Eggs, Bunnies and Spring!

The week before spring break we talked about eggs and animals that come out of eggs.   We were getting very excited about our Easter Egg Hunt only to find out that we had to cancel school on Thursday due to an electricity outage at the church!  We tried to notify all the families before arriving at school, but weren't able to catch everyone so we waited at the school.  When we told one of the kids that the electricity was out and school was cancelled, his response was, "Make sure to email the Easter Bunny and let him know!!"  We did!!

We had fun marble painting to decorate our construction paper eggs. 

When we returned to school after spring break, the bunny had left a note telling us that he'd be back on Thursday to leave us some eggs.  We heard a lot of stories about rabbits and eggs this week during circle time.  We also talked about signs of spring and robins.  We watched a video of a baby robin hatching out of her egg.

We went for a spring walk on Wednesday.  We were looking for robins and other signs of spring.  We saw, heard, and felt a lot of spring signs...including raindrops!

One of the signs of spring we saw were worms on the black top.  We talked about how worms help make holes in the dirt so things can grow.  The kids had fun picking up the live worms and putting them back in the grass.  

During activity time we set out several new activities for the kids.  One of their favorites was using shapes and hammers to nail to a cork board.

   Making a picture of a bird.

Making herself going on a walk.  The blue rectangle is the worm she picked up!

Another favorite activity was using blocks to create bird houses for our bird figurines.

I think the highlight of the week was The Egg Hunt on Thursday.  It was cold outside so we went upstairs to the church narthex to find the eggs.  Everyone needed to find 6 colored eggs and a sparkle egg.  So much fun!!

Green, Glitter and Gold

During circle time on Tuesday, we found a rainbow and a pot of gold that Lucky the Leprechaun hid in our class!  We had fun peeling off the gel pieces and putting the rainbow together. When we finished we added the pot of gold at the end.  We're trying to remember the order of the colors of the rainbow...ask your kids to see if they know!

During the first half of the year we learned to recognize our first names, now we're  learning to read our last names during circle time too.  We're also starting to print our last names occasionally.  We heard the story The Shoemaker and the Elves today and then we made leprechaun ladders using pipe cleaners, straws and shamrocks.

Here we are making our leprechaun ladders.

Tuesday was an extended day where some of us stayed for lunch.  We had a little extra time to play and we made rainbow art.  We put all the colors of the rainbow on a tray then put paper on top and used a rolling pin to spread the paint.  These are the designs we made.

The kids used blank paper to create these designs.  We had fun looking at them and trying to decide what they looked like.  We had a rainbow sky, 2 rainbow fish, a fire breathing dragon and a bumble bee!  

We used a paper with the letter R printed on it, put it on the paint and rolled it, then cut it out and glued it down when it was dry.  What beautiful "Rainbow R's!


Wednesday and Thursday we painted paper plates green then sprinkled gold and green glitter on top.  We turned them into leprechaun hats on St. Patrick's Day.

We had our hammer and shapes set out all week during activity time...it is one of the kids favorite!  We also had playdough and rainbow colored beans and mosaics available all week.

Our beautiful pots of gold with the rainbow coming out...the colors are in the same order as a rainbow in the sky!

We used glue to make the letter G and a shamrock, then sprinkled gold and green glitter on top!

Thursday was "Wear Green to School Day".  When we arrived at school our leprechaun ladders were hanging on our hooks with a gold coin for each of us!  The leprechauns left some gold "leprechaun dust" on the ladders so we knew they were there!  We went on a hunt around the church to look for leprechauns, we didn't see them but Miss Lucy said she heard one run by her office and when we looked around, sure enough, there were gold coins left for us in the church narthex.  We had fun collecting them...each of us found 7 gold coins to take home.  Back downstairs, it was time for snack. Lucky had left his favorite snack, we opened it, poured it in a bowl, added milk to it and stirred it up...it turned green and thick!!  It was green pudding!  Yum!!

"May the sun shine all day long, everything go right and nothing wrong. May those you love bring love back to you, and may all the wishes you wish come true!"

Rainbows and Leprechauns

We started out the week talking about rainbows and colors. Curing circle time we mixed colors and then made a rainbow with our colors.  We heard Two great stories, Mouse Paint and What Do You Need to Make a Rainbow?  In Music, Mrs. Jenkins had us singing songs about rainbows too!  During activity time we used water colors to paint rainbows.  We also had rainbow colored beads to play with in our sensory tub, magnetic rainbow colored mosaics to use and colored shapes with hammers and nails to pound into cork.  We used rainbow colored pattern blocks to create shapes too! 

