Shamrocks

We started the week talking about St. Patrick's Day, shamrocks and leprechauns! We read the story What is St. Patrick's Day?  We found Ireland on the globe and learned how to make a shamrock by putting 3 hearts together!  We made crystal shamrocks by mixing boiling water and borax together in a mason jar.  Then we added a pipe cleaner shaped like a shamrock.  By the following morning crystals had grown all over the pipe cleaners!  The kids loved this experiment!!

Our crystal shamrocks!

Here's the link in case you want to try it at home

We had fun singing about leprechauns.  Here are the songs we sang this week:

I'm a Little Leprechaun

Dance, Dance, Leprechaun

We made a leprechaun ladder at art center.  We can't wait to see if the leprechauns climbed them on St. Patrick's Day!

Ellie was our "Maple Leaf" this week.

Yummy lemon cookies, gogurt and orange juice for our Tuesday snack...so good!

We had lots of fun meeting her family!  On Tuesday Grandma Debby came in and did a movement/exercise class with us...so fun!! Wednesday Mom and Dad came in to make a special craft with us and read us stories, on Thursday Ellie's grandparents came in to tell us about running a dairy farm!  We saw real live footage of a farm, calves, and dairy operation!  We even got a bag with a coloring book about dairy farming and string cheese to eat!  Thanks so much Whitcomb family for helping make our week so special!

Our St. Patrick's day snack.  Shamrock cookies, a fruit kabob with green grapes, and strawberry/banana smoothie! (kefir)

Exercise class with Grandma Debbie.

Making our crafts...bracelets or racecars!

Learning about Dairy Farming!

Storytime with Ellie's Dad!

Rainbows

Saanvi was our Maple Leaf of the week.  On Tuesday her mom and sister came in to teach us about India and show us how to make paper airplanes!  Saanvi goes on a long airplane ride when she visits India! We found where India is on the globe and learned about a spring festival that is held in India where the kids have fun decorating themselves with different colors.  The Thakur ladies all wore beautiful colored clothes to school and we each got a chance to put some yellow powder on our faces! Saanvi gave each of us a colorful spinner to remind us of the colors of spring!! On Thursday we had a delicious treat from an Indian Food store in Chicago.  We all loved it...thank you Saanvi and family for helping make our week so special!!

Our delicious treat.  The cashew diamonds were so yummy!!

Learning to fold paper airplanes.

Locating India on the globe.

Having fun flying our planes!!

Rainbows was our theme for the week.  We had fun making rainbows out of Fruit Loops and using vinegar, baking soda and food color to make rainbows.  We heard several stories about colors and rainbows this week.  Ask your kids if they know what makes a rainbow?  (rain, sun, and colors)

Fruit Loop rainbows.  

This turned into an exploding rainbow.  The kids loved pouring in the baking powder to watch it bubble and fizz!

We used rainbow colored scarves to dance and move!

Another exploding rainbow!  We used the colored water and a pipette to squeeze water droplets onto baking soda!  

A rainbow week wouldn't be complete without rainbow songs!  Here are the ones we learned!I Can Sing a Rainbow  and The Rainbow SongBarney's Rainbow Song

Dr. Seuss

We had fun talking about Dr. Seuss and reading his stories this week!  On Tuesday we heard Great Day for Up,  Wednesday we read Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now and Thursday we read 10 Apples Up on Top. The kids love his books.  We giggle and the patterns make it so easy for the kids to join in the reading.  We used Dr. Seuss snack cups to hold teddy grahams and we each got a little Dr. Seuss blank book to take home. (Thanks Tannar!!) We also had fun finger painting and using stickers to help us count as activities to go along with the stories we heard.  Thursday we had our Dr. Seuss party.  The kids each brought a Dr. Seuss book from home (or borrowed one at school) and we went around in a circle and told about the book.  We had a super cook Cat in the Hat snack (thanks Max!)Then we had fun reading Dr. Seuss books after snack.  In addition to the books the kids brought in, Maple Leaf has about 30 Dr. Seuss books and we set all of them out for the kids to look through! 

Our Cat in the Hat snack.  Thanks so much Ashley for making this for us!!

Reading our Dr. Seuss books!

Wren was Maple Leaf of the Week.  He shared his poster with us on Tuesday and on Wednesday his Oma came to visit with us.  She lives in Holland and showed us a powerpoint presentation on Holland!  Then we heard a wonderful story about Miffy written and drawn by the Dutch artist Dick Bruna. We had a chance to try some dutch cookies and color in our own versions of Miffy.  Thank you so much Wren and Oma for helping to make our week so special!!

