Chicks and Rabbits

We enjoyed reading Max Counts his Chickens and Max and The Chocolate Chicken, both by Rosemary Wells, on Tuesday.  On Wednesday we heard the classic story of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. The children were mesmerized by that story.  We acted it out afterward.  Finn and Henry wanted to be Mr. MacGregor, everyone else wanted to be Peter.  I was the mother.  We added a rabbit family to our Calico Critter Collection as well as two rabbit puppets so the kids could play Peter Rabbit during activity time. I've included a link to a video of Peter Rabbit.  We ran out of time at school, so the kids didn't get a chance to see it yet.  I bet they'd really enjoy watching it!! Here's the link...
cute video of Peter rabbit



Mrs. Jenkins came in on Tuesday and taught us a new song about a rainbow...It begins with "red, it's the color of an apple..."

It was warm enough to get outside on Wednesday, the kids enjoyed playing on the equipment, running up and down the hill, using balls and ribbons, and drawing with sidewalk chalk.

We had fun making chick headbands on Tuesday and bunnies coming out of eggs on Wednesday.

Happy Spring Break!!

Bunnies and Eggs

We started the week reading The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown.  Most of the kids had never heard it before and loved it!  As soon as we finished reading it, they wanted to hear it again, so we read it a second time and the kids helped fill in the missing words when I stopped reading.  Another book we read this week was Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. Both of these books are classics, one written in 1946 and the other in 1957.  Margaret Wise Brown also wrote the classic Goodnight, Moon. Later in the week we read The Great Easter Egg Hunt and Can You find the Easter Eggs, Pooh?


Our art project this week was painting eggs.  Once they were dry we made a nest in a plastic cup and put the egg inside.  The Easter Bunny stopped by on Thursday and left us eggs in the church narthex.  First, we decorated bags so we had a place to collect our eggs, then we went upstairs to find the eggs.  We each found 6 eggs, each one a different color.  (We had fun playing the same and different game before we went upstairs to search) Once we had our eggs, we sang the rainbow song using the colored eggs as props.

Looking for eggs...

We found all our eggs...so happy!!

We had fun putting floor puzzles together during activity time. 

Calico Critters, fire trucks and cars, using letter cubes to spell words and building with the train set were some of our favorite things to do this week!

We especially liked building giant train tracks on the floor!! 

Some of our finished eggs...so pretty!!

Addy was Maple Leaf of The Week.  She shared her poster with us on Tuesday, it was fun to learn about her favorite things and see her pictures!!  Thursday her Mom and little brother came in to visit.  First we made a dragon craft, then we heard 2 books about dragons.  She even sent in dragon cookies for us to eat!!  (Addy helped her mom make the cookies). Thanks Addy, for helping to make our week so special!!

Yummy dinosaur cookies...thanks Addy!!

Our Maple Leaf of the Week!

Blow through the tubes to create a fire breathing dragon...so fun!

Listening to dragon stories. 

St. Patrick's Day Fun

  Mrs. Chyko saw a green streak run past her, she thought it was a leprechaun so we followed it upstairs and found gold coins!!  We each found 8 pieces!!  Later, Mrs. Gould read us the book Jamie O'Rourke and the Giant Potato which is an Irish Folktale.



 Wednesday we made leprechaun ladders  and hung them on our hooks, When we came to school the next day we found treats that the leprechaun left for us on our hooks!!  We had fun going outside a few times this week and we enjoyed singing with Mrs. Jenkins.  We watched several Kiboomer video clips about St. Patrick's Day. Here is the kids favorite, we all got up and followed the actions....Dance, Leprechaun, Dance I bet the kids would like to do this at home for their families!

Ellis was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  Tuesday she showed us her poster and told us about her favorite things. Thursday, she brought in green Lucky Charms treats and a rainbow in a cup (strawberries, oranges, pineapple, grapes, blueberries) as a special treat to share with her friends at school.  Her mom, dad, and baby brother came to visit too.  We saw Ellis's baby scrapbook, heard a story and  painted birdhouses! Thanks Ellis for helping make our week so special!!

