Bugs!

We had fun learning about bugs this week.  We learned about the parts of a bug and then put one together with construction paper.  We made sure our bugs had a head, thorax, abdomen, 6 legs, 2 antennas, and usually some wings, and 2 compound eyes. We learned that sometimes bugs have up to 5 eyes, but usually the other ones are simple, not compound. To help us remember the names of the bug parts we sang a song to head, shoulders, knees, and toes, but it was called head, thorax, abdomen!  See if your child can sing it to you and show you the motions that go along with it!!

Wednesday we talked about caterpillars.  We heard the story The Very HungryCaterpillar and then acted it out.  We each made a caterpillar and wrote about what our caterpillar would eat!

Thursday was butterfly day!  We heard a story called The Lamb and the Butterfly and we talked about the life cycle of the butterfly.  Then we did squish painting to create our own butterflies!    The kids loved squishing the paint together and opening up the paper to see how the colors mixed and the design looked!  I'll post a picture of those in the next blog, we're still not completely done adding all the details to our butterflies yet!  Thursday and Friday we colored in a shrinky dink insect that Jayme brought in for us.  When everyone was finished coloring one in, we cooked them in the oven to watch them shrink!  It was so much fun to watch them bend, fold, shrink and then lay back down on the cookie sheet!!  Thanks Jayme for bringing in such a cool project to share with us!!

We all made an insect, these are just a few examples of the kids work!

Friday was lady bug day!  We heard the story The Very Grouchy Ladybug.  Instead of Mrs. Gould reading it we heard it on our ipad!  Then we learned a poem about lady bugs and colored in a picture of a field.  We used our fingerprints dipped in red paint to make the ladybugs!  We  had fun hammering with shapes during activity time!

Here are some of the designs we made!

 

Weather

It  was so good to see everyone after spring break!  The kids had a lot of stories to share with one another during circle time.  Our unit this week was weather.  We started out by making a list of things we already knew about weather.  The list included "Thunder storms are loud.  Sometimes I see lightening.  It snows in winter.  It can be hot in summer.  I like to go swimming. Raiin makes puddles.  Puddles are fun to jump in.  I like to wear rain boots.  It's fun to play in the rain"

Then we talked about clouds and how fun it is to look at clouds and see different shapes.  We read the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk.  The kids picked up on the story pattern right away and joined in with the reading.  Later during activity time each child picked a shape and decided what it looked like.  Then we glued the shape down and wrote what we thought it looked like.  The pattern was from the book.  "Sometimes it looked like a ________ but it wasn't a ________."  it was just a cloud in the sky.

We had music with Mrs. Jenkins and are working on the songs for our spring sing which will be coming up in May.  

We went outside after music and looked at the clouds in the sky to see if we say anything.  The kids said they saw an alligator, a house, and a dinosaur!

We've also been looking at signs of spring this week.  Mrs. Chyko found a pussy willow tree near our play set.  

We saw how the little gray fuzzy buds turn into flowers...so cool!

Wednesday we talked about wind.  We realized that you can feel wind but you can't see it.  However you can see what it does, like blow trees, or flags, or us!  We learned that you can catch wind by blowing up a balloon.  We filled it up with air (wind) and then we let it go to see the energy that wind has.  The  balloon flew all around our classroom.  Everyone was laughing.  We had to do this 3 times  before we tied the balloon to trap the wind inside.  We also discovered that you can make wind!  Everyone got a straw and blew through it.  We blew the balloon around the room with our straws.  We used paper bags to make kites, then we went outside to fly them...so fun!

We talked about the water cycle and evaporation on Thursday.  We painted with water outside and then watched our paintings evaporate!

We talked about how rain helps flowers to grow (along with sun and dirt).  We used tissue paper to make spring flowers.

We went on a walk to find some spring flowers growing in gardens.

We found crocus as well as daffodils and pansies!

At the end of the day Charlie saw a giant bug outside of our classroom...it was the biggest bug I ever saw!!  We all gathered around to look at it.  Mrs. Chyko did some research and found out that it was a type of water bug that is nicknamed a "toe biter".  

Friday we facetimed with Liam out in New Jersey. It was fun to talk with him and see his new house.  He showed us his yard and his room.  Then we went for a walk to the park and played outside for the rest of the morning.  

 

Bunnnies and Chicks

Max and Ruby, characters created by Rosemary Wells, were the main attraction in our class this week!  We heard a different Max and Ruby story every day.  Max even joined our class room for the past two weeks!  During circle time all the kids told Max what they know about bunnies and here is our list:

"They eat carrots." by Charlie

"They hop and like carrots a lot!" by Ava

"They hop really fast to get away from different animals." by Tori

"Bunnies live in their houses!"  by Zoefii

"Bunnies hop and eat lettuce." by Naomi.

"Foxes take bunnies away from bears because bears like to eat bunnies!" by Jamie

"They hop on 4 feet." by Emma

"White bunnies camoflauge into the snow." by Parker

"Brown bunnies camoflauge into the dirt." by Carter

"We see bunnies at home." by Brooke

"When you try to catch them they hop away fast." by Knox

"They hop a lot!" by Mika

"Bunnies are furry!" by Caden.

We have three stuffed animal friends who are members of our class.  Their names are Mousie, Cordory, and Rufus.  Rufus is a bear who showed up on Mrs. Gould's chair one morning.  We don't know how he got there except it turned out that he didn't know much of anything and really needed to go to school!!  So we all decided that joining our class would be a really good idea for him.  The kids wanted to know what these three had to say about bunnies so here is their list:

"Bunnies have families." said Max

"Bunnies come in different colors." said Cordoroy

"What are bunnies???" said Rufus.