Wren and his Oma teaching us about Holland.  We love learning about different countries!!

The finished version of our class tree!

We do have a class full of sweethearts!!

Spring in February

We had a little spring fever this week!  We had music and a long recess on Tuesday and then lunch.  After lunch we walked to the park and played.  It was so nice to be outside again!!  Wednesday the warm weather continued and so did our outdoor plans!  We had quiet playtime, circle time, and snack and then off to the park again!  We also celebrated Grace and Wren's birthday with delicious mini cupcakes....so delicious!!

Celebrating Grace and Wren's birthday!

Our Tuesday "lunch bunch".  

Our Wednesday walk to the park.  Our birthday kids are leading the group!

Friendship and Valentine's Day

We had fun celebrating friendship, being kind, and caring for one another this week.  We started the week with our Valentine's Party.  Thank you so much parents for all you did to make this day so special for the kids and the teachers!!  We truly appreciate it and feel so blessed to have such great people and families who attend Maple Leaf!!

As the saying goes.... "A picture is worth a thousand words..."

What great decorations!!  Thank you Betsy Whitcomb for  transforming our classroom into a Valentine Wonderland!!

Last week we made our "Mailboxes".  The kids were so excited to take them home and see what was inside from their friends!!

The party started with healthy treats including fruit and string cheese! The kids look so great all dressed in pink and red!

Then it was time for desert and decorating our heart shaped cookies with frosting, sprinkles, and candy hearts!  Of course we had to have red juice.

Our stations included...using paper plates and paint sticks to toss balloons...

Throwing arrows and bean bags at paper plate hearts....

a Valentine matching game....

Punching a hole into a cup and taking out the prizes inside...

Stacking candy hearts and making a stained glass heart to hang in our windows.

Thanks for making our day so special.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Hearts!

This week we talked a lot about hearts, love, and how to be kind.  We heard several Valentine's Day stories including Mousie's First Valentine.  Our puppet, Mousie, helped us read this one!
We decorated our Valentine Bags at art center this week.  The kids used scissors to cut out a heart shape, wrote their name on the heart, glued it on the bag and then decorated the bag with lots of heart stickers. (Some kids did it all on their own, some needed a little guidance.)

Other activities during activity time included making fossils with Mrs. Swietlik, working on puzzles and card games with Mrs. Chyko, playing with the snow tub, cars, kitchen center, magnetic letters, stencils, blocks and airplanes.

One of the fossils we made using shells and toy dinosaur footprints!

We had Music with Mrs. Jenkins on Wednesday and at the end of the day G.G., Hadley's Grandma, came in to read some stories to us about Valentines Day.  We love listening to her read stories to us...we can tell she was an actress!!

The kids are very excited about the Valentine's Party we're having at school on Tuesday...looking forward to it!!

A few of the fireworks we made last week....

G.G.reading to us!

We had some type of bug going around our class last week, 5 of us were absent on Wednesday!!  

Chinese New Year

We heard  stories and songs about Chinese New Year this week.  We watched several videos too.  One of the kids favorite was the story of the Chinese zodiac.  Here's the link in case they want to watch it again at home: The Chinese New Year

We learned how to say Happy New Year in Chinese (Gung Hay Fat Chee), found China on the globe, learned that the festival is 15 days long and a family holiday where red envelopes with money (lucky money) are given to children by their elders.  In our class, each child got their own red envelope with their name written in Chinese characters.  The kids were fascinated that China uses symbols instead of letters.  Here is the website for the "Chinese Alphabet" that we used to write their names.Chinese Alphabet

Our version of a Dragon Dance.

We pretended to have a traditional family dinner and ate mandarin oranges and long noodles (ramen noodles) for snack.  The kids had fun trying to eat the verrry long noodles!  During Chinese New Year long noodles are served to represent a long life and oranges represent good luck.

Long noodles for long life and mandarin oranges for good luck and happiness.

At art center we used glue and glitter on black paper to represent all of the fireworks that are set off during this celebration!  We talked about how people all over the world like to watch fireworks and spend time with their family!

Grace was our "Maple Leaf" this week.  Her mom and dad came in on Tuesday with Grace's new kitten!  The kitten walked around our room and everyone had a chance to pet her. The kids also liked watching her walk back into her carrying case when she felt a little overwhelmed...and then she would peek her head out and come out again.   Wednesday Grace brought in some delicious homemade chocolate cupcakes...boy were they good.  Thanks Grace for helping make our week so special!

Grace, her mom, dad and  kitten!

Mrs. Chyko worked with us on floor puzzles during activity time.  Here's one we put together!