Talk Like A Pirate Day

Today was "Talk Like A Pirate Day!" In the touch and feel pool was all different kinds of treasure. There were jewels and sequences and glittery shapes. The kids listened for an object or color and then had to find something to match inside the pool.

During our morning circle we told the kids we were going to learn all about pirates! We practiced saying "Arrr!" Then the kids practiced different -ar words to help us sound like pirates! We also reviewed the calendar and sang one of our days of the week songs.

Before going outside we had music class! We started our class by singing the "Hello" song. Then we sang the "I like ___" song and the kids each shared an animal they really liked. We also sang "Shake Your Sillies Out," "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," and "If Your Happy and You Know It." While singing "If Your Happy and You Know It" the kids helped make different feelings/faces on a dry erase board and talked about how the person felt. We ended the class with the kids strumming the guitar and singing goodbye.

Our story today was "Pirate Boy" by Eve Bunting. After reading his favorite book about a pirate boy, Danny wonders what would happen if he sailed away on a pirate ship. Luckily, his mother tells him that she would find him, even if she had to ride on a dolphin, battle sea monsters, and make a bottle of magical spray to shrink the pirates! After we finished the book the kids shared all the things they already knew about pirates and things the learned from the story. Pirates have maps, find treasure, use a spy glass, say "Arrr", wear an eye patch and sail on a pirate ship.

For art we made our very own Pirate Boy. The kids had to sequence the steps to assembling the pirate. First they glued on the pirates colorful hat. Then they had to glue the pirate's eye and eye patch on his face. Finally they need to draw a mouth onto the part. The kid's pirates talked to each other saying "Arrr," "Ahoy Matey," "Yo-ho-ho" and "Aye Aye Captain."

We founds some very fun pirate songs to sing at the end of the day after practicing to write the letter "I."  Tomorrow we will have show and tell so bring your favorite toy to share with the class!

Mixing Colors

This morning the kids identified different shapes in the touch and feel pool. We counted the number of sides to help decide the shape's name. The shapes were also different colors. When the kids held them up to their eye the classroom changed colors. If they overlapped the colors then a new color was made.

During morning circle we talked about the calendar and practiced the days of the week and months of the year. We also practiced saying our friends names so we can ask them to play on the playground. Since we were talking about colors we sang a song to help us remember all of them.

Our story today was "Little Blue and Little Yellow" by Leo Lionni. Little blue and little yellow share wonderful adventures. One day, they can't find one another. When they finally meet, they are overjoyed. When they hug they become green. After reading the story we talked about what happens when two colors are mixed together. We talked about mixing red, yellow and blue...the primary colors. We learned that yellow+blue=green, red+yellow=orange, and blue+red=purple.

For art today we mixed two colors together to make a new color! The kids first painted blue and yellow in the small boxes. Then they mixed both colors together in the big box. When they colors were mixed we couldn't find yellow or blue anymore....now the colors was green. We learned that blue + yellow= green.

 We ended the day with a song about mixing colors. Tomorrow we are having a very special day....I can't wait for the kids to see!

Being a Good Friend

This morning the kids worked at two stations. They first practiced the 4 letters we have been working on with a do-a-dot marker.

 Then they had to put them in a special order to spell FELT. They also worked with wiki sticks to get our fingers ready for Ms. Michele.

Ms. Michele had three activities for us today. In the first area we bounced a ball with a partner with special circles, threw frisbees and crawled through the tunnel. The second area had a plasmacar and scooters. The kids each took a turn riding to the end, going around the cone and coming back to the start line. The last area was finger fun. Ms. Michele had big marshmallows, little marshmallows, coconut and flour in a big tub. Some of the marshmallows were sticky and the coconut smelled like the beach.

Our story today was "Don't Need Friends" by Carolyn Crimi. There's a new dog in the junkyard, and he is very grouchy! He seems to be the perfect friend for the grumpy Rat. But the two animals are only interested in shouting at each other. "Don't you come near me!" barked Dog, and Rat screamed back, "Fine with me. Don't need friends, don't need 'em at all!" But the two animals soon realize that everybody needs a friend. Especially during a cold winter in a junkyard where warmth is hard to find—and a foot-long salami sandwich is a near-miracle. After reading the story the kids brainstormed ways to be a good friend. In the story Rat and Dog did many things that were not nice to each other...but to be a good friends we need to share, not fight, help each other and have fun when playing with our friends.

