We wrapped up our Halloween fun this week. The kids enjoyed our spider measuring experiment. They named the toy spider "Charlie." They enjoyed watching Charlie grow and shrink again.
We also did some web weaving. The kids had a chance to wrap a plate with yarn. It was a challenging task to control all the yarn and hold onto the tiny end. The product was pretty cool, but the process was a great learning opportunity. Sensory bin was a favorite activity again this week. We added our new gator tweezers and spiders. The kids had fun moving the beans and spiders from one container to another. "Big Pumpkin" was still a big hit this week. The kids love to follow along with the narrator and do the signs and motions. We read lots of other Halloween books, too. One was a counting book that helped us count to ten and then countdown again. Other books helped us talk about first, second, last, etc. We found different learning opportunities in each book we read. Of course, the highlight of the week was our costume parade to the Helena House to see our Grandfriends. Thanks to our volunteers everyone had a grown up hand to hold on our walk. I was impressed with how well we all handled the long walk! It was lots of fun for all of us. Enjoy these photos from our week.
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The kids' excitement over Halloween continues to grow. Our Halloween walk went well. It was fun to observe all the Halloween decorations. As the kids pointed out decorations, we recorded their observations.
When we returned to class we used the information to create a class chart showing the results. It was the perfect opportunity to count and compare. We talked about which column had the most and the least, and which ones were the same. This week we talked a little about spiders. We saw some spider decorations on our Halloween walk. We made our own webs by marble painting with white paint on black paper. Another math lesson happened with a toy spider that grows in water. We measured the spider with a ruler and each child got to estimate how big the spider might grow. We observed it over a couple of days and the measured again to see how big it grew. The kids continue to ask for more Halloween books, and we are happy to read them. We've read about everything from spiders to mummies to pumpkins and everything in between. Our Halloween costumes are a constant topic of conversation. The biggest hit of the week was the sensory bin. The kids have scooped and scooped with the new scooping scissors. These toys will help us practice using scissors, a difficult task at this age. They work like scissors except that there are two scoops in place of the blades. The kids have enjoyed using them. We love birthday celebrations! This week we got to eat birthday cupcakes for our friend O'Wren. You can find our photos from this week here. This week we've stuck with all things Halloween. They are all so excited about Halloween that we've chosen to follow their interest. We found a favorite book from last year called "Big Pumpkin" and have read it or listened to it on CD almost every day (two times in a row by unanimous request today!)
We made tape mummies this week to add to our board outside. The kids drew faces and put torn pieces of tape all over the body to "wrap" it in bandages. Tape is always fun to work with, but I had a hidden agenda. This project really worked those fingers to get them ready for their pre-writing skills. The kids just thought it was fun. Our pumpkin walk was more than just fun as well. The main mission was to count pumpkins. We did more than just counting, though. First we made predictions about how many pumpkins we thought we'd find. We recorded the data and then began our walk. We looked high and low, left and right. We talked about all sorts if colors and a few Halloween decorations. All in all, we found 6 pumpkins. One of our friends predicted 6. She was so proud of herself. We all enjoyed the change of scenery. In Sign on Wednesday, Mrs Julie continued her theme of Fall with a lesson on all things apple. We reviewed our words and signs from last week and then learned the signs for apple, pie, juice, sauce, big and little. She showed us the apples that she picked this past weekend. We read a great apple pie book, too. In studio Mrs. Neese helped us work on an ongoing project and then brought the art outside. We had lots of fun making pictures in nature. Picture day is always exciting. We all looked our best this week. We can't wait to see the results. Next week we will continue to talk about all things Halloween. We are planning another walk, but we'll have a different goal in mind. I'm sure there will be lots of fun and learning, too. You can see our photos here. We did a lot of fun things this week. For starters, we really enjoyed having yoga this week. We love to follow Ms. Brittany and move our bodies. The butterfly and the washing machine are our favorites.
