Marvelous Math and other activities

 Some very studious girls hunting for the letter h, or any words they know.

Not the greatest picture, but a fun game: roll the die, read the word, move the car in the corresponding lane.

 My favorite Samuel picture, uploaded sideways though.  At first the speech bubble by Samuel was empty because, as the artist put it, "He was scared.  He was like this-" and she stood really still and made her eyes really wide.  "Then he said ___" (Sorry, I don't know how to spell a gasp, but apparently it is spelled with an H.)

 Today in math we took flat shapes, like a rectangle

 and then worked together

 to make rectangular prisms!

 Math is so much fun!

 A few groups joined forces during center time to make an even bigger prism

 But it got too tall, so they built it horizontally instead.

Aliens, turkeys, food

 We started making aliens in art: drop the paint on and blow it around.

 Some children really liked one of our new sight word centers, so they also played it during free choice centers - turkey trot: roll die, read word, move turkey.

 Playing grocery store with real food!

So you can smile like I did...

Today we watched part of a video clip about pumpkins and it was quite fun.  The kids enjoyed the enormous pumpkins and I smiled a little at the foreign political satire :)

 

It started with 2 girls dressing up to play church.  They brought their babies, but when they started erecting a stage, more children came to see what was going on, abandoning their previous activities.

 There was talk of a baptism, but they started by getting some Bible books and then standing to sing "This Little Light of Mine".

Last week

Did your child tell you how we 'painted' pumpkins with water and tissue paper?  They look pretty cool.  Thanks to Kathy @ Art Projects for kids for the idea.  It took a long time but it was worth it the next morning when everyone took off the dried tissue paper to discover the color underneath.  "Wow!"  "It's like a miracle!"  (Warning: tissue paper can stain tables)

 Someone tried their own picture the next day.

No, it wasn't twin day, but two girls happened to come wearing the same outfit.  So exciting!

 A literacy center this week - listen to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, act it out, then retell it to me later.

We practiced writing sentences using sight words, spaces, and ending punctuation.  We did a good job, so we wore our work proudly.

 More center time fun

water, paint, glitter, glue, sand, apples

Apple day started with apple math.  We graphed our apples by colors and by whether or not they had a stem.  Then we measured our apple's height,

and weight

 and tested if it would float or sink

 Some apple centers: making patterns,

 making apple fingerprints to match numbers

We did non-fiction writing

 apples are good. they help us grow.

 apples are yummy

In science class we made a diagram of an apple and labeled the different parts.

and at 2:00 we finally got to eat the applesauce that we had smelled all day long.  About half of the class liked it (some could not get past the fact that it was chunky and warm).  Everyone at this table had seconds or thirds despite one of them telling me ahead of time that they didn't like that kind of applesauce.

 No pictures of our awesome apple seasons art - we were too busy with glue, paint, sand and glitter... but since we already had the mess out, we had a messy art option at center time.  

 

See this creation?  It features glue, sand, glitter, crayon, and dot markers as the media.

 And since the water table was filled from the morning, that center was also open later.

Update: here's an apple seasons picture:
 

It was a very messy, very fun day!

Happy birthday, Ms. VP! (and other Friday adventures)

In case you missed the party this morning, here is the beautiful card your children made for Ms. VP.  Count the candles...

 This afternoon we had fun on Jacksonpollock.org creating more action 'paintings.  Some children were very precise in their movements, while others just enjoyed flinging the mouse around.

 One masterpiece (your child's masterpiece will be emailed to you):

 We turned on the projector so the paintings showed up on a really big canvas.

Free choice center time this afternoon - reading with 3D glasses

 experimenting with sound (thank you to Mr. G. for lending us the xylophone so we could learn more about sound in science)

 Dress up!  (I think someone stepped on the glasses)

Hula hoops and working together

 Above (if they work) are video clips of the class playing the hula hoop 'game', also known as learning to work together.  We talked about how to help others and encourage them.

 

Our math and literacy centers are pretty easy right now, allowing us to practice the routines of how to take them out, work together, clean them up, and return them.  Above you can see a car puzzle track - it is great for problem solving!  Below children are feeding a dog bones with tweezers, which strengthens hand muscles, helping with writing.

At the end of the day Thursday we opened up the games and puzzles for free choice centers.  Everyone was playing so nicely together.  Yay!

Center time fun!

We are gradually being introduced to all the centers in our room.  We do a few each day, just so we can practice how to use each center, and how to clean them up.  Today was the letter Dd so we pulled out the dollhouse and the dress-up clothes.  Everyone was very excited!

Day 3 of school, Day 2 of Creation

 We got a brand new carpet!  Isn't it beautiful?  I love it!

In Bible we learned about day 2 of Creation, when God created the sea and the sky.  So during centers we played with the water table.

And during science we focused on the air God made.  We learned that air moves things.  We had lots of fun with experiments: trying to move a ball from one cup to another without touching the ball, and trying to keep a feather afloat.  Science is so much fun!  Here are two really short video clips so you can see what we did.