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!!