I love how each rainbow is so unique...just like each child! 

Wednesday a leprechaun visited our class!  He was so sneaky we didn't see him but he turned the numbers on the calendar upside down and backwards and left us a story called The Night before St. Patrick's Day. Here's a link to the video of the book we read.  The kids might enjoy watching this, we did not watch it in class.  The Night Before St. Patrick's Day read aloud

We had fun going outside and playing on the black top.  The grass was still a little too muddy to play on but we used sidewalk chalk, tennis balls, and badminton rackets and had a lot of fun!

Both of our frogs are back in our classroom again, we think maybe the leprechaun helped make Rocky feel better.

When we came back inside we finished painting our rainbows and used gold and green glitter to make the letter G with Mrs. Chyko.  We also played with cars, trains, blocks, colored beads and mosaics.

Thursday our leprechaun played more tricks on us.  He left us a note and we know his name his Lucky.  He left Lucky Charms in our circle time room....we had to look around and find them.  We had them for snack today.  He also left us lime scented green play dough...we had fun using shamrock cookie cutters with it during activity time. And he left us another story....Jack and the Leprechaun!!  We learned a little about Ireland with this story and we listened to Irish Music while we had our snack! 

Jack and the Leprechaun video

 It was so nice we went outside and today the grass was firm enough for us to play on...boy did it feel nice to climb on the equipment and run around on the lawn again! 

The kids enjoyed eating Lucky Charms and finding rainbows, and other shapes in the cereal!!   

 

Robots, Transportation, and Sports Day

We talked about robots the last week in February.  We had a lot of fun listening to Robo-Pete, another book in the Pete the Cat Series. Click the link above to hear the story as a read aloud video.
We also had a great time celebrating Naomi's 5th birthday!  She brought in delicious cupcakes for a snack!

Our Tuesday snack, home made funfetti cupcakes...so good!

Of course we sang Happy Birthday in English and Spanish!!

Naomi brought animal masks for all of us!  We had fun wearing them during indoor movement time and pretending to be the different animals...thanks for a great day, Naomi...Happy Birthday!!

We had fun using shapes to make robots.  Here are just a few of our creations.  We also had fun looking at the robot located in our big activity room...we named it Wall-E.

Other exciting news is that our amaryllis bloomed !  The kids were so excited to see it during circle time.

The beginning of March came in like a lion with a snowstorm!  We were talking about transportation during the week.  Show and Tell was the highlight on Tuesday, with all the kids bringing some type of transportation toy to school.  We had remote control cars, hot wheels cars, air planes, and trains.  The kids had a chance to play with their show and tell during activity time. We heard a lot of stories about planes, trains, cars and construction equipment.  We also listed things that make us go.  We came up with ideas like roller skates, scooters, strollers, cars, vans, busses, our feet, boats and trains! We had fun singing the song The Wheels on the Bus during circle time.

 Matthew was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  On Tuesday he brought in posters about himself, his family and his friends at school.  He told us all about the cool posters he brought in.  On Wednesday, Matthew's mom, Karen, came in and read us the Dr. Seuss story Wacky Wednesday.  The kids loved looking at the pictures and finding all the things that went wrong!  Here's the link to the video...show your kids this, I know they will love it!!

On Thursday, Matthew brought in a yummy snack of cupcakes and chocolate milk and then his family came in and created a sports day for us.  They set up a station for basketball, bowling, soccer and a ball toss.  The kids had an absolute ball (ha, ha) rotating through the different activities. Matthew's 2 big brothers, his Dad and his mom came in to work with the kids at each station.  What a great way for us to move around on these cold days in March!

Bowling with Tommy and soccer in the background with Dad.

Ball toss and catch with Mom, basketball with Chuck.

All the athletes!

Thanks Willers for a great way to end the week!  

Hearts and Presidents

 

Last week we had fun hearing stories about Valentine's Day, friends, and friendship.  We ended the week with our Valentine's Day Party.  Thanks to all of the parents who donated items to help make our party a success!  The kids worked on making their Valentine Bags on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We talked about how they were like mail boxes and how we would be like the mailman on Thursday and deliver our letters to our friends.  It was great to see how excited the kids were Thursday morning while they were passing out their valentines!