We had show and tell and the kids brought in something to do with bunnies.  We had stuffed bunnies, pictures of bunnies, books about bunnies and food that bunnies like to eat!  Charlie brought in a whole carrot for each of us to eat during snack time.  We loved it, thanks Charlie!!  We had fun pretending we were bunnies while we ate the carrots, yum!!!

Of course during art, we had to make bunnies!

Later in the week we traced our foot, painted on stems and made a carrot!

Jayme told us his carrot was green because when carrots are growing underground they are green first before they turn orange!!  We also used do-a-dots to fill in some pictures!

Tuesday was the day of the Easter Egg Hunt.  We got so fortunate and had great weather!  Heidi Curtis helped Joan hide the eggs while the kids were inside.  During circle time we heard stories about eggs, and talked about eggs and animals that hatch out of eggs.  Then it was time to go outside and see what the Easter Bunny left for us!!  

We each found 6 eggs!! (Thanks Betsy for filling all the eggs for us!! )

After all that excitement we were hungry, so it was time for our snack!

Birds nests with eggs...of course!!!  (Thanks Heidi Curtis for making these!!)

 After snack it was activity time.  For our art project we made chicks using a blob of yellow paint, a fork, and adding some details for the face and feet.  The next day we used dot stickers to decorate an egg for the chick to hatch out of!!  

We wish all of you a wonderful Spring Break!  Plan to see you back on April 14th!!

Saint Patrick's Day and Shapes

Jack the Leprechaun was back to visit our school on St. Patrick's Day!  Mrs.. Chyko saw a glimpse of green running past so we tried to catch him.  We ran upstaris and asked Ms. Lucy (Ms. Diane has retired) if she saw anything.  She said she didn't see anything but she heard a lot of commotion in the narthex so we went out there and we each found a gold coin with chocolate inside....yum!!  We went back downstairs to have chocolate pudding but when we got to our snack table the pudding was gone and instead a bag was left with a note from Jack.  He left us leprechaun pudding and took our chocolate pudding.  So we followed his directions, we poured the white mix in a bowl and added 4 cups of white milk and it turned green!!!  Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Chyko brought us shamrock sugar cookies and milk too, so we ate shamrocks, gold coins and leprechaun pudding for snack!   It was so nice outside we ran around and played for awhile.  We kept looking outside to see if Jack left us anything but all we found were 3 gold coins for the class to use with green play dough during activity time.   We also painted with blue and yellow to make green.  Then we added some white paint and gold glitter and created a beautiful St. Patrick's Day piece of art!!

We had fun learning the leprechaun song in music!

▶ 1:24

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSJsP_EBhR4

Feb 18, 2015 - Uploaded by KIBOOMU KIDS SONGS

It's "I'm a Little Leprechaun!" for St. Patrick's Day. Follow the story of this adorable Little ...

We started talking about shapes on Wednesday. We read the book called Mouse Shapes and then we got into smal groups and tried to make our bodies into shapes!

Mika, Parker and Knox made a triangle!

Brooke and Emma found a way to make a triangle with two people!!

Naomi, Ava, and Carter decided to make a triangle too!

The whole class got together and tried to make a house!  Do you see the rectangle with the triangle at the top for the roof?

We talked about dots, curved lines, straight lines, zig zag lines, sides, corners and angles....Geometry for preschool!!

We had lots of fun using pattern blocks to create pictures and designs!

We built with  blocks in different shapes and magnets in different shape.

We learned about circle, triangle, rectangle, square but we also talked about ovals, semi circles, hexagons, trapezoids, parallelograms, diamonds, starts, hearts, pentagons and octagons!  We watched a cool video about shapes.  The link is included at the bottom of this post.

▶ 3:27

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ5mZIInE6s

Jul 9, 2012 - Uploaded by Have Fun Teaching

Download the Shape Videos: http://havefunteaching.com/videos/shape-videos/ Download the ...

Warm Weather and Ireland

Boy did it feel good to get outside this week.  We went outside each day for at least 20 minutes.  The kids had so much fun using sidewalk chalk, playing on the equipment, using balls and running around! We also played class games like "Captain, May I?" and "Tag".

Some of the kids had fun writing their names and letters with chalk.  While others had fun drawing pictures and designs.

These are Parker's pirate ships.

We learned about Ireland and St. Patrick's Day traditions this week.  We started the week with watching a video about Ireland.  To view the video go to the link at the bottom of this post.

We read the story Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato.  Then Mrs. Chyko showed us how to make mashed potatoes.  We all worked together to help mash them.  We  added milk, butter, some salt...yum!!

Wednesday we talked about shamrocks and how you can put 3 hearts together to make a shamrock.  We colored one in and used play dough to make some shamrocks!

We also talked about rainbows and how leprechaun gold is found at the end of a rainbow. 

Parker worked for 3 days putting together a rainbow mosaic on a dry erase board....beautiful!!

 We pretended to be leprechauns and created our own leprechaun story to act out.  We heard several stories about colors and mixing colors too.  On Thursday we used watercolor paints to paint on top of the colored shamrock we made yesterday. 

 We created a crayon resist this way.  The kids art was so beautiful we have it hanging outside our classroom.  Look for your child's this week!

A leprechaun stopped by our classroom and left gold for us outside.  Mrs. Chyko saw it run past her with 4 fingers in the air.  We realized that meant he left 4 pieces of gold for each of us!  So, we went outside to look for gold.  We all found our 4 pieces....it was SOOOO exciting!!

Friday we made our own pot of gold.  It sure was fun learning about Ireland this week!!