This week we were learning about mosters of the deep. We started out with florescent under the sea pictures. Our favorite day was Tuesday, it was National Chocolate Chip Day. We melted chocolate chips and chose our favorite snack food to dip into the chocolate. The kids told me I was the best cook. We also sampled a couple of the snacks. Wednesday we made octopus windsocks, we made a face on a piece of paper, we put 8 streamers hanging down and used circle stickers on the legs of the octopus. Add Comment We had a fun filled week learning about sharks and whales. We started our week with macaroni pictures. Macaroni was patented on May 7 a very long time ago (I couldn't find the year). If you look closely in the picture you will see some names made out of macaroni. Tuesday we made whales out of paper bags. Wednesday we made hammerhead shark head bands. Thursday we made jumping dolphins, it was a paper with a ocean scene and a 5 inch slit in the middle. The kids colored the ocean scene and added a couple fish stickers. Next they colored a circle with 2 dolphins, the circle went in the slit and I attached it with a brad. Another great fun week learning all kinds of new things. The kids did GREAT!!! This week was all about fish and sharks. We started our week by reading the Rainbow Fish book, the kids really enjoyed it. Afterwards they traced, cut, and decorate thier own Rainbow Fish. Tuesday we played a fishing game: the kids had to pick an animal or sea creature from under a blue blanket(water), and determine if it lived in the ocean and why/how. Wednesday we made ocean pictures: the kids imagined the bottom of the ocean and drew beautiful illustrations ~ so talented!!! Thursday was the best ~ we made JELLY FISH!!! Using spray bottles of paint, and spraying coffee filters. We put the coffee filters over a bowl, and used yarn as tentacles. We had so much fun!! You can see some examples of them in the first floor hallway! The kids really enjoyed learning new things about the ocean! This week our new nursery rhyme was "Little Boy Blue". The children thought it was fun to recite, especially the end! In phonics, we learned a new word family -en and our new sight word play. The children are all doing a great job reading both sight words and words from our new word families. Ask them to read some words for you! We have been learning all about plants this past week! We learned about the different parts of a plant and what plants need to survive. The children were able to dissect a real plant to see all the parts. We also have an ongoing experiment to see what will happen if plants do not have water, sunlight, or air. We will check on our plants after a week to see what has happened. In math we have been learning to count by 5s. The children played a bean exchange game where they exchanged 5 single beans for one stick of 5 beans. They were also introduced to tally marks as ways to count and record groups of 5. I am so happy to be back. I missed the children terribly! We got right back into the swing of things and started the week off with the Nursery Rhyme " Itsy Bitsy Spider". Our phonics for the week concentrated on helping children realize that they can make words by changing different parts of words they know (log, bog or bag, ban). Connections to know words help chidlren form powerful strategies that will make them rapid, flexible word solvers. The children also learned about the different makeup that it takes to write sentences. They were taught that sentences are made up of words that are put together to communicate meaning. Basically, that a sentence is a group of words that makes sense. They had to make a short story using complete sentences about their friends. Our theme of the week was "Insects". We talked a lot about spiders and ants and the different parts of their body. The children learned about pheremones and how the bees and ants use their sense of smell to locate things. The children were given jars of different types of smells and their job was to find their partner that had the same exact smell. We used lemon juice, mustard, cherry juice, and peppermint extract. They had a blast with this activity. We also worked on the word ending "ake" and discovered the different words we can make.. The children had a great time at our fiesta and have probably gained 5 pounds since I have been back :) We had a fun and silly week in Kindergarten! Our nursery rhyme this week was "What are Little Boys Made of?" We also learned all about the farm and farm animals. We talked about how hard it is to be a farmer and the many jobs a farmer has. The children all got a chance to "milk a cow" using a rubber glove that had tiny holes in the fingers. Everyone decided it was a lot of work to get such a small amount of milk! In math we graphed our favorite farm animals and have been practicing counting by 5s. Everyone is getting very good at skip counting..ask them to show you! In addition to our curriculum, we had special theme days this week. Monday was game day. The children had fun playing board games in small groups. Tuesday was Boston sports day. Everyone wore their favorite sports shirt, accessory, or teams color clothing. Wednesday was mix-match clothes day. The children had on some crazy outfits! Thursday was backwards day. Everyone had their clothes on backwards and we read the story "Silly Sally". Friday was pajama day. We had a comfy day wearing our pajamas. As a special treat, the children got to watch a movie during quiet time. We had such a fun week! On Monday Ms. April will be back. The children are all very excited for her return!                     For the past two weeks we have been learning about Space. Ask them to tell you what they've learned. Our two new nursery rhymes were "Star Light, Star Bright" and "Jack Sprat" We learned our last letter Kk, and a new word family -an. As a class, the children came up with many -an words such as man, can, fan, and Dan. The children have been working hard on their handwriting. We have been talking about when to use upper case and lower case letters. We have also been working on making sure our letters are sitting on the line when we write. All the children have been working so hard and their progress has been amazing! In math we have been creating addition and subtraction sentences. It's a new concept for them but they did really well. As a class we created the addition problem using items then changed the items to numbers. We have also been creating and reading graphs. The children really enjoyed graphing the day we used jelly beans! As you can see, the kids have been very busy and have made great progress on all their skills. This week it was all about rocks. One of our many projects with rocks was rock painting. The kids pick the color paint they wanted, put the rocks in the box, and shook. They had so much fun shaking! I was in early Friday and got to see the kids in music. The kids looked so cute with the guitars, I ran for the camera. Hope you enjoy!                    With the nice weather and the approach of Spring, we thought we'd get ready too! This week we had so much fun planting. We started off the week making a garden scene. Using cupcake liners the kids drew beautiful stems to transform them into flowers ~ so cute! We also made faces on clear cups and planted grass seed inside to make grass heads. They are on the shelf in Mr. Sam's room enjoying the sunshine ~ take a peek and see their progress. We also planted mammoth sunflower seeds in plastic bags. Some kids brought them home; others are hanging in Ms. Nicky's windows. In another exciting planing project we made a pocket full of poises ~ ask the kids. They cut pockets out of paper and I stapled them together, then they designed beautiful flowers to put in the pockets. We ended our week by making flowers out of paper plates. We are so excited that spring is here!! Please remember to use sunscreen and bug spray. This week in Kindergarten we learned all about the water cycle and where rain comes from. Our nursery rhyme "Rain, Rain, Go Away" went perfectly with this theme. The only thing missing was a rainy day this week (which we are all OK with)! Our letter of the week was Yy. We also learned a new sight word, one. They all did a wonderful job reading the sight words they have been learning and sounding out new words! This week the children read the book "I Can See" in small reading groups. In math we played an addition and graphing game. In groups, the children rolled two dice, added the numbers together and graphed the answer. We also did a lot of work with shapes this week. The children worked as a team to create shapes on the gym floor using their bodies. We also used geo boards and elastics to create shapes. As you can see there are many many different ways to learn and the kids are enjoying exploring them! To go along with our theme of the water cycle and rain, the children made water cycle bracelets and did two science experiments. In the first experiment we put some water in a pot, measured it, then boiled the water. While it boiled we made predictions about what would happen to the amount of water in the pot after it boiled for a little while. The next experiment, the children took a cotton ball and placed it in a shallow bowl of water. The cotton ball absorbed (evaporated) the water. Then the children squeezed the water out (it rained). The kids had a lot of fun with these two great It was a great week!! :) | AuthorMs. April & Ms. Julie ArchivesMay 2012 Categories |
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