March is Reading Month Vocabulary Parade

To celebrate March is Reading Month, our preschoolers participated in a whole school vocabulary parade! The elementary students were invited to dress up as a creative and exciting word, based on the book, “Miss Alaineus” by Debra Frazier. Our 4 and 5’s represented one long word- MISCELLANEOUS. Each student wrote one letter on a piece of poster board and then decorated it with “miscellaneous” materials from the classroom. After the parade, the children enjoyed popcorn and watched School House Rock!

March 2018- Choice Time

Cutting out ovals for our big letter O.

The boys were using the sticks and curves from our handwriting materials as well as vehicles and loose parts to make roads and other landscapes.

Animal sort- is it a carnivore, ominvore or a herbivore?

Ice Cream Shop

Journal Writing

February 2, 2018- Our Porcupine and Hedgehog Study

While reading books by Jan Brett, the children were curious about one of the story characters named Hedgie the hedgehog. During our class discussion, someone posed the question-

What is the difference between a hedgehog and a porcupine?

This lead to an in-depth study about these animals. We listed things we already knew about them and posed further questions to investigate. We read books, looked up information using our iPads, drew pictures and made 3D hedgehogs and porcupines out of clay.

February 1, 2018- Choice Times

We’ve been learning, growing and having so much fun together over the last few weeks. The children read many story books by authors Jan Brett and Ezra Jack Keats as well as non-fiction text about winter, hedgehogs and porcupines. We explored magnets, made snow dough, pretended to go camping, used the large blocks to make boats and cars, made patterns and measured with unifix cubes and created many, many masterpieces in the art center.

We have a new classroom job! The lunch counter gets to ask everyone if they are getting a hot lunch or have a cold lunch. The child then write an H or C and adds up how many for each category.

December 15, 2017- STEAM

We made gingerbread slime today with our STEAM Friday friends! Next week we will be reading lots of gingerbread man stories, so we thought it would be fun to make some slime for everyone to play with.

Here is the recipe we used. It turned out great! We only needed to add a bit more borax than the recipe called for.

https://www.naturalbeachliving.com/gingerbread-slime-recipe/

December 8, 2017- STEAM Friday

The children used technology and blocks to explore and build famous structures from around the world!  They worked in small groups to look at pictures and videos online of the Great Wall of China and the Eiffel Tower and then collaborated on the process of building the structures.

 

Today in Art, the children talked about surface tension in kid friendly terms with Mr. T. Students learned about how materials like chalk would interact with water in both whole and crushed form, and why a whole piece of chalk would sink, while chalk powder would float.

We added crushed chalk to water and dipped drawing paper inside to create a cool effect on the paper. Next week when the papers are dry, we will be drawing on them with black marker.

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December 1, 2017- STEAM Friday

The children explored motion and liquid in art class with Mr. T!

October and November 2017- Choice Times

The last couple of months we’ve explored many themes in our dramaticplay area- fire safety, doctor and veterinarian office.

The children made a boat out of the big blocks, drew a map and went on a treasure hunt!

An Ice Cream Shop

The ever popular play dough table….

A bridge for the Three Billy Goats

A bed for Goldilocks and baby bear

Math and Science – Pom Pom bees were used to “pollinate” the flowers on the trees by moving silver and gold pollen (glitter) back and forth between the trees.

How many cubes does this apple, pumpkin, corn or gourd weigh?

Creativity in the art center and on the carpet with our handwriting pieces (lines and curves) with gems.

A flower, hive and honey.

Literacy– sorting by initial sound, singing 5 Green Apples and reading Brown Bear!

November 10, 2017 STEAM Friday

Painting leaves

October 20, 2017- Apple Orchard field trip

During our studies of all things fall, we learned about apples and pumpkins and our class took a fabulous field trip to a family owned Apple Orchard. We picked apples and pumpkins, learned more about bees and pollination, and discovered how cider was made in house. It was a beautiful fall day and a wonderful way to extend our learning outside of the classroom with our families!