Spiders

What a fun, busy week!!  We started out reading Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider.  This is such a great book because the kids learn the pattern of the book and can "read" along with it.  Memorizing text is one of the earliest stages of reading.  Ask your child why the spider couldn't play with any of the animals.....I bet they'll say, "because he was too busy spinning his web!!"  During activity time one of the projects was using yarn and a paper plate to spin our own webs!!  The kids really enjoyed wrapping the yarn around and around and it really helps strengthen young hands and build their fine motor skills. The link below is for a read aloud of The Very Busy Spider.  Hearing stories over and over again and trying to "read along" out loud is another great activity for developing literacy in young children!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz05diaKZmk

We had a great snack of mini cupcakes with gummy spiders on top that we all loved, thanks Carter and Carter's Mom!!

We also learned a new, big word "arachnid" which is what a spider is!  We sang a song to the tune of BINGO that went like this 

     "There is an arachnid that crawls on the ground and spider is it's name-o.  

      S P I D E R

      S P I D E R

      S P I D E R 

      and spider is it's name-O"

We had the letters on our chart so we could practice reading the letters while we were singing!

We also talked about the letter "H" this week and heard a poem about a hungry, hurried hippo!

We practiced the number 5 all week too, counting markers, beads, pumpkins and saying our rhyme about the 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate

If your child sings that song to you at home, ask if s/he wants to turn off the lights during that part in the poem....the kids loved doing this in class, it was their favorite part of the poem!  Thanks Mrs. Chyko for sharing your favorite Halloween Poem with us!

The kids have been playing so nicely together during our choice time and activity time.  They are playing nicely with the materials, interacting well with one another, and their attention span as they work with the materials is growing.  Mrs. Chyko and I have been letting the kids know how proud we are of all of them for trying their best and being respectful to one another.  (We're learning that respectful is treating each other well and using the classroom materials appropriately.)  We've also been working on cleaning up before we choose to go to another activity and the kids are really getting the hang of this!!  

More Pumpkins

We made it to the pumpkin farm on Tuesday and had such a good time.  We wrote a class thank you note to Ms. Dawn who guided us on our tour.  Here is what we wrote:

Dear Ms. Dawn,

Thank you for sharing your pumpkin farm with us.  We loved going on a hayride, feeding the animals, going through the corn maze, going through the hay maze, petting the animals and icking our pumpkins!  We liked the big pigs and one even tried to eat Emma!!  We had a great day!

Love,

The Kids from Maple Leaf Academy

Wednesday we baked a pumpkin pie in class.  We used the pumpkin that we baked last week and followed the recipe on the ipad.  We called it "Friendship Pumpkin Pie" because we all took turns mixing it up and adding ingredients and pouring it into the pie crust!! We scooped out the pulp last week and froze it so it would be fresh today when we baked it.  We added cinnamon, cloves, and ginger for spices.  Then we added some sugar, eggs, evaporated milk and the pumpkin we cooked!  Boy did our classroom

smell good!!  We served our pie with whipped cream for snack.  I was surprised by how many kids wanted a second piece!!  (It was really good!!)

Thursday was finishing our pumpkin art project and extended day!  We used small pumpkins last week and cut them in half and dipped them in paint to make pumpkin prints.  We used orange, yellow and green paints because those were the colors we observed on out little pumpkins.  Today we added pumpkin seeds and a stem to our projects!

We had lots of fun having lunch together and walking down to the park on 1st Avenue.  

Pumpkins

Today we had lots of fun with pumpkins.  We heard some good stories about pumpkins and then went outside to look at the pumpkins that are growing outside the church!  It was a great way to see the vines and the leaves and the different shapes and sizes of pumpkins.  

When we came inside Mrs. Gould had some pumpkins to share with us that she brought in from a farmers market.  We weighed the pumpkins.  The pumpkins we had were too light to weigh in pounds ( we tried putting them on a scale) so we decided to use a balance and weigh them in plastic farm animals!  We found out one of the smaller pumpkins weighed 26 farm animals!  We weighed the bigger pumpkin and found out it weighed as much as 2 smaller pumpkins plus 6 farm animals!  We had lots of fun weighing all of the pumpkins, counting the animals and comparing and contrasting their weights and sizes.  

Then it was time to cut them open and see what was inside!  We each has a chance to stick our hand inside the pumpkin and pull out the seeds and the pulp.  We talked about how it felt and we all decided that the inside of a pumpkin feels SLIMEY!!  We cleaned out the inside of the pumpkin and put it in the oven to bake it.  Next week we'll use the pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie!

Emma brought in a special snack to share with us.  She had a family party and her grandma made some special treats.  She had some extra to share with us, they were cupcakes inside of ice cream cones....YUM!! Thanks Emma and Emma's Grandma!!!

Since it was rainy on Thursday we had class at Maple Leaf instead of the pumpkin farm.  We were all disappointed but ended up having a lot of fun having an extra long play time and storytime at school.  We learned one of Mrs. Chyko's favorite finger plays and song  called 5 Little Pumpkins.  It goes like this...

5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a gate

the 1st one said, "Oh my it's getting late!"

The 2nd one said, "There are witches in the air."

The 3rd one said, "But we don't care."

The 4th one said, "Let's run and run and run"

The 5th one said, "We're ready for some fun!"

Then whoosh went the wind and out went the lights and 

The 5 Little Pumpkins rolled out of sight.

We had fun playing with pumpkin scented play dough too!  It's a great way to help us develop our finger strenght and fine motor skills! 

Making Applesauce

We had so much fun making applesauce today!  First we heard the story about The Little Red House with No Windows and No Doors and a Star Inside.  Then we cut open an apple to find the star inside!  Ask your kids to tell you the story, we told it together and acted it out a little bit as the story went along.

