Hot Air Goes Up!

This morning during morning circle we started our April pattern. This month we are making a ABBC pattern. We are using star, diamond, diamond, rectangle. We also practiced identifying numbers 1-39. The kids skip counted by 10's, 5's, and 2's. We reviewed the vowel circle and learned the sliders today. When we make the slider sounds our mouth moves from one place to another. The slider sounds are long o, long i, ow, and oi. We used long o to sound out words. We read bow, tow, show, mow, low and row.

Our story today was "Hot Air Henry" by Mary Calhoun. Henry is a cat and he really wants to fly inside a hot air balloon. When the man isn't looking he hopped into the basket...but his claw cut the rope and the balloon floated into the sky. Henry saw an eagle and geese while in the air. He learned that one rope turns on the burners and moves the hot air balloon up into the sky and the other rope turns off the burns so they hot air balloon can move toward the ground. Finally he saw the man on the ground and was able to land the balloon safely. After reading the story we compared hot air balloons to airplanes. They both can fly and both move through the air. Hot air balloons have a envelope, ropes and a basket....planes have wings, engines, and a tail. Hot air balloons move slow and airplanes move fast.

For science we learned about hot air rising up into the air and cold air falling to the ground. To help the kids see the difference we had balloon filled with hot (helium) air and we blew up balloons with cold normal air. We counted down from 10 until we let go of the balloons. When we let go of them the hot air balloons went up to the ceiling and the cold air fell on the ground.

For art we made hot air balloons. We punched 4 holes in the basket. Then we blew up a balloon to be the envelope. Next we tied the rope around the balloon and attached it to the basket...this helped hold the balloon in place. After the balloons were finished the kids flew them around the classroom.

We practiced writing lower case n before we ate lunch today. After eating the kids sang their favorite hot air balloon song. Next week we will learn about things that go on water.