One Thousand and two...". The class enjoyed the process, and enjoyed exclaiming "NOT AGAIN!" about the third time Owly had another question and his mother sent him off to find the answer! Don't we all just like getting quick answers to our questions?! In the end, Owly realizes some things just can't be counted or measured, just like his love for his mother; and he tells her that he loves her more than all the stars in the sky and deeper than the ocean.

Thursday, 3/4/10

Today was the end of our never ending Winter unit. We finished up our arctic number books and wrote in our journals about what keeps the Snowy Owl warm in winter. Almost all of the kids were able to tell me it was their feathers. And even a couple tried to write out the word. :)

During Morning Meeting we re read The Mitten with our very own mitten and animal characters. The kids really enjoyed this activity. They were invested by having activities (the painting of the characters and the lacing of the mitten) all week leading up to this moment.

As a group we read aloud the arctic number books we had also worked on all week. This is an on going exercise in number recognition and reading skills.

We then all gathered around the table for some Kindergarten work. :) One of our Snowy Owl facts is that in a town in Canada the snowy owl is known by another name. “Ukpik.” The kids wrote out on sentence strips “Ookpik” as it sounds and Ukpik like we saw in the book. Ask your child what Ookpik stands for. :)

Our art activity today was to make baby snowy owls. We wrapped cotton snow around pine cones, glued eyes and cut out beaks. At first the kids weren't so sure about the texture of the pine cones while wrapping the cotton/feathers around. But they all in the end did a great job. They wrote their names on brown/tan paper that represented our Tundra for the Owls to rest on. All of our winter crafts will go home on Tuesday morning. Please make sure to take them at drop off.

Next week Solar System!

February, 2/23/10 - 2/25/10

Tuesday, 2/23/10

Finally we were back at school on a Tuesday. :) And to make it even better it was our camouflage day. It was fun to see everyone arrive in their white clothes with huge smiles on their faces ready for our day.

At morning meeting we read more non fiction recourses about the Polar Bear. Our friend Stone had just come back from a trip to Disney World. He was able to tell us fun face to face facts about Penguins and Polar Bears. From our books we learned that Polar Bears have bumps on the bottom of their feet to keep them from slipping and that a Polar Bear can be 10 feet tall when standing. We read that Polar Bears don't drink water and were left wondering why. And of course we talked about why Polar Bears were white. Camouflage is very important for them. Blending into the snow is protection for the Polar Bear.

We then rolled out our butcher paper to measure about 10 feet. Put on our socks and stepped in paint. The kids walked like polar bears across the white paper with white paint in their white clothes. Do you see a pattern? :) It was fun and messy. Then those that wanted to added polar bear tracks to our art work. Once displayed on the wall it was interesting to see just how big a Polar Bear could be if he was standing up.

The ice table from last week was a water table this week. Filled with ice burgs, fish and fishing poles. Our polar bear kids were fishing for fish just like real polar bears. I put up a snow cave in the reading center that has been great fun for our bears to hide in.

At lunch time we brainstormed Polar Bear facts. I was very impressed with all the kids were able to recall for me. What is Camouflage? “When animals blend in for protection.” How big is a Polar Bear? “10 feet tall/ on all four feet he is 4 feet tall.” And how many babies to the mommy's usually have? “Two babies called twins.” Those are just a few examples from our conversation.

And Emmie Rose asked the question again why do Polar Bears not drink water. We found Ms Leigh in the gym and asked her this question since she has studied Polar Bears longer then we have. We learned that they don't need to drink water because they love to eat snow. And when in the their warm bodies the snow melts into water.

After playing in the gym we came back to our room to play in the water table, make polar bears out of play dough and Olympic ski ramps in the block center. :)

We made a camouflage snack. Yogurt covered pretzels, m&m's, white jelly beans, etc. The one thing I forgot were the marshmallows. :( Thank goodness the kids didn't notice. It was a fun way to end our special day. While we ate our snack I read Welcome to the ICE HOUSE. The illustrations in this book showed great example of Arctic animals in camouflage in their natural environment.