After circle time on Thursday we started our party.  We passed out flashing heart necklaces and then everyone frosted and decorated their cookies. We also had delicious kettle corn, and either strawberry milk or pink lemonade to drink...yum!  We played a game called "Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Heart?".  If you give your child a cut out heart at home I bet s/he could teach you how to play the game!  We also had fun learning the song "Pop, Goes the Weasel".  Then we played the game Weasel, Weasel, Monkey!  (like duck, duck goose!).  We pulled  out our class parachute and put hearts with the kids names on the chute, then we lifted the parachute up and down and the hearts went everywhere!!  The kids had to find the heart with their name on it and bring it back to the parachute.  They wanted to do this over and over and over again!!  Finally it was time to go home with our valentine bags and open them.  I hope all of you had a great Valentine's Day!

We Talked about Presidents and our country on Tuesday.  We looked at a map of the United States and talked about how the president leads the country.  We discussed how the bald eagle is a symbol for our country.  Then we heard the book called Presidents Day. During activity time we made bald eagle handprints at the art table.

We had fun playing with some new wooden blocks.  It was fun to find out which blocks stacked and which blocks rolled!

We heard some Pete the Cat books on Thursday and worked on a Pete the Cat floor puzzle during activity time! 

The kids are still having fun playing in our "snow" tub!

We've been using our stacking blocks to create an alphabet tower.   After it's built the kids have fun pointing to the letters and singing their A,B,C'S.

Here are the links to the video's for the Pete the Cat books we read.  

Ground Hogs, Chinese New Year and Hearts!

We started the week by talking about Ground Hogs Day.  We heard a really cute book called Gregory's Shadow by Don Freeman and then we talked about shadows and what makes them. During snack time Mrs. Gould came around with a flashlight and we made shadows on the table. Using a flashlight against the wall to make shadow puppets would be a fun follow up to do at home! During activity time we used popsicle sticks and toilet paper rolls to create ground hog puppets coming up out of the ground.

On Tuesday we talked about  The Chinese New Year.  We found China on the map and listened to several stories about the holiday.  We learned that the celebration is 15 days long, fireworks are set off as part of the celebration, how to count to 10 in Chinese, and that oranges and the color red are supposed to bring good luck. For snack we had oranges with our crackers and we made fireworks with glitter and glue for our art project.  

 We glued the finished product on red paper for good luck!

Mrs. Chyko helped us make tissue paper hearts!

Thursday we talked about various shapes, especially hearts!  We enjoyed listening to the story My Heart is like a Zoo.

We danced around using bean bags and scarves during our indoor movement time.  

These are some of the CD's we use when it's too cold to go outside!.

We've been singing the A,B,C's in circle time while Mrs. Chyko or Mrs. Gould point to the letters. Then we sing our A,B,C sounds while we point to the letters.  We all giggle when we do this but it's a great way to make the connection between letters and sounds.  We've also been reading big books and talking about letters and sounds.  

Here's a really good link that explains the stages of early literacy development. stages of early literacy development

Mittens and a New Friend

Tuesday we read the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  It's a really cute story about a boy who looses his mitten and then animals in the forest find the mitten and climb inside to stay warm.  Eventually the mitten gets completely filled up and a little mouse climbs  and tickles the bear's nose.  Ask your child what happens next...it was all of their favorite part of the story!  We had so much fun hearing the story we decided to act it out.  We used our parachute as the mitten and each child picked an animal to act out.  

Here we are acting out the mitten.  This is what happened after the mouse climbed on the bears nose!

Here we are climbing into the mitten to stay warm!

This activity was great for reading comprehension because we had to remember the order the animals went into the mitten.  We needed to go back and reread several parts of the story to figure it out... (An important reading skill to learn....rereading for information)

Link to Jan Brett reading The Mitten

We also had a new friend join our class this week.  Welcome Saanvi...we're so glad you've joined us. We played several getting to know you games and songs this week.

Snack Time with our new friend.  We're now up to 10 in our class!

We worked on lacing mittens all week long for our art project.  Then we had a sheet of animals from the mitten that we could color, cut out and put inside!

On Thursday we learned the nursery rhyme The Three Little Kittens.  In it the little kittens lost their mittens and their mother told them they would get no pie; however eventually they found their mittens and got a piece of blueberry pie.  Naomi brought in fresh blue berries for us to eat as a special treat!  Thanks Naomi...yum!