Sunday, April 13, 2014

April Showers bring May Flowers!

I can't believe it is already almost Easter!!  The kids are having so much fun and don't want this year to end.  Neither do I!!  Here are some of the things we have but up to lately!!

Mrs. Dunn did a couple of lessons on Clouds.  The children made a Cloud Finder and used it every day in March.  They would look outside and identify what kind of clouds we had that day.  March ended up being a very cloudy month!

We ended our Weather unit with reading "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs".  Mrs. Dunn made some homemade meatballs and sauce and I whipped up some spaghetti!  Everyone loved it!!  We eat well in our room :)

We read "The Mixed-Up Chameleon" by Eric Carle, then made these ripped rainbows.  The children decided what their favorite color was and two things that were that color.  They completed a poem to go with their rainbows. (Forgot a finished product picture!)


Once spring arrived on March 20th, we celebrated The Hungry Caterpillar's birthday!  We made pictures of the Hungry Caterpillar like Eric Carle.  The children loved the Hungry Caterpillar that hung around for the week on top of our door :)

The children are loving the new "white" board circles I put on our reading table!!  Much easier than hauling out white boards every day!

We also talked about "Me On the Map".  We made a flap book beginning with themselves and ending with the world.  We discussed where they live and practiced our addresses.  I was impressed with how many children know their address by heart!!  Some need some practice :)


Our Flower Shop opened at the beginning of April!  We have been making deliveries every day to teachers around the building. (and the office!) They have graciously accepted the flowers from the very excited Kindergartners :)

Some of the math games we have been playing are "Copying Cubes"...
"Toss the Chips" (Great game to practice addition!!)...

"Matching Faces"- The children matched the Geoblocks that had matching faces.  They were very curious to see what blocks actually matched up!
And "Six Tiles in All"  It was great to see them follow the specific rules to make the Six Tiles in All.  At least one edge had to be fully touching and the could ONLY use six tiles.


We talked a lot about different community helpers.  We made 3 Two Column Notes posters comparing Police Officers and Fire Fighters, Teachers and Librarians and Doctors and Paramedics.  They also wrote a story describing their beloved teacher :)

We have been talking a lot about planting.  We made this Top Down Web about plants and used this labeling activity afterwards.

We planted some grassy hair :)  This grass grew so fast!!  So we had to give them a haircut!!


By the next day, they had already grown back an inch!!  Can't wait to see how much they grew over the weekend!

We forced some forsythia to grow and learned a poem called "First Forsythia".  The children colored the branches on blue paper before they saw the blooms open, then when they did open, the kids glued small pieces of tissue paper onto the branches.  They really had to work those fine motor skills ;) 

We also planted some sunflowers...kid sized, not 10 foot tall ones :)  We don't have a lot of sun in our classroom so they are taking a while to blossom, but one student ended up with a mystery sprout...right at the edge of the cup????


We did an experiment with lettuce leaves and colored water.  It was interesting to see which colors would show up best in the veins of the lettuce.  Blue and purple were the most vibrant!

Lastly, we started our next unit in Fundations!!  We are now working on digraphs!  They loved this new game!  They got to be Digraph Detectives!!  I am so proud of my whole class and how hard they work in Fundations!!  18 our of 20 of my kiddos got 90% or higher on the last end of unit test!!!  We continue to be the class that knocks their (Title I teachers) socks off when testing for Fundations!!

**PARENTS-
We have a half day on Friday in observance of Good Friday.
I hope everyone enjoys their week off and look forward to a nice week off with my own children as well!


-Aimee

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