Butterflies

On Monday and Tuesday we learned about butterflies and moths. We talked about the life cycle of a butterfly and did a Weekly Reader about butterflies. We then pretended to be butterflies and flew around the room to the music of "Madam Butterly". We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and watched a ten minute show about butterflies and their different designs and how they protect themselves from predators.

For art we made a beautiful butterfly using coffee filters and water colors.

In the Pre-K class we continued working on our sight words and simple subtraction.

Spring

Pre-K Class

We had a "x" show and tell.  The children were so creative and brought some great "x" items to show.

We discussed the signs of spring, using our Weekly Reader, and did a worksheet cutting out and gluing different pictures under "Sunny Day" or "Rainy Day".

We went through the whole alphabet coming up with spring words for each letter (a few are; a = ants, d = dirt, f = flowers, g = grass, k = kite, r = rainbow, u = umbrella).

We are learning the sight words "I" and "am".  Each of the children took a turn individually with Ms. Rachel reading a phonics book called, "Who am I".  They did a great job!  We will continue to work on this after Spring Break.

St. Patrick's Day

A fun video about Ireland, from Scholastic.

http://bcove.me/le9ya223

We had such a fun St. Patrick's Day celebration and learned a lot about St. Patrick.  Did you know that he was actually from England?

We also talked about Ireland and even played a fun game with Celtic music.  We pretended like we were leprechauns and practiced kicking/dancing to the music.  When the music stopped the children had to run and hide, like tricky leprechauns.  Then when the music started again they came out dancing.  They loved this game and kept wanting to play it over and over again.

We went on a "green hunt" with each of the children taking turns to find a green item in the classroom.  We then figured out how to spell the word "green" and then wrote it.

In the morning class we made sparkly shamrock headbands and mixed yellow and blue colored water to make green shamrocks out of coffee filters.  At snack we ate green donuts, thanks Eliza!

In the afternoon class we found hidden four leaf clovers and made a glittery shamrock paper.  At snack time we ate green grapes, cucumbers, snap peas, and green apples with green peanut butter, thanks Lydia!

In the 3 yr. old class we made cute little leprechaun hats to wear during our dance/hiding game.  We also made glittery shamrocks and drew a picture of a leprechaun.  At snack time we ate green apples with a yummy green fruit dip (cream cheese and marshmallow cream), thanks Jake!

In all of the classes we learned a new song about a leprechaun, complete with actions.  It is sung to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot".  
    
     I'm a little leprechaun, quick as can be. 
     I hide my gold under a tree.
     If you see a rainbow,
     you just might find
     where I left my gold behind."

Rainbows

Today we learned about rainbows and our new letter of the week, the letter "x".

• We made a rainbow by using a glass vase filled with water and a small mirror inside.  We shined a flashlight on the mirror and saw a beautiful rainbow!  The children loved it!  We talked about how rainbows are formed by the sun shining through raindrops or mists of water.
• We talked about the colors in a rainbow, Roy G. Biv (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet).
• We read the book Rainbow Fish, and talked about sharing and being good friends.
• We listened to a couple of songs about rainbows, "Somwhere Over the Rainbow" and "The Rainbow Connection".
• We painted pictures of rainbows with rain drops.  The raindrops were made with a medicine dropper dropping several dots of light blue paint on the paper and then the children each had a straw and blew the paint droplets to make them look like raindrops.

• We traced the letter "X"

Weather

Math - We had some fun with an umbrella.  We sang "Rain, Rain go away ..." and counted to find out how many children we could fit under one umbrella.  We also added and subtracted children under the umbrella.

Science - We filled a 2 liter plastic bottle half full of water and put a few drops of red food coloring in it.  We then taped another 2 liter plastic bottle to it and made a homemade tornado.  We also made a cloud by using a crockpot filed with water.  As it heated up we saw the condensation on the lid and when we lifted it off the droplets "rained" back into the crockpot.  We talked about the water cycle.

Reading - We read a story about Melissa and Mark and about how they were careful to always dress appropriately for the weather.  We then played with paper dolls of Melissa and Mark and got to dress them in all kinds of crazy outfits.  We also talked about the months of the year and the different types of weather for each month.

Writing - We sounded out the word "spring" and practiced writing it.

Dr. Seuss Day

The children were so excited to be able to wear their pajamas to school.  They could also wear a crazy hat or have crazy hair.

We read several Dr. Seuss books including Green Eggs and Ham.  We then made some green eggs and ham to taste, most of the children really liked it.

We talked about rhyming and did a worksheet together as a class about rhyming words.

Some facts that we learned about Theodore Geisel, or Dr. Seuss.

• He was born on March 2, 1904.
• He did not have any children.
• He had two degrees both a P.H.D.
• His wife's name was Audrey.
• He had a collection of silly hats.
• His mother's last name was Seuss.
• He wrote articles for a humor magazine.
• His first children's book was And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street.