Ice Cream

Today was ice cream day.  The children listened to the story Should I Share My Ice Cream?  Gerald is excited about his "awesome, yummy, sweet, super, great, tasty, nice, cool ice cream" cone. But worry sets in with thoughts of his best friend, Piggie should he share his treat with her? As Gerald wrestles with the pros and cons, the ice cream is melting fast. By the time he decides in favor of sharing, it has melted into a puddle at his feet, and Gerald realizes that he "blew it." But timing is everything, and Piggie shows up at that moment with a cone of her own and happily shares it. "Not my plan," thinks Gerald, but he also realizes that this arrangement is fine.  This book lead to a great discussion on the importance of being nice!

During centers the children worked on subtracting one when they made the book Ice Cream Cones.  They worked on creating their own patterns when they made an ice cream project, and they enjoyed an ice cream treat for snack.  It was a great day!

Bookworm Gardens

We had a wonderful time visiting Bookworm Gardens and searching for signs of spring.  We toured a barn with Charlotte's web, we sat in Papa Bear's chair from the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we harvested vegetables, listened to a story, and danced.  I have included pictures from our trip as well as a link to learn more about the exciting learning opportunities that take place at the garden. http://www.bookwormgardens.org/

Still Learning

The last two days we have continued to work hard in 4K.  Yesterday we read the story Mrs. Wishy Washy.  During centers the children picked the animal they liked most from the story.  They then made a headband mask to go along with their character.  We then used our props to act out the story.

Today we talked about watermelon.  They children listened to the story The Enormous Watermelon.  This story reminded us of the story Big Pumpkin that we read at the beginning of the school year.  During centers the children used play doh to count seeds on slices of watermelon.  They played a game with a partner called the "Bump" game.  This game taught them that they might not always win, but they do need to be a good sport.  We also worked on beginning sounds when we picked a letter and had to find the picture that started with the letter sound we picked.

Camping

During centers today the children went on a hike to find items.  When the children found an item they identified its beginning sound and recorded it on a recording sheet.  The children also drew their final self-portrait for the school year. We also celebrated our last day with our buddies by reading stories, sharing a treat, and playing on the playground.  

Fireflies

Today we continued to learn about all things camping.  Our focus was on fireflies.  We read the story The Very Lonely Firefly and the nonfiction book World of Insects Fireflies.  During centers the children followed multiple step directions to make a firefly of their own.  They also practiced a number they are working on for their classroom assessments when they made a jar and glued fireflies in it.

Missing Number

Today the morning class played a missing number zoo game.  On Tuesday the afternoon class played it.  On their turn the children picked a card that had a sequence of numbers with one missing; 9, ___, 11.  The children had to fill in the missing number.  Next year the children will be assessed using AIMS web.  As part of the math assessment they will have to find the missing number in a sequence of numbers.

Today the children also made a giraffe position book.  On each page there was a sentence that told where the giraffe was;  Giraffe is under the sun.  After reading the sentence together the children had to glue their giraffe in the correct spot.  Next year you will hear a lot about the Wisconsin Common Core Standards.  One of the math standards is to explore, recognize and describe shapes and spatial relations.  Spatial relations includes the terms under, between, above, and below, all of which were covered in our giraffe book.  At an independent center the children created their own zoo.

Zoo Day

To begin the day the children listed to the story Never Ever Shout in the Zoo.  To end the day we read Zoo Day Ole! A Counting Book.  This book helped us learn to count to ten in Spanish.  Things did not go well at our Zielanis Zoo today.  All of the animals got out.  It was the children's job to count them all and make sure they got back.  The children did a nice job of graphing and analyzing the data that they collected.

Fun Day

Today was an exciting day in our classroom.  We checked on our chrysalises and guess what?  A butterfly emerged from each and every one. Yeah!!  When the children opened their own chrysalises that we made awhile back they found their caterpillar turned into a butterfly too!  We will released our classroom butterflies on Thursday.
At one center the children cut out and colored a Zoo Keeper hat.  We will use this hat on tomorrow when we go on a Zielanis Zoo adventure along with Mrs. Sagal's class.  We also journaled about what we would do if we were a zookeeper.

Happy Mother's Day

Today our read aloud was titled Zebras.  This book is one in a series of nonfiction books by Pebble Books.  We have enjoyed reading a few books from this series.  They give us facts about where the zoo animal live, they tell us what they eat, what the group that they live in is called, as well as provides us information on the animal's habitat.  During centers the children marble rolled a zebra.  They also finished the letter z page for the letter book we have been making all year.
I also taught the children a new song that they giggled over.  The title is "Elephants Have Wrinkles."
  Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles, wrinkles. 
Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere.

On their toes, (echo) No one knows, (echo) why yi yi yi yiih.

Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles, wrinkles. 
Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere.

Each time we sang a verse we added another part of the elephant's body that had wrinkles.
Before I Was a Mom
Author Unknown

Before I was a Mom
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Before I was a Mom,
I slept as late as I wanted
And never worried about how late I got into bed.
I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was Mom
I cleaned my house each day.
I never tripped over toys or forgot words of lullabies.

Before I was a Mom
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom
I had never been puked on
Spit on
Chewed on
Or pinched by tiny fingers

Before I was a Mom
I had complete control of:
My thoughts
My body
And my mind.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom
I never held down a screaming child
So that doctors could do tests
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
When I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
Could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a Mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
Could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay
I had never known the warmth
The joy
The love
The heartache
The wonder
Or the satisfaction of being a Mom.

I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.

Penguins

Today we learned about penguins.  The children used cubes(nonstandard units of measure) to measure the length of three different penguins.  They measured a Gentoo penguin, the smallest a Blue Fairy Penguin, and they measured a Rockhopper penguin.  At another center they made a penguin puppet that we used to act out a song.  At the third center the children played a variety of beginning letter sound games.

Dear Zoo

Our read aloud today was titled Dear Zoo.  Each child received their own journal page to go along with this story.  They picked an animal that they would like the zoo to send them.  They then went on to pick one character trait of the animal that would make it unable to stay at their house.  One child wrote that they would like a cheetah, but they would have to send him back because he is to fast.  Another child wrote that they would like a meerkat, but they would have to send him back because he is to cute!  At the second center the children made a Koala counting book.  We also sang the song "Elephants Have Wrinkles."

Welcome to the Zoo

Today we talked about zoo animals that belong to the cat family.  We learned about tigers and their cubs.  We also learned about the fastest land animal the cheetah.

During one center today the children made a torn tiger.  They used orange or white paper to tear out a head, neck, belly, tail, and four legs for a tiger.  They used black paper to tear out stripes.  They then glued all of the parts together and drew on a tiger face.  What seems like an easy project is actually very difficult for many children.  When you tear paper you use your thumb and pointer finger.  At 4 and 5 these fingers are not very strong.  By tearing paper we are able to strengthen these fingers.  This in turn will help your child hold a pencil when they have to write sentences, write numbers in math, and draw pictures when they have to illustrate stories.  

 At another center the children played tiger roll and stripe.  The children were given one or two dice based on assessments.  They rolled their die or dice and counted the total number of dots.  They then drew the corresponding number of stripes on their tiger.  Some children worked on writing an addition sentence to go along with their roll.