Ellis's Dad read us a story!

Ellis's mom made a beautiful scrapbook for Ellis.  She shared it with us!

Ellis has a lot of bird houses at her house, so she brought in wooden birdhouses for all of us to paint!

Some gold the leprechaun left, he left us Lucky Charms too!

Maple Leaf of the Week!

Rainbows in a cup and green lucky charm treats...yum!!

We all wore green to school on Thursday...Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Rainbows and Leprechauns

We had fun hearing a lot of stories about rainbows this week and learning about St. Patrick's Day traditions.  We discovered that an Irish legend says there is gold at the end of a rainbow put their by leprechauns!!  In the book Jack and the Leprechaun it even said that if you catch a leprechaun they need to tell you where they keep their pot of gold!! We talked about Irish Dancing and learned the Irish Jig during circle time. For one of our art projects this week we painted rainbows with watercolors and put gold at the end!  We also talked about the letter "G" and made gold glittery "G"S" with glue on green paper!! During movement we used colored scarves and bean bags to create rainbows.  We've said goodbye to our snow in our sensory tub and it  is  now filled with colored beans, plastic eggs, and several pieces of gold!

 Some of our favorite books we heard this week!

  

We celebrated Teagan's 4th birthday on Tuesday.  She sent in colorful cupcakes and green and red grapes for a special treat!

Happy birthday, Teagan!

A rainbow looking birthday treat!!

Using scarves to make a rainbow.  We had fun tossing and catching them too!!

It was a little cold to go outside this week so we made a conga line to go with one of our movement cd's!

We put all our scarves together and look what we made!

We learned 2 songs about rainbows.  Here are the links:

I Can Sing a Rainbow

The World is a Rainbow

Tommy was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  He shared his poster with us on Tuesday and let us know about some of his favorite things.  One of his favorite shows is Octonauts and his favorite character is Captain Barnacles.  Wednesday he was helper and on Thursday his Mom and Dad came in to help celebrate his special week and his half birthday!!

Happy birthday, Tommy!

What a cool birthday treat, it's Captain Barnacles.  Tommy helped his mom decorate the cookies!  We all admired how nice they looked and boy were they delicious!!  Thanks Tommy for sharing such a special treat with us!

Mom and Dad came in to share 2 of Tommy's favorite books with us...of course one of them was about The Octonauts!! 

After we heard the story about Frown Fish in The Octonaut book, we made our own aquariums!  What a fun project!!

Our gold, glittery, G's made on green paper with glue!!

Our rainbow sensory tub!!

Nursery Rhymes

We had so much fun learning nursery rhymes this week.  We read several nursery rhyme books, did flannel board nursery rhymes and Brooklyn brought in a book she had from home that we shared with the class as well...the kids loved it!  We also read the big book of Jack and Jill and learned a rhyme about 10 Little Bears in a Bed.  All of the rhymes had songs that go along with them so we had fun singing the songs.  In fact, if I started to read a nursery rhyme in my speaking voice, the kids would ask me, "Can you sing it to us???"  I'd say their favorites were Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, and Hey, Diddle, Diddle.  I wonder if they can recite them at home too? 

    

During activity time we were finishing our robots at art center and Mrs. Chyko had a giant floor puzzle of nursery rhymes she worked on with the kids.  We also got outside for two of the days this week.  The kids cheered when they heard we were going out!!  Yay!!  They had so much fun playing outside on the equipment, running around on the grass and drawing with sidewalk chalk!

Our finished shape robots!!

Oh, to be outside again!!

The kids made their own hopscotch game!!

Finley was our special person of the week.  On Tuesday he brought in his poster to share with us and his Mom, Dad and little brother came to visit the class.  They shared with us some of Finn's favorite things from home and read us two of his favorite stories. Finn loves baseball and is starting T ball soon so he brought in some special baseball gum for each of us.  He loves to garden so he gave each of us a packet of seeds so we can grown vegetables in our gardens at home too.  Yum!!   Thursday he brought in a special treat from home to share with his friends.  Thanks for helping make our week so special!!