On Tuesday, we went for a walk through the wetlands. We searched for any sign of fall we could find. We were able to find a few trees whose leaves were beginning to change. We saw an alligator, but we scared it away because we were noisy! We talked about how we needed to be quiet in the wetlands since it was nesting season. To continue our fall discussion, we made paper plate pumpkins by gluing orange squares to the plate. Then later in the week we changed them into jack-o-lanterns by adding a face. That was a great chance to talk about shapes and positional words like on top of and beside. We have really enjoyed all the Halloween books this week. Mrs. Carol brought her instruments for us to play, again. We love to express our selves and move our bodies with the music. We continue to talk about our instruments resting when it isn't time to play them. We talk about listening to the music so the music can guide our actions. We loved earning stickers this week. In Spanish this week we continued to talk about colors as we made leaf rubbings. Señora Zoe talked to us and gave her directions in Spanish, of course. That was a great exercise for our fingers! When we were finished we counted to points our leaves had. In centers we have enjoyed our new writing center toys. We have seen many kids choose the writing center that usually steer away from it. The dry erase boards, magna doodles, and chalk boards have been great at encouraging more writing, drawing, and letter discussions. We always have lots of small scale discussions during our free play time. Just today we talked about skeletons and whether they are scary or not. We researched bone names based on one child's question. In choice time we measure our plastic animals with blocks. Some of our toys were as long as 10 blocks! Some were smaller and only 4 blocks from tail to nose. You never really know what we will think of next. We thought our butterfly discover had ended as we released our butterflies into nature. We discussed what butterflies do in nature and decided that our butterflies needed more space to fly in and nectar to drink using their proboscis. So we said goodbye to our beautiful butterflies. After finding "pokey" green caterpillars on the playground we have a new direction to take our lesson. It turns out that these caterpillars are venomous and hurt us if we touch them. These caterpillars will change just like our first set, but these will become Io moths instead. In the next few weeks we will follow the children's lead to decide what to discuss and research about our future moths, if we can sustain these new caterpillars that is. We are excited to see where we can go next. Our photos from the week are here. We've had another fun week here in the Inquirers class. We have continued our butterfly study this week, but it hasn't been as exciting since the caterpillars are hiding in their chrysalises. Each day we continue to be butterfly scientists as we observe our pets and look for changes. We are looking, counting, describing, comparing, but most of all waiting for the big metamorphosis. We are very excited to see our butterflies emerge. I just hope it doesn't happen over the weekend.
We have also been talking and learning about firefighters. We loved our visit with the Port Royal Fire Department. The kids listened to a story and talked with the firefighters about fire drills at home and at school. We watched as one fire fighter dressed in his safety gear. It was a little unsettling for some, but it is an important concept for the children to remember. We learned that the fire fighter is the same person that just wears lots of hot and heavy equipment. We even heard how the fire fighter sounds with his mask and breathing apparatus on. The highlight, of course, was walking through the fire truck and sitting in the seats. Hearing the siren as they drove away was certainly exciting as well. Please check out the pictures. The kids had such a great time! In music we are experimenting with lots of instruments. We use our bodies as we pat a steady beat on our lap. We have used shakers of all shapes, drums, and tambourines. Most of all we use our voices as we sing along. The kids had great fun creating art with contact paper and lids. They got to explore the sticky texture while playing with the circular shapes of the lids. We may have to try out this kind of sticky play in the classroom sometime. In sign language Ms. Julie helped us practice our signs for our butterfly song. She also introduced signs for fall words like leaves, pumpkin, and the kids favorite, squirrel. She also taught us some signs for fire themed words like siren, books, and water. In Spanish Señora Zoe read the Spanish version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear after we practiced our colors. We heard the Spanish names for the animals and some of us started to recognize the color when we heard it in Spanish. We each got to help count out felt shapes and respond in Spanish. We also practiced our counting to ten. In the classroom, the children have enjoyed having the light table to explore and discover. Using the magnifying glasses with our butterfly toys has been great fun. The pretend fire gear was quite popular as well. We worked on our fine motor skills with play dough and some spray art on coffee filters. There is always lots to discover in our class. You can see the photos from our week here. |
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Class of 2016
Researchers TeachersMolly Fastenau Archives
June 2016
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