After we heard the story we washed our hands and got ready to cook!  We all got a few slices of apple on a paper plate with plastic knives and we cut up the apple into little pieces.  We put it in a bowl and we all poured a small Dixie cup of water on top.  Mrs. Gould added sugar and cinnamon to it and stirred it up.  Then we walked down to the kitchen and put it in the microwave to cook for about 10 minutes.  Mrs. Chyko stayed in the kitchen to keep an eye on the applesauce and while that was going on Mrs. Jenkins came in and we had music class. After music the classroom smelled delicious!!  We sat down and ate our snack, it was soooo good!!

We heard 2 other stories about apples today.  They were called Apples, Apples and A was just an Apple Pie.  We also learned a finger play that goes like this

Way up high in the apple tree,

Two little apples smiled at me,

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down came those apples,  mmmmm were they good!!

See if your child remembers the actions that we put with the poem, maybe they can teach you how to say that rhyme like we did in class!!

Finally we painted apple trees with Mrs. Chyko at the easle and did apple printing with Mrs. Gould at the art table.  We tried to get the star inside the apple to show up when we did the prints, they turned out beautifully, we've got a bunch of budding Picasso's in our class!!

What a fun, busy day!!  Here is the recipe for the applesauce that we made:

4 apples, peeled, cored and cut up.

1/2 c water

1/3-1/2 c sugar (I used 1/3)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Put in microwave for 7-10 mins (we actually needed 14 minutes before the apples were soft enough) mash up and enjoy!!

We used Cortland apples, but Macintosh or Granny Smith work well too.  Add a little more sugar if using Granny Smiths.

 

The Farm

The weather was so great the past few days we made sure to spend a lot  of time outside.  Besides being a lot of fun, outdoor play is such a great way to develop social skills.  It's fun to hear the kids having conversations with one another.  It's also such a great way to practice taking turns, including one another, and getting used to following rules.  The kids have especially been enjoying playing football, kicking and rolling the big round playground balls, using sidewalk chalk and running around with one another!  We've been working on being careful of one another when we're playing outside.  Gaining control of moving our bodies through space is a skill that takes some time to master, but we're working on it!  Another thing we've been working on is controlling the volume of our voices in different situations (inside voices versus outside voices and when to use them).

We heard a lot of great stories about the farm this week.  Several of them are big books which we read together as a class.  

We added a "counting pot" to our morning routine.  So when we get together for circle time we pick our helper, add a date to the calendar, count, figure out the pattern on the calendar, add a straw to our counting pot, count the straws, and add a bead to our abacus and count the beads so that they match the date on the calendar!!  Then we pass around Polly, our "talking stick" and get a chance to share with the class whatever is on our mind.  Then it's time to talk  about our topic for the day and have a storytime.  Then it's off to wash our hands and have snack!!

In science we learned about Indian Corn and popcorn.  We learned that inside each kernal of popcorn is a drop of water and if you put when you heat it up, the water dries up and the kernal pops!  We also learned that popcorn grows on cobs just like the sweet corn we eat and the Indian Corn we saw.  Then we put some popcorn in the microwave and listened to it pop, pop, pop!  Of course we had to eat it for snack!  We had fun looking at the Indian Corn during activity time and seeing if we could get any kernals off the cob!

Speaking of snacks, we celebrated Carter's 3rd birthday on Thursday.  Happy Birthday Carter!!  Thanks for sharing such a yummy snack of wheat thins, yogurt covered raisens, and almond milk!  We also loved the "treat bags" you gave to each of us.  Thank you!!!!

All About Me Week

Kids always love talking about themselves (who doesn't??) and so this is always a favorite unit.  It was so much fun to listen to the kids share as they held up their family pictures and told us about everyone in their family.  We learned that some of us are the oldest children in our family and some of us are the youngest children and some of us are in the middle!!  We heard about how much the kids love playing with their brothers and sisters and how much they LOVE their whole family.  And of course we talked about how much their whole family LOVES them!!!  

It was also fun to hear about the pets the kids had or would like to have.  Here are some of the things the kids said about pets.

"I'd like to have a dog or cat but mommy and daddy said I'm not big enough to pick up the poop yet."

"My kitty and dog died.  I loved them."

"My bunny goes jump, jump, jump and I like to feed him carrots!"

"I'd like to have a cat."

"I have 3 cats and sometimes I can pet one of them."

"I used to have a dog but now he lives on a farm."

"My pet is named Newton!"

We also talked about how Pastor Franz has his frogs upstairs that he will share with us anytime, so those can be our pets at school.

We worked really hard on constructing a picture frame for our family picture this week.  On Tuesday we painted 4 craft sticks different colors.  On Wed. we glued them together to make a square.  On Thursday we decorated them with popcorn seeds and sunflower seeds.  Hopefully we'll add our pictures this Tuesday and then take them home, whew!!!  

We talked about measuring in math this week.  We all stepped on a scale and weighed ourselves and them made a chart.  We talked about the concepts most and least.  We also measured ourselves.  We put a piece of tape on the wall that marked the top of our head and labeled it with our names.  Then we used a measuring tape to find out our height.  We talked about the concepts tallest, shortest, and in between.  

It was great to have Mika back with us this week.  She and her family went on a trip to the state of Washington and Mika brought back lots of fun pictures to share with us.  We saw the mountains and the ocean!  Thanks for sharing Mika!!  On Thursday it was Gavin's 5th birthday!  Happy Birthday, Gavin!!  Thanks you for the delicious bag of snacks you brought in for all of us, and the treat bags to take home too!!!  Congratulations to Liam on the birth of his new little brother.  He was born last week and it was so fun to hear about him for the past several classes.  We know you'll make a great big brother!!

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday!