Fantastic Website

Here is a fantastic website that I just discovered full of early childhood games that pertain to what we are learning in school.
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html

This week we are going to be working the ordering by size activity... you have to scroll down a bit to get to it. I'm sure your student would think it was great to play the game at school and also at home! :)

Wee Willy Winky Day/Pajama Day

Friday was our 'pajama day' which we also treated as 'Wee Willy Winky' day. We learned the nursery rhyme and watched a Wee Willy Winky video (available in a previous post) throughout the day. In art the students made Wee Willy Winky hats. Throughout the day we watched "bedtime" ebooks together in our pajamas. Here is a link for the FREE bedtime ebooks if you want to watch them at home... http://kids.aol.com/KOL/2/koljrstories/archive/animal-stories

It's a pretty cool website (sent to me by a colleague) and looks like it has more than just great ebooks. The students really enjoyed it... they got to take turns picking which ebook we would listen too between activities.

At the end of the day we all put on our Wee Willy Winky hats and watched a Mother Goose rhymes ebook until dismissal. They were very excited and really had a marvelous day.

 

Daily Reports

At the end of the day I always fill out the Daily Reports while the students are in their last centers of the day. On Friday, one of the boys sat next to me and wanted to write reports too. I let him use one of my gel pens and some paper and he got to work. Then one by one the boys (who were building in blocks/playing in the play kitchen) came, asked for a pen, and began writing too. The conversation at the table was incredible! They were all writing while talking about everything they had done that day. They kept talking about how they had to write everything down in their reports and that they were very busy. One boy exclaimed, "this is just so cool! I have never written reports before!" It made my day to see this group of students who were forgoing blocks to write with me. So I think from now on I will have paper and gel pens available to whoever wishes to write reports with me that day.  :)

 

Ordering Shapes by Size

We have been working on ordering shapes by size (from small, medium, to large). On Friday each child got a set of shapes and ordered them by themselves. They did a great job!

Watkins Holiday Lunch 2012

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo Book Tip: Create an adventurous travel photo album at Shutterfly.com.

Wee Willy Winky

Humpty Dumpty Activity

I wanted to just say how proud I am of our class! Today I passed out a worksheet where they had to glue the pieces to Humpty Dumpty in order and they all did it by themselves! They would glue down one picture and then go back and sing the rhyme to figure out what came next. When they were done, they would practice singing/reading the rhyme while pointing to the corresponding picture. They were very excited and very proud of themselves and they should be! They took them home today so hopefully they pulled it out and showed you how they can read/sing Humpty Dumpty all by themselves! :)

Book Character Day

 We had a full day today! In the morning, we had a book character parade! We walked throughout the school waving to other classes and teachers in the hall. Some wore costumes (you can see Robert's 'Bumblebee' hat, which he was very excited about! and Jordan wore a Thomas the Train costume as well!) and some made Humpty Dumpty hats for the parade. All of the students thoroughly enjoyed waving to friends and teachers as they walked throughout the building.

 

When we got back from the parade, the mayor was there (Mayor Price)! He had a book to read to us! It was a great treat! He really did a great job interacting with the students and asking them what they thought about the ideas on each page. The kids just loved it! We talked about how Mayor Price is in charge of Newport News, which is where we live. We also talked about how Newport News is in the state of Virginia.

 

I dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood for book character day, and my friend the wolf came by to see everyone. We read the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and I told the students how after the story the wolf apologized and we became good friends. So, they were very excited to see the wolf and wanted to be her friend too. :) What a fun packed day!

 

 

Jack and Jill

Humpty Dumpty

Autumn Wreaths

 

We made Autumn wreaths last Thursday. We glued on leaves, cut out and glued on acrons, and adorned them with shiny bows! A terrific fall display!

 

Laurie Berkner - Fast and Slow

More Morning Message

Charlotte and Deborah reading the morning message together during center time! :) Good job girls!

Chameleon Friends

We read Leo Lionni's book, A Color of His Own, about a chameleon who is very lonely. He changes color and even matches patterns throughout the book but is not happy until he finds a chameleon friend to match his color! After we read the book, we found our own chameleon friends!

 

 

Each student got their own pattern. They got up and had to find their 'chameleon friends'... friends who had the same pattern as they did.

 

They were holding their patterns up and talking to each other to help each other find the right groups.

 

When they were all together, they held up their patterns proudly. Then we talked about the patterns. They did such a great job!

 

Here's a short video... it got cut off early but you can still get the gist of what we were doing.

Center Time

Robert and Brady are reading Henry and Amy together on the carpet. I absolutely love this book and the students loved it too! It's about Henry and Amy, two completely opposite friends! They are different in every way but still end up being the best of friends!

Olivia is enjoying listening to We All Sing with the Same Voice while reading the book at the listening station. The students loved this song/book, there is a youtube embedded video of the Sesame Street version on the blog.

 

Making characters with shapes!

Sorting by shape! Students were also able to sort these objects by color, size, or a combination of attributes.

