This week our focus question was, “How can we work together and be part of a group?” The Gingerbread Man ran around campus and left us clues on how to find him. We all worked together and eventually found him back in our classroom. He had turned back into a cookie and everyone got to try a piece of him! This activity was a fun way to wrap up our nursery rhyme unit and helps children learn to follow directions.
Our focus question this week was,” When do things happen at school?” We used our visual schedule to see what happens during the day and even took some time to plan activities together. Routines are very important at this age and their inquiring minds enjoy discussing what we are doing next. One of the activities on our schedule is story time. The story for the day was Peeny Butter Fudge. In this book, when Mama leaves the kids with Nana, she also leaves a schedule and menu for the day on the fridge. But, when the door closes, all sorts of fun breaks loose. Then, Mom comes home, sees the house is a big mess and is temporarily annoyed until she sees that they've made peanut butter fudge.
We had our schedule planned for the day and who do you think showed up? Our very own Nana!
Nana knows how to take an ordinary day and make it extra special! She brought the recipe and all the ingredients to make peanut butter fudge. We read the recipe and discussed how important it was to follow the directions. If we missed a step, our fudge wouldn’t taste good. Knowledge of print and its uses includes understanding that print carries a message and that print is organized and read in particular ways. Each child was given a step from the recipe and couldn’t wait to help.
We had a very special visitor come to our playground this week, Mary and her lamb. Everyone had a blast getting to pet the lamb named Tinkerbell and she truly made the children laugh and play!
We had a very successful first couples of weeks learning new names and building new relationships. During circle time, we are demonstrating phonological awareness by learning the nursery rhymes Humpty Dumpty, The Three Little Kittens, and Little Miss Muffet. Phonological awareness, or phonological sensitivity, is the ability to discern the sounds and patterns of spoken language. Phonological awareness is an important skill in learning to read. Children become phonologically aware through experiences such as reciting poems and nursery rhymes, singing, and clapping the syllables of chanted words.
The children had so much fun walking around the room with clipboards looking for letters. When they found a letter they had to find it on their paper and trace it with a marker. The benefits of writing the room are: 1) it's not just another worksheet, 2) handwriting practice, and 3) letter recognition.
The children had a wonderful time at middle school's Roman Carnival. They played games, had their face painted, and had a frozen treat!
Children learn about shapes, beginning with 2 dimensional (flat) shapes (circles, squares, triangles, etc.). Then, once kids have a good grasp of 2 dimensional (2D) shapes, they can move on to learn about 3 dimensional (solid) shapes. Learning about 3 dimensional (3D) shapes opens up a new world to kids. They become aware that not all shapes are created equal. The boys and girls had fun exploring 3D shapes using magnatiles.
How does trash affect our community?
A special thank you to Jarod Miller and Larry Collins with Waste Management for giving us a WOW moment. Mr. Miller told us about the trash truck and we learned that our trash is taken to a landfill in Texarkana. He told us that it is important to recycle and help save the earth. Waste Management has a special section of the truck for items that can be recycled. We were thrilled to receive a trash truck and recycled pencils. What a wonderful day!
As part of the recycling unit, we read The Adventures of Gary and Harry. It's about two sea turtles that are best friends and run into a problem with litter in the ocean. After reading the book, we decided to make our own ocean and talked about how we can do our part in keeping it clean.
Working on our cutting skills, we cut pieces of yarn and glued them to our letter Y.
We had a great time going back in time! The middle school kids did a fantastic job on their presentations. We learned what a general store was and got to buy candy there. We then saw some blacksmiths at work and sang Old MacDonald with farmers. After that, the children got to dye a candle and tried homemade bread.
