Spring Time!

The children were very happy to be back together at school.  They were eager to get back into the routine and play with their peers.  They were also excited to share what they did on their week off.  At morning meeting we took a tally on what children went to the beach and which ones did not, later estimating how many children were in each column and counting them out.  The children also were asked to do a weekend report sharing one fun event of their week.  We were extremely impressed by how well they did.  They all used many different colors for their pictures and wrote a complete sentence.  At the beginning of the year most of the children were writing one word responses.  Now that they are actually excited to do these academic jobs they are taking their time and doing their best work.  If you have not already, you need to check them out on the have-to job board!

On Tuesday we had the Trike-a-Thon which was a huge success!  The children raised over 500 dollars to give to St. Jude's Children's hospital.  We started the morning by reading a story to them about why we do the Trike-a-thon and who we are raising money for.  When they heard the story they were eager to get down to the gym and start riding.  They rode their bikes for 20 minutes!  When we finished the bike ride all the children got a book of coloring pages and some stickers reminding them how to be safe while riding their bikes outside.

The Weekly Reader this week focused on identifying parts of a flower, particularly a sunflower.  The children each got a Weekly Reader and some of the children helped read the article while others pointed to the certain parts of the flower.  They then moved on to the have-to job which was painting a sunflower at the easels.  They all made sure to put all the different parts of a flower in their paintings.  They all came out really pretty and all of them added their very own touches.  Also on Wednesday we took a look outside and realized the tree we have been observing all year had leaves on it!  It was time to update our tree journals.  We took the children out in small groups to take a look, talk about, and draw what they observed.

Other things going on in the class:

*Playing with the dollhouse
*Reading in small groups
*Reading with friends
*Writing names with HWT sticks
*Practicing making the letter of the week "A"
*Making bugs out of construction paper
*Building a dinosaur village

  

REMINDERS:

Newton SERVES is on Sunday.  We are looking for volunteers to help us at the school to do some spring cleaning!  We will be washing the toys in the large gym, toys in the classroom, moving boxes to get the third room ready for next year, and even some shelf building.  We ask for a few hours of your time if you are available.  We are very grateful to those that are able to help out.  We will be at the school from 9:00am-12:00pm.

Money, money, money, money... MONEY!

Conferences on Monday went great!  There is nothing more exciting then seeing the progress your children have made throughout the year.  They have all grown academically and socially and will continue to do so the rest of the year.

We have been studying money particularly coins for the last couple weeks.  We have talked about the names of these coins, the value of the coins, and what president is on which coin.  The children started off by labeling each coin with their value and placing them on the bulletin board above the cubbies.  We then played the "bones and hair" game (ask your child what that is) using the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter.  When the children seemed to have a strong grasp on the values, they moved on to doing math problems using these values.  If they were unsure of which coin had what value they referred to the bulletin board to get answers.  They also used counters to solve the math equations given to them.  When they had solved their equations we hung them up on the bulletin board.  Take a look at your child's work!  We also changed the dramatic play area to a grocery store.  The children have been taking turns being the cashier and the shoppers.  They have been using both the fake credit cards and money to pay for their groceries.












Since it is now spring, the tissue paper snowflakes had to come down from the windows.  We had the children make new decorations for them.  Each child made their very own stain glass window using contact paper, construction paper, and colored tissue paper.  They used the strips of construction paper to make it look like a window and then decorated the window with colored tissue paper.  All of the children worked really hard on making their windows look colorful.  You may have already seen them but if not take a look at them on our windows in the class.

We had a special visitor come into our class today.  Sally, the artist, came in to do a special art project with the children.  She read a book and introduced Monet to the children and showed them some of his work famous works.  She then had the children replicate Monet's Waterlilies painting.  The children first used crayons to draw the water lilies and lilly pads and then used blue water color to make the water around the lilly pads.  Take a look at your child's art work.  They all came out very beautiful and the children had a lot of fun with it.

Other things happening in the class:

*Math equations on the whiteboards
*Checked out other children's Enviromental art contest projects
*Water table
*Making books at the art table

REMINDERS:

* The Trik-a-Thon is being held on Tuesday April 24th.  More information is in your child's cubby so make sure to get that paperwork!

* If you don't know this by now you may be in trouble... school is closed all next week April 16-April 20.

Happy Easter!

The last two weeks have been very busy for the children.  They have worked very hard on have-to jobs and one on one assessments.

Last week the children were extremely interested in making cheetah and other wild cat masks.  They came to us asking for supplies to make them.  We provided the children with paper plates, yarn and different colored construction paper.  With those materials they were able to create really neat masks on their own.  They used scissors and the hole punch, which is a great tool to strengthen small motor muscles.  Recognizing their interest we filled the library with wild cat books.  Some of them sat for a good part of the morning looking at these books and getting inspiration for their masks.

The letter of the week this week was K.  K seems to be one of the trickier letters for these children.  We passed out the Handwriting Without Tears sticks and had the children practice forming the letter on the rug.  They worked in pairs to figure it out and then practiced tracing the letter with their finger of course starting at the top.   We then made the letter in the rug with our finger.  The children were asked to name some words, and then as a have-to job practiced making the letter correctly on a piece of paper.


 

This week we celebrated Easter in our class.  We read some books on Easter and did really fun art activities using pastel colors.   The children did some marble painting.  The children dipped a marble in paint and decorated a piece of paper by moving the marble around a box.  These came out looking really cool and the children really enjoyed themselves.  They also really loved making the paper mache Easter eggs.  The children were very hesitant at first about dipping their hands in the flour and water combo but then got better at it.  It took a lot of reassuring them that it will come off their hands and modeling but they ended up having a lot of fun with it.  The next day when they were dry the children got to paint them.  They came out really beautiful.  If you have not seen them yet, check them out hanging in the classroom.  Before snack the children had a small Easter egg hunt.  While they were in the bathroom the Easter Bunny ("in his carrot car" ~Olivia)  came through our classroom and left one egg filled with jellybeans for each kid.  When the children returned they looked for one Easter egg before having snack.  They were super excited and it was really cute watching them.

  

We also learned about Passover this week and who and why people celebrate it.  Again, we read a book about it and the children made a Seder plate.  They were responsible for coloring in the food, cutting it out, and glueing it on to the plate.  When they were done they were able to decorate it with glitter glue.  The plate included parsley, a potato, a lamb shank bone, an apple, and a hard boiled egg.  This activity had the children not only learning about Passover but also working on following multi step directions and practicing cutting.   For snack the children were given Matzah crackers.  Some of the children really liked it, some of them did not.













Other activities around the class:

* Guessing who's who (paper plate people)

* Water table                                                                            
* Reading Knuffle Bunny (a new class favorite)
* Grocery store (beginning stages of our money theme)
* Updating our tree journals
* Surveys
* Legos
* Phonics work
* Cutting and counting
* Floor puzzles