 

Deborah and Charlotte worked on "building a bridge" with dominos. Then they counted "how many" dominos they used, and talked about how the two lines of dominos were the "same" length.

Terrell laced a fall lacing board! This is a tricky activity for the students to do... but they all enjoy a good challenge and are getting really good at doing it!

Block People

We put out the play block people in the engeneering zone. It was a big hit! The kids love playing togehter with the people. They build houses for them, play school with them, and really have a great time!

Red Ribbon Week Parade

These are some pictures from our Red Ribbon Week parade. The students got to march around the blacktop with the entire school with instruments! We marched and chanted songs about making healthy choices for red ribbon week. They had a great time!

 

We All Sing with the Same Voice

Writer's Workshop

 

Every day we have Writer's Workshop for thirty minutes after lunch. I write in my folder on the document camera (today's version of an overhead projector... same idea but in color and like a live camera feed), and then they go to their tables and write in their folders. This week we wrote on a piece of plain white paper each day. I told them to write about whatever they wanted to, but to pick a topic and to stay on topic ('topic' is a vocabulary word that we are learning). At the end of the week they were charged with the task of creating a front cover for their book. I told them to look at all of their papers from the week to get a good idea of what the title of their book should be. They were so excited, and had all their papers spread out across the tables! They were intently looking at all of their previous writings to create the best front cover they could! I am going to bind all of their books and put them in the library center so they can read each other's writings throughout the week in center time.

 

 

Little Lizard's New Shoes

We have been talking about growing up this week. On Friday, we read 'Little Lizard's New Shoes' and talked about how as we eat, sleep, and exercise we grow bigger and need to go buy new shoes. After reading the story, we wrote our own story about going to the shoe store. Then the students went to the tables and drew pictures of new shoes. Some students drew themselves with new shoes, some drew their families with new shoes, some drew themselves in the car on the way to the shoe store. They had a great time! The drawings are displayed on our large bulletin board in the classroom.

 

 

Some Art Displays

They painted the fruit. We cut the fruit out for them and they glued it into their fruit bowls. We've been talked about good food that helps us grow 'healthy and strong'.

Morning Message

 

Every morning we have a morning message. During center time, the students can up up and read the morning message all by themselves. This is a favorite activity! Here are some video clips of students reading the message.

Center Fun!

 

She matched all of her letters to the alphabet board!

They are being very creative with glue, glitter, and circles that they cut out!

She is reading about fruit she likes to eat!

We are ready to learn!

Look what we are making!

Pumpkins

A great family activity this time of year is visiting a pumpkin patch! Now is the time to build those memories that will last a lifetime!

Click below for a link to a local farmer's market (in Hampton) that has a pumpkin patch (you get to go out and pick the pumpkin) and a hayride (a dollar per person). Last year the president and his wife visited this patch; they have pictures displayed!
Wood's Orchards Farmer's Market


And if you are in the mood for something a little more... rural... a bit farther away, click on this link! Belmont is an excellent farm with a hayride, corn maze, face painting, and excellent barbeque/apple cider!
Belmont Pumpkin Patch

My family has personally enjoyed both of these farms for years. We also go to Wood's Orchards Farmer's Market in the spring for strawberry picking. If you do decide to go, let us know! What a great 'share time' story! You can send in a photo with your child and he/she can tell the class about their experience.

The Storytelling Center

 

We have a storytelling center, where students can create and perform puppet shows with their friends. They are given a book and encouraged to act out the book with the puppets. We have been using the book, On Monday When It Rained, which talks about different emotions. The students have been acting out different emotions with the puppets. In this picture, this group of three girls were putting on a performance for their friend. At one point they all four just started to laugh! It was really neat to watch!

Some Center Fun...

We have three center times each day. In the morning we have our literacy block centers (storytelling center, listening center, literacy center, writing center, art center, computer center). In the afternoon we have our math block centers (three math tables and the block building center). At the end of the day we have our content centers (dramatic play, blocks, science center, sand/water center, free drawing art center). Here are some pictures of just a few things we did this week!

 

 

We do a lot of sorting. Sometimes we tell them how to sort objects, but more often we give them objects and see what they do with them. This student took out the cubes and sorted by color. However, when I asked him to tell me what he was doing, he told me that he was "making them all two, see, one, two." He was referring how how his cubes were stacked in rows of two. So he was paying attention not only to the color of the cubes but the height and rows of the cubes. Fantastic!

Learning to button with button boards!

Writers at work! They select their own medium to write on (there is an adjacent table out of the picture's view covered with different kinds of paper...construction paper, storyboard paper, chart paper, booklets, etc.) and practice writing. They write their name, letters we work on, letters they want to try out, and/or draw pictures of whatever they like. It is a popular center!

We read the book, We Like Fruit and then practiced reading the sentences (interchanging the 'fruit' word to make new sentences). Here is a picture of a student doing it in centers!

On this table we keep our big books, which the students love to review during center time!

We brought out the tinker toys on Friday in the blocks area! A big hit!!

Sorting shapes into book pockets! She is doing a great job!