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

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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!