Zoo Animals

I was a major slacker with the pictures this week! My camera battery died during preschool, so there is a serious lack of pictures this week!

Tuesday I introduced the idea of animals we might see at the zoo. We started out by talking about the zoo, and who had been there, and naming some of the animals that we might see. I try to mention that the animals don't normally live in the zoo, that they live other places too.

I had a student come up and turn and put on an animal mask. Then I gave clues as to what animal it might be (like it's color, the sound it begins with, etc...) and then they turned around. Then everyone put on a mask and acted like whatever animal mask they had on. (I just noticed that first picture is in their twice. Oops!) There were tigers, monkeys, zebras and elephants. Just for future reference, both sessions LOVE tigers. :)

On Thursday we did our Zebra pudding activity. It's hard to believe that we have now gone through the entire alphabet this year! The students enjoyed helping to make the pudding and then eat it.

I had a few other activities planned, but making their own animal mask took the rest of the time after math! And I completely forgot to take any pictures of their masks! Sorry!

Insects

A few weeks ago we talked about insects. We did some fun things.

One of the main things I tried to help the children understand was that insects were different from spiders. We learned that insects have six legs, and spiders have eight legs.

On Tuesday, we did an insect hunt using our magnifying glasses. I had hidden lots of plastic insects in our classroom, and even a few that weren't insects. Each child got a turn to use the magnifying glass to find an insect and bring it back. We looked at them and talked about how they were similar and different.

On Thursday we made our own insects for our letter I craft using a molding dough, toothpicks, googly eyes, and "wings" from waxed paper. The students were very creative, and lots of their creations showed how much they had learned about insects. Several students' creations had three body segments, antennae and 6 legs. Pretty impressive!

Then for science we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and watched a short video (about 2 minutes) that showed a time lapse of a Painted Lady Butterfly's life cycle.

We made coffee filter butterflies for art.

We've enjoyed watching our butterflies changing too. Last night our first butterfly emerged and another came out today. I am sure the students will be very excited to see that on Tuesday!

Caterpillars

A few weeks ago our order of caterpillars came! These are so fun to watch. They come so tiny and then grow and grow. They make their chrysalises and then we move them into a pavillion. So fun!

Here are some pictures of the morning class checking the size of the caterpillars. They are way bigger now!

D is for Dinosaur

The students were naturally very interested in dinosaurs. They had a lot of fun playing dinosaurs with each other. These pictures are a little out of order--so I'll write about each picture. *Remember to click on each picture to get a bigger view.*

On Thursday, I did this writing activity with the morning class. We read "How Does a Dinosaur Get Well Soon?" and then we wrote about what a dinosaur would do if it was here at our school. (We were so late--sorry about that! So I didn't do this activity with the afternoon class.)

This next collage is of the students creating our darling bulletin board for this week!

 I forgot to write the names on the picture. Top: Kaylee, Tyler O.; Middle: Ethan, Corban, Michael; Bottom: Kayson, Kiley, Alexis

Afternoon: Top: Kinsey, Ava; 2nd row: Harold, Tyler T,; Bottom: Tycen, Kobyn, Kazia

Kazia holding up her dinosaur skeleton. 

Below: Classes standing on our dinosaur footprint. I read that the apatosaurus had a footprint that was 24 inches wide by 48 inches tall. We could fit all our students on the footprint. 

It was a fun week! I hope the students learned something!

Easter Fun

A huge thanks to all the parents who helped with today's activities! Especially to Stephanie, Cicile, and Heather, and especially to Amanda for substituting!

We started off the day talking about letter Ee and the 2 sounds it makes: /E/  as in Easter or eagle, and /e/ as in ever or exit. Then we decorated Easter eggs (the paper kind!). After snack and recess we did Jelly Bean math. The students were shown a number and had to count out that many jelly beans into a pile. I didn't get any pictures of the final product, but our last activity was making Easter bunny faces. Fun.

Now to the main event! Thanks to everyone who donated eggs or candy! They were so spoiled! I hope they enjoyed it!

One of the boys said today, "This was my best Easter egg hunt ever!" I love hearing the children say that.

Rainbow

Here are two I took of our rainbow art activity. The students enjoyed seeing their finished projects!