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.

Insects

Today we read the story There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly.  Today we did two centers, and the children visited each of them.  At one center the children were given a paper plate with a slot cut out for the mouth.  The children drew two eyes and a nose on their plate to make it look like a face.  They then cut up pieces of yarn and glued them on for hair.  At the second center the children were given the characters that were in the story.  They used colored pencils to color in the lines, as well as practiced using a variety of colors to color their animals. 

Tomorrow during closing center we used the puppet and characters to retell the story There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly.  When the children identified the animal that came first they put it in their puppet's mouth.  They continued this action until they had all of the characters in the mouth in the correct sequence.  Please don't forget that when you are done reading to your children close up the book and have them retell for you what happened in the story.  You may have to give a few prompts along the way.  I was very pleased that one of the children made a text-to-text connection when they remember that we have read other versions of books that had an old lady swallowing things.  

Insects

Today we read one of my all time favorite stories The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  This story gave the children an insight into the life cycle of a butterfly.  In the afternoon we received a shipment of caterpillar larva.  We are going to take care of them as a class and watch them progress through their life cycle.

 At one center the children completed the first few pages in the Butterfly Life Cycle book that we are making.  On the first page they glued a leaf and drew an egg on it.  The second page had the following sentence on it:  When the caterpillar hatches, he eats and eats and eats.  For this page the children used a hole punch to punch holes in the leaf to make it look like it was eaten.  They then used circle stickers to pattern a caterpillar on the leaf.

 At another of our centers today the children made a caterpillar.  They used a clothespin and pom poms to make it.  When it was finished they placed it in a brown lunch bag(the chrysalis).  We then hung the chrysalises from the hooks in our ceiling.  The caterpillars will now rest as they go through metamorphosis.

Kite Day

Today's story was titled The Wind Blew.  At one of the centers the children explored wind.  Each of them were given a straw and a bag of objects.  They used their straw to create wind to blow on each object.  They observed the results of their blow and recorded them on a recording sheet.

At another center the children created a kite.  They were able to use glitter glue to decorate their kites, which they loved.  They also practiced patterning when they glued bows on their kites.

At another center the children listened for claps of thunder and counted the corresponding raindrops on an cloud.  The also drew raindrops on clouds as a way to work on one-to-one correspondence.

u is for Umbrella

Today at one center the children listened to the story It Looked Like Spilt Milk.  They were then given a blue piece of paper to fold in half.  Next they placed white paint in the fold and rubbed the two sides of the paper together.  They then opened up their paper and described what object their cloud looked like.  Some responses included a turtle, an x-ray, and a butterfly. 

 At another center the children drew a picture of themselves.  We have been working hard on this skill for kindergarten.  Our goal is to have the children draw a recognizable picture with 6 or more traits.  After they drew themselves the children cut out an umbrella and glued it above them.  they used ABC stickers to make their last names on the umbrellas.

Planting a Rainbow

Today the children also listened to the story Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.  During center time the children then painted a rainbow of their own.  They cut out a pot, glued it onto a piece of paper, and then used their creativity to paint a rainbow of flowers.  The best part of this project is that no two are alike.

For our second project the children cut out the pieces of a flower and assembled them in the correct position.  They then labeled the parts of the flower with the words, seeds, stem, leaves, flower, and roots.  We used the begin letter and ending letter of the words to decipher which was which.

R is for Roots

At center time today the children made book tilted What do seeds need to grow?  On each page the sentence described one thing that seeds needed to grow.  The children then drew the object in as part of the illustration.  For example, on the page that said, "Seeds need the sun to grow," the children drew a sun.  At another center  the children practiced counting and one to one correspondence by drawing petals on a flower.  This was tricky for some of the children to slow down and count and draw accurately. Our song for the day was "Flowers, Stems, Leaves, and Roots," which we sang to the tune of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

Dinosaurs

 Today's read aloud was titled Dinosaur ROAR!  One of our dinosaur centers today involved making a fossil out of Model Magic and noodles.  The children pressed the noodles into the model magic to make a dinosaur body.  We will wait for our images to fossilize and then the children will be able to take their fossils home.  They loved this activity!! At another center the children cut out the outline of a stegosaurus.  They then glued on triangles in a pattern to give the stegosaurus its plates. 

Little Lumpty

The story we read today was titled Little Lumpty.  This story is a spin off for our new nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty."  In the town of Dumpty stands the high wall from which Humpty Dumpty fell long, long ago. Every day Little Lumpty passes the wall and dreams of climbing to the top. His mother warns him not to, but, at last, Little Lumpty cannot resist. He gets a ladder and climbs to the top of the wall. How wonderful he feels, if only his friends could see him. And then he makes his big mistake: he looks down! He starts to shake and tremble, he cannot move from where he is sitting. "Help! Help!" he screams, fearing that he will end up scrambled like Humpty Dumpty. The townsfolk run to save him.  At this point in the story I stopped reading the book.  We then broke off into centers.  During center time the children made a brick wall and cut out their own Little Lumpty.  They then used their imagination to decide how Lumpty could get down from the wall.  Once they had their idea they used a marker to add details to their picture showing how Lumpty would get down.  Some children thought he would jump into some marshmallows, one child said he would use a leaf blower to get down, and another child said he would slide down a slide.  When I finished reading the story at closing circle the children learned that the real Little Lumpty is saved when the townsfolk hold out a blanket for him to jump on.