Wednesday, 2/24/10 (Ms. Chrissie's Corner)

It was another wonderful Wednesday! We have a lot of those!

As our friends arrived, we played a letter recognition game. We had cards similar to bingo sheets, each with a letter on it, such as Aa, and 9 objects in boxes below. Some started with the letter A, others did not. We worked as a group, but separately on our own sheets, putting snow crystals on the pictures that began with our letter. We did alot of sounding out the alphabet letter that our friends had to help them decide if their object should have a marker placed on it or not.

At morning meeting we reviewed some interesting Polar Bear facts. We discussed things such as how they walked, camouflage, that polar bears were 10 feet big and that they have blubber. We also noted their skin is black under the white fur and this helps them to trap heat and stay warm in the Arctic climate. We then discussed our plans for the day - to learn about freezing temperatures! We learned that at 32 degrees something happens to liquid - it becomes a solid! Lauren noted that somebody left a Gatorade bottle outside at her house and it froze! Great association! And perfect segue to our science experiment of the day. We had an assortment of liquids and with a handy tally we voted on which 4 we would put in the freezer. Syrup, Chocolate Milk, Water, and a little bit of my Coca-Cola were voted to be the experimental liquids! So we labeled our cups and poured the liquids in. Next we made our predictions of which liquid we thought would freeze first.

Next we read Snow Bear, a cute story about a white bear cub who is missing his mommy bear and builds a snow bear mommy with the help of forest animals. In the morning, Snow Bear wakes up and the snow mommy is melted but his real bear mommy is right there with him! Just to see who was listening, I asked them what temperature they thought it might be outside if the snow bear mommy had melted. They did pretty good, saying it was more than 32!

Before chapel, we checked on our science experiment! At chapel, the kids talked about what they would like to be when they grew up. I had fun listening to their answers during out lunchtime chat. We worked on our sound bag objects and writing out the words. We all made our "W" on the dry erase board and came up with words that start with a W.

After recess, we finished our science experiment! We also observed the results of our reverse experiment! It was alot of fun!

At the end of the day we read The Three Snow Bears during snack time. It didn't take long for Lauren and Jack to make the connection that this story was sounding alot like Goldilocks and The Three Bears. It was a silly, fun tale, set in the Arctic with an Eskimo girl venturing into the polar bear families' igloos and trying out their soup, their boots, and their fur beds.

Thursday, 2/25/10

Today was bittersweet. We were very excited about our Olympics day, but sad that it was the last day we had to spend with Alyse. :(

We began our day by creating a flag for our class to carry in the Olympic parade. The kids LOVED having a blank poster board to do as they pleased. It turned out great!

We read Polar Bear Polar Bear What do you Hear? I had picture manipulatives out on the carpet. As I read the kids had to listen to the sound the next mystery animal would make. They then found the picture of the correct animal and put it on the felt board. I could tell many of them had heard this book already. They knew which animal would come next before I made the sound. :)

We reviewed some facts about Polar Bears. Specifically that they have black skin. This black skin absorbs the sun's heat and helps them to stay warm. I gave them the black silhouette of a polar bear. The assignment was to paint the paper white to create snow and camouflage and then if they desired to cover the polar bear with cotton balls to represent the white fur. Every one worked independently on this project with much success.

After decorating their name tags for the afternoon they went to music and then were back for lunch. We gave back sound bag items and over all had a nice lunch just visiting.

The Olympics were so fun. Thank you to every one that volunteered to help and who came to watch and enjoy the event. The children were thrilled to show you all the fun things they do with Ms. Jane each Thursday. She works very hard for our kids and always makes her time with them energetic and educational.

We ended our day with a little going away or as Lauren said a “go away” party for Alyse. :) Cookies and juice were on the menu. Thank you to all the kids for making a picture for Alyse. It helped to make her book very special. We will miss you Alyse. Our days won't be the same with out you.

