Welcome Back and Birds

It was so good to see everyone again!!  Boy did we have a busy first week back after spring break!!

On Tuesday we talked about Birds in Wisconsin.  Mrs. Gould had lots of pictures of "Wisconsin Backyard Birds" and we learned their names.  The ones we remember most are cardinal, blue jay, robin, house finch, and mallard duck.

We also listed things we already knew about birds.  We knew that:

Birds fly.

They have wings.

They  make nests.

They come in different sizes.

There are many different kinds.

They have beaks.

 

After snack we had music and practiced songs for our spring sing.  It will be held on May 15th at 10:30 in the church sanctuary.

Then it was time to bundle up and go for a bird hunt.  (we wrote this language experience math story as a class on Wednesday morning, the day after our bird hunt.)

Our Bird Hunt

We saw 2 cardinals.  A mommy and a daddy.  The mommy was brown the daddy was bright red.  We saw 6 birds flying in the sky.  We saw 5 robins!  We also saw things that weren't birds!  We passed 2 dogs, saw 2 jet airplanes and Duncan found 2 meteor rocks!!

Then we added 6+5+2 to find out that we saw 13 birds all together!

What a surprise, as we kept walking we ended up at our favorite park!!!  We had to play on the equipment!!  We ended up staying a little too long and were late coming back to class....

We were so happy to see all our grown ups waiting for us outside when we got back!!

Wednesday we learned about mallard ducks.  We watched some short videos on youtube and saw baby mallards following their mom in the water!  We also saw how the daddy has a bright green head and the mommy is more of a brownish color...sort of like the cardinals!  Here is the link to a one of the videos we watched:

► 1:09► 1:09

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHevNn-AVQg

Mar 11, 2009 - Uploaded by James Knott

Then we heard Mrs. Gould's favorite story from when she was little, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.  It's a Caldecott winning book that takes place in Boston.  It's based on a true story that Robert McCloskey read in the Newspaper when he was an art student in Boston!!

For anyone who's never heard the story here's a link to it being read on Youtube.  I bet your kids might have fun listening to the story over again!!  

► 5:51► 5:51

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0fQpliJJQI

Aug 31, 2010 - Uploaded by SeaK80Reed

Robert McClosky's Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/Robert-McCloske... Make Way for ...

We started learning the letter Q and it's sound.  We looked at the word Quack and realized a q was at the beginning of the word!!  Then we used pinto beans and glue to make an upper and lower case Q.

We talked about birds beaks on Thursday.  We made bird feeders out of toilet paper tubes, peanut butter and bird seed!

We also celebrated Jacobs 5th birthday!!  He brought in super cool airplane cookies to share with us and wore a really cool airplane shirt to school too!!  Happy Birthday Jacob and thanks for the birthday cookies!!

We also had a special visitor on Thursday, Jonas's Grandma Jean and her 10 week old puppy, Maggie came to visit!!  Maggie is a scottie and soooo friendly.  She came up to each of the children so we could pet her.  She also rolled over and wagged her tail a lot to let us know she felt happy and safe!!  Thanks for sharing Maggie with us Jonas and Grandma Jean!!

What a great way to end the day and get ready for the week-end!!

The Egg Hunt

We started the day with all of the kids decorating bags for our egg hunt later in the day.  We were so fortunate to have such nice weather so we could have the hunt outside.  After we finished decorating, we had activity time and then we went to circle time.  We heard the books The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and The Great Easter Egg Hunt.  

Jonas brought in a special treat for us to have for snack...bird's nests!!  Thanks so much Jonas and Heidi!!

After snack we noticed an Easter Basket with one egg inside.  Everyone wondered why there was only one egg!!  So we opened the egg and found a note inside from the Easter Bunny!!  He said he left surprises outside for us so we all put on our jackets and went outside.  He left eggs for us all over the place.  We each found 7 eggs.  It was so much fun!!  

After we went on the egg hunt we played outside and went for a walk.  We saw 2 woodpeckers, a cardinal and a robin!!  We also heard their bird calls!

When we went inside we had just enough time to take off our jackets and sit down when Duncan's mom came in to visit.  She and Duncan wanted to share some of the fossils they found on their trip to Texas!!  We all sat on a sheet and got to explore lots of fossils and shells...it was so cool!  Thanks Duncan and Amy for sharing your fossils with us!!

A snail fossil!

A giant fossil with made of lots of shells!!

Have a great spring break everyone!!

Eggs

Mrs. Gould brought in a plastic egg today and passed it around during circle time.  We each shook it and had to guess what was inside.  We guessed that chocolate candy or jelly beans or stickers or legos might be inside.  Then we read the story The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown.  It was about a bunny who found an egg and wasn't sure what was inside.  After a series of adventures the bunny learned that a yellow duckling was inside the egg.  After we heard the story we opened our egg and found a little green duckling inside!

Then it was time for snack.  We had music with Mrs. Jenkins today and practiced our songs for our spring sing in May.

It was so nice we wanted to go outside and play for awhile.  We had fun running around, climbing on our equipment and using bubble wands and bubble solution.

When we came inside it was activity time. We added bubbles to our fish paintings with Mrs. Chyko.  We painted 3-d paper eggs with Mrs. Gould and we played with cars, trains, the kitchen area, lincoln logs and horses.  We're all looking forward to the egg hunt tomorrow!!

More Ocean Fun!

We were glad to have Duncan join us again this week!  We missed him last week when he was on his trip to Texas.  He visited the Johnson Space Center while he was there and brought back astronaut ice cream for us to try at snack!!

We all loved it!!  Thanks Duncan!!

We were talking about Hermit Crabs this week.  We heard a great story about a Hermit Crab and then we watched a few video clips on Youtube that showed real hermit crabs changing their shells!  

We made an ocean in a bottle by adding oil, water and food coloring together.  We put in foam fish and some glitter to add sparkle to our ocean.  We had fun swirling it around and then watching the oil and water seperate.  It was fun to watch the fish move and then float back to the top!

Mrs. Chyko has been working with each of us as we paint a beautiful fish!!

Mrs. Gould has been working with us as we create a textured sand dollar!

Gavin brought back the mystery bag and we had fun guessins what was inside!  We played with play dough, cars, puzzles, beans, and our new ABC game during activity time.

Yesterday was so nice outside we spent at least 30 minutes running around and playing on our climbing equipment.  It felt so good to get outside and run on the grass again!!  We played a game called "I'm a Great Big Shark"  Everyone had a turn to be the shark and the fish...it was lots of fun!

We also got out all our bubble equipment and blew lots of bubbles on the parking lot, just like fish make bubbles in the ocean!!

When we came back inside we had a special surprise.  Charlie's grandma GiGi brought in her new puppy names Grace.  Grace is a cockapoo who is 12 weeks old.  It was so much fun to play with Grace and learn about her.  Thanks Charlie and GiGi for making the day so special!!!