Busy Day

Today we had an extremely busy day.   To start the day the children were assessed using our districts IGDI's assessment(Individual Growth and Development Indicators).  This assessment was given by the school reading specialist, her assistant, the school psychologist, and myself.  We assess the children in three areas; picture naming, rhyming, and alliteration.

Today our read aloud was Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.  This book is about a boy who wrote  to the zoo wanting a pet. They send various different animals, all of which prove unsuitable for one reason or another the elephant is too big, the lion too fierce, the giraffe too tall, the monkey too naughty. Finally, the zoo sent a puppy: "He was perfect!"  During centers the children each received a journal page.  On it they drew a picture of an animal that they would like from the zoo.  They then provided an adjective that described the animal and why they couldn't keep it.  One child wrote to the zoo to send a tiger, but he was too scary.  Another children wrote to the zoo to send a seal, but he was too splashy.  While another child wrote to the zoo to send a giraffe, but he was too big.

At my center the children made a giraffe position book.  On each page there was a sentence that told where the giraffe was;  Giraffe is under the sun.  After reading the sentence together the children had to glue their giraffe in the correct spot.  Next year you will hear a lot about the Wisconsin Common Core Standards.  One of the math standards is to explore, recognize and describe shapes and spatial relations.  Spatial relations includes the terms under, between, above, and below, all of which were covered in our giraffe book.

Happy Mother's Day

Before I Was a Mom
Author Unknown

Before I was a Mom
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Before I was a Mom,
I slept as late as I wanted
And never worried about how late I got into bed.
I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was Mom
I cleaned my house each day.
I never tripped over toys or forgot words of lullabies.

Before I was a Mom
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom
I had never been puked on
Spit on
Chewed on
Or pinched by tiny fingers

Before I was a Mom
I had complete control of:
My thoughts
My body
And my mind.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom
I never held down a screaming child
So that doctors could do tests
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
When I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
Could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a Mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
Could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay
I had never known the warmth
The joy
The love
The heartache
The wonder
Or the satisfaction of being a Mom.

I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.

Mother's Day

Today was an exciting day in our classroom.  We finally checked on our chrysalises and guess what?  A butterfly emerged from each and every one. Yeah!!  When the children opened their chrysalises they found their caterpillar.  The caterpillar had wings that included grapes and crackers for them to eat as a treat.  The children loved having fresh fruit for a change.

I can't tell you too much about centers today because we were working on our Mother's Day gifts, which are a secret!  The children did listen to the story Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?  by Eric Carle.  We also sang the MOMMY Song:
I love my mommy,
She's the best,
My mommy is a great one,
M-o-m-m-y
M-o-m-m-y
M-o-m-m-y
And mommy is her name-o

With Miss Sue today the children played letter Bingo.  They listed to a word on a CD and then determined its beginning sound.  They then found the letter on their game board.  What was nice about this activity is that it moved quickly, which helped us think fast on our feet.  This game has two versions, one that works on beginning sounds of word,s and one that works on letter identification.  We will use both versions.

Cats

Today we talked more about zoo animals that belong to the cat family.  We learned about tigers and their cubs.  We also sang the song, "We're Going on a Lion Hunt."  The children connected this song to the one we sang earlier in the year titled, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt." 

At Miss Sue's center today the children made a torn tiger.  They used orange or white paper to tear out a head, neck, belly, tail, and four legs for a tiger.  They used black paper to tear out stripes.  They then glued all of the parts together and drew on a tiger face.  What seems like an easy project is actually very difficult for many children.  When you tear paper you use your thumb and pointer finger.  At 4 and 5 these fingers are not very strong.  By tearing paper we are able to strengthen these fingers.  This in turn will help your child hold a pencil when they have to write sentences, write numbers in math, and draw pictures when they have to illustrate stories. 

With Grandma Sue the children cut out a lion and glued it onto a piece of paper.  They then finger painted a mane on it using yellow, brown, and orange paint.  At my center the children played tiger roll and stripe.  The children were given one or two dice based on assessments.  They rolled their die or dice and counted the total number of dots.  They then drew the corresponding number of stripes on their tiger.  Some children worked on writing an addition sentence to go along with their roll.

The children who did not make a zoo yesterday were given the opportunity to do so today.  Here are a few pictures of their creations.

 

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.

Friday Fun

Today we had another fun learning day.  The children visited all three of our centers during center time.  At Miss Sue/Mrs. Palmer's center the children made the letter "q" page for their letter book.  We were so busy during our "q" week that we never got to it, so today was the day to get it done.  At my center the children made a page to go along with the class book we are making titled Old Black Fly.  During center time I read the children this alphabet story by Jim Aylesworth.  At the center the children wrote their name on their page, and then cut a picture out of a magazine that they liked.  They then glued their picture onto their page.  Next the children decided what letter made the beginning sound for their picture.  They used alphabet stamps to stamp it on their page.  Lastly, they searched through the magazines for more pictures to glue onto their page that started with this letter.  I will assemble their pages into a book this weekend.

Mrs. Severson had the favorite center for the day.  At her center the children visited the website http://pbskids.org/  Once here I clicked on the games arrow.  On the next page there is a set of 10 buttons.  There is a tree, a dinosaur, a first aid kit, etc.  I clicked on the orange button with the six white squares inside it.  By doing this you will see the topics of games that are available. http://pbskids.org/games/alltopics.html  Today we played letter games.  A few that the children visited were:    Dog's Letter Pit
                        Alpha Pigs Lickety Letter Bingo
                        Bear's Skateboard Park
                        Alpha Bricks
  Other really good ones are:
                        Red's Rhyme and Roll
                        Amazing Alphabet Match
                        Elmo Rhyme
                        Alpha Pigs Paint by Letter
Some of the good games under the counting button are:
                        Chicken Count
                        Bug Catcher
                        How Tall

Another activity that the children enjoyed was due to an accident.  For the children who are working on letters I took one of my daughter's balls and wrote the trickier letters on it with a permanent marker.  During play time I called a couple of friends over and played catch with them.  When they caught the ball they had to tell me which letter their thumb was on or near.  Once we started playing the rest of the class wanted to play too.  Since it started raining at the end of the day we all went to the gym to play this game.  You may want to keep this activity in mind for the future.  I also works when practicing high frequency words, spelling words, and addition and subtraction facts.

Bugging Out

Today during circle time we played the "Busy Bee" game.  I placed a set of flowers labeled 9-15 on our felt board.  Then I sang the song, "Busy bee, busy bee, a flying and a buzzing, a flying and a buzzing, where can you be, where can you be?"  During the song the children closed their eyes up tight and I hid a bee behind one of the flowers.  The children then opened their eyes and took turns guessing what number flower the bee was under.  This game worked on number identification, turn taking, and being honest.  We had a few friends try to peek through their fingers to see where the bee went, this provided us with a teachable moment. 

Today during centers the children visited the two centers that they did not get to yesterday.  At my center the children followed multiple step directions to assemble a ladybug.  They drew spots on each of the ladybug's wings and then counted the total number of spots.  Some children had a few spots, some had a lot of spots, and some wrote the addition sentence that went along with their spots.  With Grandma Sue the children played a roll and cover game.  This gives them practice subitizing.  This is a fancy way of saying: look at a group of something and tell how many there are without counting each individual item.  For example: recognizing that the six dots on a die are 6 — without going 1,2,3,4,5,6.  Some of the children worked with numbered dice, some of the children worked with dice with the number words written on them.