Zoo

Today we started our new theme "Zoo."  We began the day by making a KWL chart that goes along with the theme.  In the "K" section it asked the children what they know about zoos.  The children stated that they knew seals, lions, tigers, bunnies, horses and kangaroos live there.  The "L" section of the chart asked the children what they want to learn about zoos.  The children want to learn more about elephants, lions, seals, monkeys and chimpanzees, peacocks, cheetahs, and swans.  I will use this chart to help direct my instruction during this unit. This keeps the children engaged and provides ownership of learning. 

Today we learned about lions and leopards.  We learned that both animals live on the continent of Africa.  They live in groups called prides.  They are meat eaters.  Their body coverings provide them with camouflage, which protects them from predators.

The children visited two out of the four centers taking place in the classroom.  Their favorite center was making a zoo.  I brought in a bunch of zoo animals and the children used our classroom blocks to make a zoo for the animals.  This seems like an easy learning activity, but it teaches one of life's most important skills, which is how to get along with others.  The children worked as a team to make their zoo.  They had to communicate with one another what part of the project they we working on.  They had to share resources, and when their zoo was done they had communicate to the rest of the class what part of the project they worked on.  The sharing aspect of this project was done to provide the children with the opportunity to become more comfortable speaking in front of others.

To end the day we went outside.  Before the children played I broke them into four groups.  Each group was given a pail of water and a paintbrush.  The children dipped the brush into the water and painted the letter "Z" on the cement(this is our letter for the week).  This activity helped us practice writing our letter, but it also introduced us the concept of evaporation, for with the hot sun out "Z's" didn't stay around for long.  This would be a fun activity to do at home to practice numbers, letters, shapes, and words.