Rock Stars

We celebrated the letter R this week with some rock and roll! Not only did we color, cut and glue some rockers and design our own guitars, but we painted with actual rocks and studied fossils in rocks at the sensory table. We also read a great Noah's Ark story called Rock Steady by Sting. We freeze danced to some music by Wilco and at the end of the day had a special family visitor to make us some green smoothies. They were delicious. We wrapped it up with more family visitors who helped us make box guitars and egg carton caterpillars inspired by The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was a very fun week!

There was a large sea shell fossil in this rock and he was holding it up to see if he could hear the ocean.

rocking on his new guitar

beautiful finished products of our pebble painting

trying our healthy and yummy  smoothies

shaking our rock paintings

decorating our box guitars

caterpillars 

Minding Our Ps & Qs

Two weeks worth of learning to fill everyone in on! P week was full of fun and we wrapped it up with a Pinkalicious party on Friday: pink books, pink snacks and drinks, pink decorations, pink everything!. We also started our Family February guests with a lovely visitor who shared with us the story "The Kissing Hand" and helped us with some crafts related to the story. Our second visitor made up a story out of her head using toys from around her house! She helped us color our own story bags so we could do the same thing at home. Thank you to our special family visitors! For Q week, we used Q-tips to paint with and to do a science experiment with (see the picture below). We also made queen puppets and read some wonderful stories about quiet crickets and special quilts.

Jumbo P: pizza

painting with pink and purple

popcorn kernels in the sensory table

extra writing opportunity for a little more challenging work

Pinkalicious inspired bookshelf

making cards and pictures for our friend

pink P's

some cutting practice with crepe paper

throwing in a shot of all the wonderful ocean reports from a couple of weeks ago

our family inspired Valentine's bulletin board

We observed what happened when food coloring came in contact with dish soap! 

fine motor practice:peeling stickers and placing them around the lines of the heart shape

queen puppets

spontaneous game of memory

Valentine's Day Party!!! 

Oceans

We had a wonderful week exploring oceans and the letter "O" The children did an amazing job with their ocean reports and they were so proud to share what they had learned with their friends. These projects are hanging in the hallway next to our classroom and I encourage you to take a look. We also used ocean stamps on our Jumbo O, made fun and squishy ocean bags, and had plenty of ocean books to read during the week. We could have spent two more weeks on this topic!

sea shells in the sensory table; added magnifying glasses so that we could take a closer look at these beautiful objects

our classroom door; they colored and cut out ocean creature to glue on to our door ocean-scape

I placed a basket of sea shells and starfish along with a book about sea shells  on a table and an invitation to explore, draw, trace, etc

We talked quite a bit about the fascinating features of an octopus. On this table there was a large assortment of objects and they went about sorting these objects in to groups of eight, just like the number of arms on our octopus friends. This was a busy place!

"N" is for Nests

It was a short week but we tried to  make the most of it. On Wednesday we wrote our names on our Jumbo N, colored eggs and glued them in our big nest on the wall, played with noodles in the sensory table, and read a very funny book called "The Perfect Nest". The children made their own little nests to take home with them. Friday was show and tell and the children were wonderful and patient listeners. We also did painted name reflections and spur of the moment centers as well. Next week we will discover ocean life; please see the report project that was sent home with your student and don't forget to turn in your Family February form! Thank you!

Eggs in a nest

We worked on these torn paper collage strips last week and they are now hanging in our window, cheering things up a bit.

Working hard on his paper sack nest

Winter Fun and "M" Week

We had a wonderful week discovering winter concepts and the letter M. We brainstormed some great M words ( my favorite being Mumford and Sons!), did some very fun art projects including torn paper collages and melted snowmen, worked really hard in centers on Wednesday, and enjoyed a special visitor! Don't forget that Friday is show and tell and to please sign up for a Family February slot if you're able!

Our special guest reader read us "The Mitten" and had some very fun games to play along with it!

Jumbo M: marshmallow stamping

They loved playing in this corn starch and shaving cream concoction! On Friday, I cleaned it up and replaced it with magnets.

Icy Initials: using spools dipped in paint to trace the first letter of their names

melted snowmen; these are hanging on our bulletin board

exploring letter tiles during centers

L Week was Lovely!

We welcomed in the second half of our school year with a rearranged room, feel free to stop by and see some of the changes; the kids are really enjoying them and I think the room is flowing much better. The kids were so well behaved this week and very good friends to each other, I think we were all ready to be back from break. Here are some pictures of how we explored the letter L!

our new and improved writing workshop area

This sensory table was a huge hit! They were very disappointed to see it gone on Friday.

using crayons on sandpaper for an added sensory experience to their art

our new section of the day: table activity; learning how to follow step by step directions, appropriately  use school supplies, and learning patience

lunch collages

used legos to paint our Jumbo L

letters in the sensory table

lace doilies and play dough

follow up craft to "How Leo Learned to be King"