APPLES!

We started our apple fun today!  At math we read the story: Ten Apples Up on Top.  After reading the story we created our own classroom version of the story.  

 After looking at our poem we went down to the pit and read a story about apples.  We also looked at the apples we brought in and thought of describing words for our apples.

 Our last activity was to sort the apples the children brought in and then record them on a graph.  Check your child's folder for their apple graph and see if they can tell you what color we had the MOST of and the LEAST of!

Thank you for sending in apples!!

Peek at the Week

In the classroom we have a daily focus board that will hold our goals for the week.   As the teacher I will touch on our goals and refer to them during lessons to give the children an idea of where we are going with their learning. Below are snapshots of our four charts and the goals we have for this week.  Please use the pictures as a guide to asking your child about their day and what we are learning in class!

In the picture below our student teacher is directing a lesson on nouns for  places.  The children created a web with the children of nouns that name places.

Loving Choice Time!

I had to take a few moments to catch some of the fun the kiddos are having at choice time!  

Above, the kiddos love exploring the Starfall website on the computers!

Two friends in a tub enjoy a good book at the library center!

A masterpiece is created in the paint center!

Fun exploration happens in the discovery tub!

The i-pads are a big hit during choice time!  A great app they are playing on is one called the "Subitize Tree."  It works on the skill of subitizing where children can quickly recognize how many items are in a set without counting.  

Number Relay

In math our lesson was focused on the number seven!  We recited a rhyme with the number seven, we practiced writing seven in the air and then we wrote it on our neighbor's back!  And at the end  we played a fun relay game where children had to look at a number on the smartboard and then build a tower with that many cubes!  It was so much fun!

Number sheets came home in your child's folder to further practice writing and counting up to the number seven!

Math Centers

In math we have been working on reviewing the numbers.  We have also been focusing on same and different.  Todays lesson had the kiddos looking at two pictures and trying to the spot the differences between them.  They also worked in the workbook on their own on a similar picture.  These pages came home in their folders.

Below are a few photos of our math centers that we are working on right now. 

 Our number punch books have helped us work on number formation (start at the top!) and one to one counting.  Our finger muscles also got a good work-out!

 Below is a shape sort we are doing!

 Below is our "sticky towers" center.  The children are rolling a die, counting the dots, writing that number and building towers of that number.  When they are done, they put all their cubes together into one tall tower and compared it with a table partner.

And last is our coconut numbers fun.  The children made a match of numbers to dots and then recorded it on their sheet.

First Field Trip

It was not the best weather today for our first field trip, but we had a great time!  I hope you enjoy this little video I put together using the photos from our trip!

I am Special!/Nursery Rhyme Wrap-Up

Our week has started off with talking about why each one of us is special!  We sang a song called: I am Special! and children came down and put themselves in a special picture frame as we sang. 

 We also read a story called: Chyrsanthemum.  Ask your child what the little girl mouse's name was!  We talked about how we each have a special name.  I asked each child to talk with their family to find out how their name was picked.

 Inside the box on my lap was each child's name on a card!  Our name makes us special!

 At the end of our day today we finished up some nursery rhyme centers!  

 We measured our jumps as we pretended to be Jack Be Nimble!

 We practiced reading from right to left with a book about Little Bo Peep! We also did some creative writing!  The children thought of places where the sheep may be hiding!  We are going to use these pages to create a book!

 We played an ABC game with Old King Cole's crown!

Mrs. Lancaster's Little Lost Sheep

This day went by SUPER fast today!  We caught a few moments at the end of our day with our theme study on Nursery Rhymes!  The kiddos made little sheep hats to go along with the nursery rhyme: Little Bo Peep.  Then we had to go on a hunt, not for missing sheep, but for our missing nursery rhyme objects that were supposed to be in our bag!  The kids enjoyed hunting around the room to find the objects that matched their rhyme.  

 A few cute moments caught on the rug of friends wearing their sheep hats!

More Nursery Rhyme Fun!

Mrs. Faas caught a few moments for us today while we had some fun with nursery rhymes!  We had packed up some items on Monday that went with a variety of nursery rhymes.  Today I placed those items in a feely box!  We read the rhyme card and then had kiddos come out and see if they could find the matching items without peeking!  The kids had a great time trying to pick out the right item!  

 Today we also did a super cool science experiment to go with Jack Be Nimble!  I lit two candles.  The kiddos then made predictions on which candle would burn out first, the one on the counter or the one in the jar with a lid on the top.  One student said that the candle on the counter would go out first, because the fan would blow it out and the one in the jar was protected from the fan.  What great thinking!   The children were amazed when the candle inside the jar went out first!  We had a great talk about oxygen and why the candle inside the jar went out!

Our Busy Tuesday

We started off our Tuesday by listening to a bus presentation on bus safety!  The kids had some great questions for our speaker and were great listeners!  The best part was being able to go out the back of the bus! 

 The students are doing a great job working in their math boxes! We have practiced going forwards with our cards and today we worked on going backwards!  All the kiddos are working on cards 1 through 10, but after they learn the routine of math boxes, they will get a set of cards that are at their learning level.

 At the end of the day we had fun with Rub A Dub Dub!  The kiddos each took turns getting into our classroom tub and acting out the nursery rhyme! We are going to use the pictures to create a class book.

 And the last activity was a fun game with Little Boy Blue! We all closed our eyes while one child crawled under a blanket to pretend to be little boy blue.  We then opened our eyes and tried to guess the which student was missing!  The kids had a blast!