For art today the kids made friendship flowers. They each picked three different colored hands to be three friends they have in their class. They followed directions to glue down the flower "hand" petals and draw the stems. Then they each picked three friends in the class to be part of their friendship flower and we wrote their names on the petals.. It was great practice remembering all our friends names!

The day went by so quickly! Tomorrow will be our first Young Athletes class with Ms. Abby....the kids are going to love it!

How to Make Friends

This morning the kids practiced sorting different objects. They each had a category of objects...transportation, animals, dinosaurs and fruit. The kids sorted the categories by color and then by the different objects. They also had game boards to use to match the objects that are the same.

During morning circle we talked about our new week of school starting. We practiced saying the date, the days of the week and months of the year. We also counted to 30. Then we worked on our "everyday words." This week we added blue, yellow and green. These will be good words to learn to read because we will be using them later this week! We reviewed the lip popper and tip tapper "sound brothers" and talked about words that start with those sounds.

 Our story today was "Friends" by Rob Lewis. The story is about a rabbit boy named Oscar who moves to a new place. Like a lot of kids, Oscar finds himself needing some new friends. Thing is, he's not sure he wants to play with any of them when it seems like they won't want to go swimming with him.The kids in Oscar's new neighborhood all invite Oscar to do things with him. Oscar, however, isn't really sure that he wants to. He doesn't want to play with a boy named Charles when he offers to let him look through his telescope --- he doesn't like people who are smarter than him and he doesn't want to play with Maisy --- she invites him to play her drums, but he finds her to be way too loud. Oscar wonders if he will ever find anyone to friends with. Then he learns that making new friends sometimes requires sharing and doing what the other friend wants. After reading the story we brainstormed different things we liked to do with our friends, on the playground and in our neighborhood. They practiced asking their friends to play with them. We also talked about things we don't do to our friends.

 For art today we made two rabbit friends. The kids had to follow directions to assemble the rabbits. They each had a body, head, feed, two ears and a nose. Then the kids recalled something Oscar did with his new friends in the story we read.

During our writing center the kids wrote in their journals, practiced the letter "T" and worked on making letters on the magnetic board. We also used file folder games to practice other academic skills like counting, numbers, and colors.

It is going to be a fun week learning about our friends!

How We Help Our Family

The kids loved playing mommy & baby memory this morning. The kids practiced taking turns, identifying if they had a match and describing the two animals they flips over. We also reviewed the different names for mommy and baby animals.

During morning circle we talked about the calendar. We discussed what day was yesterday and what day tomorrow will be. We sang a song about the days of the week and months of the year. The kids practiced their "everyday words." We also reviewed our two sound brothers, lip poppers and tip tappers, and described how we make them with our mouth.

 Our story today was"Franklin and Harriet" by Paulette Bourgeois. In the story Franklin likes being a big brother most of the time. But when his little sister, Harriet, wants to play with his favorite stuffed animal, Franklin doesn't want to share. As they fight over the toy, something terrible happens. It rips! Franklin's mother fixes it, but he remains angry and hides the toy in his closet. Then Franklin discovers it's not the toy that makes Harriet happy....it's her big brother. Franklin decides that maybe sharing isn't so bad after all. After reading the story the kids made a list of different ways we can help our families. We can clean up after dinner, make our bed, wash the car, share with our siblings, and clean our room.

 Today we did an awesome science experiment. We made three different bubble mixtures and tested to see which one made the best bubbles. Mixture A was dish soap and water, mixture B was laundry soap and water and mixture C was baking soda and water. We measured the ingredients and mixed them together. Then we predicted which mixture would make the best bubbles. The kids carried the bubble mixtures outside and tested each one. Mixture A with dish soap made the best bubbles!

 Before lunch we wrote in our journals, practiced writing the letter "E" and made letters with the magnet board. We ended the day with our favorite songs about our family! Have a great weekend and I will see everyone on Monday.