Next week we will wrap up our winter unit with a study on the snowy owl. :)

Cari

2/16/10 - 1/18/10

Tuesday, Feb. 16

SNOW DAY

Wednesday, Feb. 17

I was thrilled to be with the kids today. I got a few glances from the kids confused as to why I was there. :) We began our day writing our alphabet in our journals. This was a great exercise for the kids in using their resources. I left them to the task on their own and just kept directing them to the letters on the wall around the room. I loved seeing those that at first felt overwhelmed and told me they couldn't do it and then after persevering the smiles on their faces when they were finished.

We began morning meeting with the “Alphabet Groove” song and danced to “tall, small, and fall” letters. After counting how many friends were at school, our days of school, and figuring out what day was today we reviewed our penguin knowledge. I read them Emperors Egg. This story focused on the days the egg is left with the Daddy Penguin. The kids all agreed that two months with an egg on your feet and no food is a really long time. We then practiced walking with our own “eggs” on our feet. Then we measured how far we could walk with that egg. It was HARD. After marking our distance the kids helped each other measure in inches how far everyone had walked before the egg fell off. Everyone got two or three chances to put the eggs back on their feet.

Check out our blue wall for our Fairy Penguins. The kids painted them and all I said was make sure you leave a white tummy. We added our already brainstormed penguin facts from the week before, cute eyes, a beak and feet. Since we painted a 4ft tall Emperor Penguin, the tallest of penguins, these Fairy penguins were to represent one of the smallest penguins on earth.

At lunch time we read If you were a Penguin. And enjoyed good conversation.

After a playing in the gym we came back to our room to build 4ft. towers in front of our 4ft penguin. I had them work in pairs. It was a fun simple project. I don't think these guys will ever forget that an emporer penguin is 4ft. tall. :)

Thursday, Feb. 18

Today was a day for patterns, alphabet and blubber. :) I had the kids work on Penguin pattern sheets when they arrived. With a little help in the beginning they were able to complete the task on their own which was great. We also completed a simple dot to dot sheet to create a penguin. I wanted the kids to see the lower case letters and recite the alphabet as they went.

During morning meeting we talked about something the Penguin and the Polar Bear have in common. BLUBBER! We know that the Penguin and the Polar Bear (after a short intro on Polar Bears, The Powerful Polar Bear) both swim in very cold, ice water. And what keeps them warm? Blubber. I gave them blubber gloves to wear while they played in our sensory table filled with Sonic Ice. :) They placed their blubber gloved hand and a bare hand in the ice water. We then experimented to see which hand could stay under the ice the longest. Everyone but Jack found the blubber glove hand to stay under longer. Jack was tough and held his bare hand under the longest.

We continued our work on patterns with penguins, snowflakes and snow balls. I began the patterns and had the children finish my pattern. Once they understood the process they worked at creating their own patterns. We are coming along very well with this skill.

At lunch we read more about polar bears. Lauren was sweet to let us borrow a very nice book on the Arctic. We oohed and ahhed over the photos of Polar Bears in their habitats, swimming, and cuddling their babies. But despite our focus being Polar Bears and Penguins the adorable baby white seal was our favorite. :)

With Ms. Jane today we trained for our Olympics. It was a lot of fun. We will be having this special event on Thursday.

In the afternoon I spent some time one on one on our Alphabet review. The water/ice table was available as well as puzzles, polar animals and an Alphabet letter find. They could choose sheets with an assortment of letters. The goal was to identify the letter at the top of the page to be “found”. They then placed a winter marker on all the upper case and lower case letters found. We will continue this exercise over the next couple of weeks as we finish up our winter unit.

We'll continue on with Polar Bears next week. Tuesday is CAMOUFLAGE day. Please dress in WHITE. Or as white as the wardrobe will allow. And please bring in old white socks.

Cari