Let's Count!

In the next couple weeks we will be learning about the life cycle of a butterfly.  The children have been waiting patiently for out caterpillars to arrive in the mail so that we can watch them grow into butterflies and set them free.  To get them excited for the unit we filled the library with books on caterpillars and butterflies and have started talking about them.  Some of them have started painting beautiful pictures of butterflies.  We also made caterpillars with the children out of construction paper strips, tape, pipe cleaners, and googley eyes.  They used the strips to create the body of the caterpillar and the egg cartoons and pipe cleaners for the face.  They are all displayed on top of the cubbies.  Check them out!

We worked on reviewing all the letters that we have learned this year along with learning the letter N.  N is one of the trickiest letters for the children because they know they need to start at the top but are not sure where to go from there.  They learned to go line down, pick up their pen and go back up to the top, then line down and up.  They practiced with the HWT sticks as well as practicing making them on their own on paper.  We also went through the whole alphabet at meeting time using the HWT sticks.  They each got a chance to come up, make a letter, tell us the sound, and one thing that starts with it.  The children were all very eager to participate.  They all did a wonderful job and have a strong grasp on their sounds.  Along with making letters the children have been enjoying phonics work.  They have been asking for the activity where they have to fill in the missing beginning, middle or end letter.  At the beginning of the year they were only doing the beginning sounds, now they are able to do the blend sounds and the unscrambling of the words through sounding out.

The children have also been excited about numbers and practicing counting.  Below are two videos of them practicing counting and organizing numbers using teamwork.  In the first one the children were asked to to line up in order of what number they received.  We told them that they could not ask for help from the adults and they would have to rely on each other to figure out what order they need to stand in.  They did a great job and all helped each other through out the whole process.  The second video is four children putting numbers 1-100 in order.  We started off by giving them 1-30 but they did that so quick so we then provided them with more numbers to organize.  They worked throughout the whole morning very nicely with one another trying to accomplish their goal of putting all 100 cards in order.  The video is just a quick snip it of the last ten numbers and how excited they were when they finally reached their goal.  Enjoy!

Video 1:

 

 Video 2:



Other things happening in class:

* Floor puzzles
* One on one reading practice
* Sorting sea creatures
* Dramatic play area
* Making a storm using the drums in music
* Beading necklaces