S is for Space

Last week was all about Space and the letter Ss.  We completed a lot of fun activities centered on our theme and discussed the moon, planets, stars, and astronauts.  We learned that the Sun is a star (in fact our star) and we discussed the 8 planets in our solar system.  While reading a book about the solar system's planets, the students observed that the four planets closest to the sun are the smallest while the four planets further way are the largest.  We also discussed how Earth rotates around the sun and discovered that most of the students in the classroom have been around the sun 4 or 5 times!  The students also helped demonstrate the reason for night and day on Earth when two of our students simulated the Earth spinning on it's axis to face the sun during the day and away from the sun at night.  We also talked about gravity and how astronaut's can float when in space.  We imagined we were walking (or rather bouncing) on the moon!

Check out some pictures of our week!

For this activity, the students had to count out exactly 10 rays to put on their sun.  The students did a great job identifying the set of 10 and following directions.

 

Even though it was rainy on this day, our classroom was full of sunshine!

Making our very own planets using watercolors

Making our Name Rockets

A special visit from some feathered friends.  Thank you Ms. Rory for bringing in your chickens to show the class!

Music with Ms. Jenna

Letter School app.  The students enjoyed taking turns tracing the letter S on the iPad!

Our Super collection of Ss words!  

Enjoying reading books about space.

It was a rainy sunshiny kind of day :)

  

Friendship, The Letter Ff, and Humpty Dumpty

Last week; we completed activities centered on the theme friendship, we practiced recognizing and writing the letter Ff, and we completed an activity based on the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty".

For our "Friendship Quilt" activity, the students each drew a picture on a "quilt" square of their friends.  The drawings were super cute and some pictures had really great friendship stories to go with them!

For the letter Ff, we practiced recognizing the uppercase and lowercase versions of the letter and also practiced writing both forms.  The students did a fabulous job both recognizing and writing the letter Ff.  We also practiced making the Ff sound as we read a story about Friendly Frog who helped blow out a forest fire by making the f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f sound.  

Last week, we also read the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty".  We discussed the rhyming words found in the poem and the students did a great job finding other words that rhyme with wall and fall.  While making our chart of rhyming words, the students made a keen observation that most words we wrote down that rhymed with wall and fall ended with a-l-l.  For extra fun, the students collaboratively built a wall and then each took a turn trying to balance Humpty (we used Mr. Potato Head) on the wall.  After a few "falls", the students quickly found a way to balance Humpty just right so he would not fall!  We also completed an activity for Humpty Dumpty that involved determining the problem and the solution found in the nursery rhyme.  The students came up with some great ideas not only to help fix Humpty (band-aids, tape) but to prevent him from cracking when he fell (pillows and trampolines).  Lots of creative and thoughtful ideas!

Check out some pictures from our other activities last week!

 

Music with Mrs. Jenna!

 

Number card match -
students had to match the card with a number on it to a card with the corresponding amount of dots.  

  

We love to read together!

  

Friendship

Today we talked about friendship.  First we read a book and then discussed what being a friend means and ways that we can be a good friend.  The students had a lot of great ideas!  They also had a lot of great stories to share about their friendships :)  In the spirit of friendship, one of our friends brought handmade seashell necklaces for each friend in the class (including Ms. Hill & Buttercup)!  At our centers today, the students each drew a picture for our friendship quilt.  They also played with the Geoboards, which we borrowed from Mrs. Kathleen, to make triangles, squares, rectangles, and many more shapes. They really had a lot of fun with this activity.  We also had fun with clothespin color matching (sharpening fine motor skills) and magnets at center time.  At circle time we played a game called "Who is Missing?".  The students closed their eyes tight (no peeking!), and I tapped a student on the shoulder to come hide behind a poster board.  When the students opened their eyes they had to guess which friend was missing!  Lot of giggles ensued as we played this game :) Check out some pictures from our day!

 

Look, I spelled a word!

Friends! 

Aa is for Apple

So far this week we have had a lot of fun learning about Apples and the letter Aa!

On Monday, we measured apples (height and circumference), and used homemade apple pie playdough to make apples on an apple tree.  We also had a chance to enjoy our sensory bin for the first time and hunt for green apples!  At circle time we read a book about apples and created a list of all the things we already knew and learned about apples.

For morning work on Monday, the students finished their mini me from last Friday.  They turned out super cute!

 

Apple Measuring

We used cubes to measure height and yarn to measure circumference.

Apple Pie Playdough

Hunting for green apples in the sensory bin

We even had time for Dress-up!

Our shared writing Apple chart

Tuesday 

More apple fun continued on Tuesday with apple stamping and apple math!

Apple Stamping

During circle time we read a story about a little house with no windows or doors and had a star inside (an apple).  The students were astounded when I cut an apple in half and revealed a star!  They had fun first practicing writing their letter Aa and then using the halved apples to stamp an imprint of the star inside an apple. 

Apple Math

The students rolled a die, counted the dots, and then put the corresponding amount of apples on their apple tree.  

Reading together :)

Enjoying a yummy healthy snack!

Wednesday

Letter Aa playdough modeling

Creating our apple counting book. 

Strengthening fine motor skills playing with Lego's

We look forward to more apple fun tomorrow!