Happy Valentine's Day!

Last week we started decorating our room for Valentine's Day and also talked some about Dental Health and how to keep our teeth clean and healthy.  

We made caterpillars using our math and writing skills!  First, students had to make a pattern with their hearts, and then write one letter of their name on each heart.  Lots of concentration necessary!

We used liquid watercolors to paint a construction paper heart, because love comes in all colors :) 

 We enjoyed a fun math game where we got to eat the game pieces!  Candy hearts are always a fun Valentine's treat!

After talking about brushing our teeth all week, we tried to imagine what elephants use to brush their teeth.  Miss Katie thought it would be fun to try to make elephant's toothpaste, so we gave it a try!  We mixed hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, yeast, and warm water to get an amazing result.  The foam flowed out of the bottle, looking just like a giant squeeze of toothpaste!

The dentist also came to visit us on Friday.  Several of the kids got picked from the audience to help out.  All of the children should have gotten a water bottle filled with goodies to take home.  

This week we will continue to celebrate Valentine's Day.  We will have our party on Thursday and kids are welcome to bring Valentines for their friends.  You should have received a class list last week; if you need a new one please let us know.  

Have a great week!

Rainforest Week

Last week we learned about the rainforest!  We talked about the different types of plants and animals that grow in tropical areas, and were also able to taste-test some different foods that grow in tropical areas!

During our rainforest taste test, we tried banana, pineapple, papaya, mango, macadamia nuts, coconut, and chocolate.  Lots of us found new things we liked, especially the mango!  Some friends decided that they wanted an up-close view of the new foods and used magnifying glasses to help.

We learned that sloths live in the rainforest and are very, very slow.  They hang upside down on tree branches!  We used sloths to play an alphabet game.  We matched a mommy sloth with an uppercase letter to a baby sloth with a lowercase letter, and pinned them together on a vine.

 We've really been digging into our letter writing and recognition work.  Last week we practice writing the letters "T" and "E".  We learned the corresponding sounds for each letter and thought of words that begin with those letters.  We've been using the iPad to practice writing letters using the Handwriting Without Tears app and have been using Starfall to practice letter recognition.

Our coloring skills are really coming along!  We're still working on coloring slowing and staying in the lines.

 We worked all week making a parrot!  We used dot paints to make the body, and then used markers to color a tail, beak, feathers, and feet.  There was a lot of cutting and gluing to be done as well, and boy, our cutting skills are WONDERFUL!  We've really been practicing and you can tell!

On Friday, we made rainforest pizzas!  To make a rainforest pizza, toast half of an english muffin and top it with peanut butter, shredded coconut, banana chunks and sprinkles (just for fun).  Everyone loved them!

We also welcome a new friend to our class this week!  Najah just moved to Janesville from Beloit and we are happy to have him!  We've been talking about being a good friend and setting a good example :)

More exciting news this week - we have a box!  We decided that we wanted to make a house out of our box, so we cut windows in different shapes, and have been busy decorating it with crayons and markers.  If you ever get the chance to have a box to play in at home, I highly recommend it!  The kids really use their imaginations!

 We had to stand on chairs to reach the tippy top!

So much fun!

Whew, we've been busy! This week we will turn our focus to Valentine's Day and dental health.  The dentist will be coming to visit on Friday and we will talk about ways to keep our teeth healthy.  We'll also talk about foods that are good for your teeth and foods that are not good for our teeth.  

We will be having our classroom Valentine's Day party next Thursday.  A sign-up sheet will be posted on our cubbies tomorrow if you'd like to sign up to bring something.  Students are also welcome to bring Valentine cards for their friends, but please make sure they bring one for each friend in the class.  A class list students will be sent home tomorrow for your convenience when addressing cards.  Finally, please send an empty cereal box to school with your child by next Monday.  We will be using these to make our Valentine's mailboxes.  Thank you!  

Winter Fun!

We have spent the last few weeks learning about winter and polar animals. 

 

 

We read the book, The Hat, by Jan Brett (Miss Katie's favorite author!) and then decorated hats to make them "fancy".

We've been working really hard on mastering our uppercase letters.  Students played snowball bingo by covering letters on their snowflakes with cotton balls.

We enjoyed playing with "Floam" one day!  Fun sensory experience :)

To go along with our study of The Hat, we made a hedgehog snack using donut holes, chocolate frosting, and chocolate sprinkles.  It was a yummy success!

Eating them was the best part!

Some of the students discovered our magnets last week.  They've been busy experimenting to see which things in our classroom are magnetic.  The garbage can is certainly magnetic!  

We read another Jan Brett book, The Mitten, and then laced a mitten together and cut out and colored characters from the book to put inside.  Hopefully your child used their mitten to tell you the story!

We made mitten sun catchers for our window by placing tissue paper squares on contact paper.  

Finally, we experimented with ice, salt, and food coloring.  First we tried melting ice with plain water, and then we tried it with salt water.  The salt water melted the ice faster!  We also used red, yellow, and blue water and watched the colors mix together.  It was pretty exciting making orange, green and purple!

We've now finished up our winter unit and are learning about the rainforest.  We are inviting students to bring in an item that reminds them of the rainforest on Friday to share with the class.  Ideas might be a stuffed animal from  the rainforest (monkey, parrot, etc.), a food that grows in the tropics (pineapple, mango, etc.), 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  I've been waiting to post pictures until I had our Christmas Party pictures to post....and today during the party I forgot to take pictures.  So, without further ado.......

 

 Everyone looked so handsome at the Christmas Program!  What a great job all of the kiddos did singing their hearts out!
 

Before break, we worked on many festive arts and crafts projects.  For this project, students had to put seven strips of paper in order from longest to shortest to make a Christmas tree.  Students were then able to decorated their trees with sequins and spangles.

Students worked on matching patterns using unifix boards and cubes.  It's so neat to see the finished product!

We made stockings for Santa!  First, students had to cut out their stocking, then lace a piece of yarn around the outside.  Students then glued cotton balls to the top of the stocking and used glue and glitter to make their names.  

This week, we practiced our cutting and gluing skills by cutting out hats to glue on snowflakes.  We've also been encouraging students to color in the lines - go slow and don't scribble! 

 We worked in our Handwriting without Tears books on Thursday and practiced tracing big and little lines.  Next week we will start working on proper letter formation beginning with the letter "L". 

We also had some sensory fun on Thursday!  Children were able to experience shaving cream on the table.  Students practiced making shapes, letters, and writing their names in the shaving cream.  It was so much fun!

We also really enjoyed our party on Friday!  We opened all of our gifts - thank you to all of the families that gave gifts to our classroom and to Miss Briann and myself.  We are grateful for everything!  We watched the movie "Cars" in our jammies and then returned to the classroom to have some delicious treats.  Thanks again to the families that brought treats and supplies for the party.  Everyone had a great time!

Next week we will continue to talk about winter and will focus our attention on the story The Mitten by Jan Brett.  We will also start to really focus on letter recognition and writing our names correctly.  Kindergarten is coming!