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.