HERE COMES SPRING!

This week we finished up the five senses with the children.  Some of the kids  finished putting their hands on their paper plate faces and then we moved on to sense of smell.  The children had to complete a sorting activity where they needed to cut out pictures and figure out which column they go in.  The two categories were things that smell good and things that smell bad.  They practiced cutting and used their knowledge of sorting to complete the have-to job on their own.  Next week we will add their noses and see if the children can identify each other by hiding their names and holding them up.  They all came out so great!

The kids were hard at work again this week with some new activities that we put out.  They really got into the floor puzzles and the NEW legos.  It was amazing how creative they got while building boats, houses, and patterns with them.  On the rug we put out a floor puzzle with a rainforest scene on it.  We thought that was appropriate since we are reading the Magic Tree House book Afternoon in the Amazon.  They worked very hard together to complete it and asked for a more challenging puzzle.  We then found a spaceship puzzle that was in three parts.  We helped them the first day we put it out and they were thrilled to complete it.  The next day they asked for it we left it up to them to work together and do it on their own. They worked hard and put it together all on their own.  They were so proud of themselves!

Every day at morning meeting we have a routine which we do everyday.  We felt since we have been doing it for the whole year it would be fun to let the children run a meeting.  Every day this week we have allowed one child to come up and lead the meeting.  It has been super cute and the rest of the children have responded very well to it.  This gives each child a leadership role and build their confidence in speaking in front of a group.  Each child will get a chance to do this as the year continues.

Spring is finally here!  This week we were able to change our season pointer from winter to spring.  This lead us into a discussion about spring and the things we like to do now that the weather is nice.  The Weekly Reader was also about spring and things that happen which we also read.  Each of the children got a Weekly Reader and we went over it together.  I allowed one child to come up and read it out loud with the group.  The children then had a have-to job where they had to draw a picture of their favorite activity in the spring is.  They used wet chalk which made the pictures look really bright and colorful.  Check them out on the have-to job board.

At the beginning of March we entered Green Decade's Enviro Art Contest.  We said that we would use wind energy to have fun and made several pictures of things we could do in the wind.  Each child received an invitation to the award ceremony on Thursday, April 5 at 6:30 pm.

Other things happening...

* Drawing on the whiteboards
* Playing on the hill
* Finding beginning and ending sounds
* Telescope/binocular making
* Letter stamps