We welcomed Spring this week with beautiful weather! We spent lots of time playing out in the sun!
On Tuesday we made touch collages. The children were given materials of different textures such as sandpaper, feathers, yarn, rice, foam and they were able to glue them to their paper to make beautiful creations. We also read a book on the sense of touch.
We enjoyed reading Little Cloud, When Springtime Comes, poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends and A River Ran Wild. During music we sang a few spring songs such as, “I’m a Little Black Seed”, “Mr. Sun”, “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and “The Bumblebee Song.”
The afternoon students made two paper mache volcanoes. On Thursday morning we combined baking soda, vingegar, dish soap and red food coloring and watched them erupt.
Lots of great work has been happening in the classroom. Our younger students are becoming very self-directed and staying very busy during work time. Many worked on colors, geometric shapes, letter sounds with the sand tray and sandpaper letters, the touch tablets feeling the difference between rough and smooth, and many math exercises.
Kindergarten has been using the bead material to solve word problems. We played a game with division to introduce this. I told them I had so much money and I wanted to divide it among my friends (we did this 3 at a time). I put 6 thousand cubes, 6 hundred squares, 3 tens and 3 units of the bead material on a tray and ask them how I could divide it equally. They responded with, “Give one to each of us!” starting with the thousands cubes, then the hundreds squares, the tens and the units. When we had divided it equally on their trays, we counted it up and used the number cards to see what 6633 was divided by 3. Then we pushed it back together and added 2211 +2211+ 2211, which also gave us the opportunity to talk about multiplication. They were very excited to see they could easily solve word problems and do division using the bead material. They were so engaged we’ve been putting up a new math word problems every day.
Wow! We had a busy week at Sunnybrook.
On Tuesday we explored our sense of taste with tasting jars. We read a book about the sense of taste and learned about the four types of taste: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. The children tried spoonfuls of water with salt, water with sugar, water and lemon juice and water with coffee (decaffeinated, of course). We didn’t tell them what was in the cups until the end, so they enjoyed trying to guess, as well as identify what type of taste it was. I wish I had taken pictures of this activity to capture the funny faces. The sugar and water was the only one that they requested more of!
The afternoon students enjoyed tossing and throwing a ball to one another to learn about the importance of our sense of sight. We tossed the ball easily to one another at first and then they each took a turn wearing a blindfold and trying to catch the ball. We realized it is much more difficult to do it when you have a blindfold on and how much we rely on our sense of sight to help us do all sorts of things.
On Wednesday we enjoyed a visit from Herb and his brass instruments. He showed the students how long a trumpet, french horn and tuba would be if they were uncoiled. He also gave a musical demonstration of each. Thanks Herb! It was a great experience for the students to see and hear the instruments.
We also enjoyed seeing our 5 sense show and tell items! The children brought a variety of things to share. We touched soft stuffed animals, tasted yummy maple syrup/candies and sour lime juice, heard musical instruments and smelled some pine tree needles/branches. Thanks for the great shares! The children enjoyed talking about their items and answering questions from their friends.
On Thursday our friends from Believe in Books were back with The Cat in the Hat. It’s always so much fun when they visit. We enjoyed listening to a story and choosing a book to take home.
Kindergarten made beautiful 100 posters! 100 jewels, cornflakes, pennies, ribbons and numbers!
This week we started talking about the 5 Senses. We learned that we have five different senses that help us take in information about our environment. We read Hello Ocean which is a great story about a child who observes the ocean using all her 5 senses (touching the sand, tasting the salty water, hearing the waves, etc.) We enjoyed two sensory activities using our sense of touch. On Tuesday we taped down contact paper sticky side up and the children walked over it without their slippers. The children were very excited about this activity. We also took turns putting on a blindfold and matching fabrics by feeling the texture. This is an activity that remains on our sensory shelf and is a great material to help refine a child’s tactile sense.
Tammy has been teaching the children about the Iditarod race in Alaska. We are following a musher and monitoring the temperature at the checkpoints in Alaska compared to Lancaster. On Thursday morning we read a young children’s version of the book Balto.
Our Iditarod reading race has started! On Tuesday we will send home a form with 4 sled dogs on it. For every book your child reads (or has read to them) they may color in one sled dog. When the form in completed, return it to school and they will move to the next checkpoint on the Iditarod route (we have a map in the classroom). We are hoping all our mushers (readers) make it to Nome, Alaska. Extra forms will be kept on the top of cubbies.
The play yard in muddy and WET. Please make sure your child has an extra outfit at school since we’ve discovered most of the snow pants are not waterproof. Please know your children are having a great time making mud pies and splashing in the puddles. Sorry about all the extra laundry you are probably having to do.
Wednesday, March 14th: Show and Tell please bring in one item that demonstrates one of the five senses.
Thursday, March 15th: The Cat in the Hat from Believe in Books will visit!
If you did not return the pre-registration form please do so as soon as possible
On Tuesday we celebrated Valentine’s Day with a card swap and yummy cupcakes. The children also enjoyed making “Love Bugs” and heart shaped crayons. The heart shaped crayons were a huge hit. The children LOVED this activity and they came out great. Each one was unique and beautiful.
Directions for activity if you want to try at home:
Peel/break up old crayons
Place in silicone baking tray (6-8 crayons each)
Cook in oven @ 230 degrees for about 15 minutes (or until crayons have completely melted)
Let cool (we put ours outside to speed this process up) and the crayons will easily pop out!
This week we enjoyed singing “Skidamarink” and “Tony Chestnut”. We also had a lot of fun listening to the William Tell story/music on Thursday, retelling it with the felt board and acting it out.
Stories we enjoyed this week included: Ten Little Ducks, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, The Very Quiet Cricket, Puff the Magic Dragon, The Art Lesson and Owl Moon. We are getting very good at identifying what an author does and what an illustrator does. Ask your child and see if they can remember! Also when your reading with them have them show you where the title page is in their books.
Work time was very busy this week! Many of our younger children worked on identifying and writing their names. We have been busy counting 1-10 and working on longest/shortest with the Red Rods and the Number Rods. We’ve also been working on rhyming, phonetic sounds, geometric shapes, pouring, scooping, sorting and making beautiful play dough creations.
Kindergarten has been busy reading, building/writing words, playing the Bank Game with the bead material, doing the Long Chains, working on telling time and making a class graph of our favorite Goldfish crackers. We had every child (and teacher!) sample regular flavor, rainbow and pizza flavored Goldfish. We tallied up the votes and made a graph. I believe pizza flavor was the winner, although it was close!
