It's Curious George Week!

We had a great kickoff for our week with Curious George.  There were many giggles and surprises!

Curious George got a ride to the school with Miss Kathi, but he was a  monkey in trouble when he didn't wear his seatbelt!   We made monkey hats and went on a hunt to find Curious George.  He was definitely getting into trouble!  We found him but he was in big trouble!

 
First he tried to get banana chips from the vending machine (or "snack box" as Arianna calls it).   We decided he needed to go in the cool down chair for awhile until he could follow the rules!    Curious George brought special plates for our snack today, too.

    

He even has his own sign inSign Language!        We colored pictures of George and tried writing "monkey" too.

Olivia as the Man in the Yellow Hat!

 
We ended our day hearing Curious Georges' story.  We learned we can't just call 911 if we don't need the firemen and we always need to stay by our moms and dads and not run away.  And yes, Curious George went to jail, but we won't.   He ended up in the Zoo.   .....and  Miss Kathi went home a tired monkey!

It's Spring Session!

We are back to learning after a restful break.....we are still concentrating on writing, math and letter/sound recognition.   We welcome two new students-Emma and Zach.   Our class is a great blend of personalities and a joy to teach!

  We had a great time during Green Week with our leprechaun hunt and found gold coins and blarney stones in a very cool treasure chest.

 
It's so interesting to watch development and it's what I love most about teaching.  I get to be there when changes are happening.  The children actually asked to have paper to write their names!  Now a writing center has become a hit every class.  Confidence is building and they are learning the letters and sounds every class.  A few of the children have begun the Starfall reading system and are working on their first book.  Nothing better than seeing a child's face light up when they understand the words.

Class Time Fun...

Mat Man was introduced to the children.  This is part of our Handwriting curriculum.   We have wood pieces that represent parts of a letter.  The children use these at learning centers to make letters, trace them, and learn the correct sequence to write the letter.    Mat Man is made up of these wooden pieces to also show parts of the body to teach drawing and copying.  A song goes along with mat man, as well as learning things like two semi-circles makes one circle!  Fractions, shapes, sequencing all in this activity!

and......sometimes Mat Man becomes a Robot!!??!!

At snack we sing a snack song and keep our hands in our lap until everyone has been served!  I am so surprised by their patience and they remind ME, too!

Friday was fun with Parachute Play.   What a great, fun class!

Yoga Days!

We have been practicing Yoga with Phonics on Fridays.  The video tells us the letter and the sound and then we do a pose with an Animal Letter!

 Wow Look at that Stance!  Such balance!

Happy Valentines' Day!

Love is in the air and paint is in our classroom!  We finished our transportation unit by painting shirts and now red and pink are everywhere!   And....yes the paint does come off!

We'll end this week with making valentine bags, sharing our valentines and treats.

NO SCHOOL on Monday, but we will continue next Wednesday learning about our Flag and our President!   We may even have to cast a vote to see  if Yancy Yak talks too much or Umbrella Bird.   

We'll have to graph this out for our Math activity.  

They love the crafts, but we have been doing so much more!  We have been writing many times at our centers with wipe off boards, letter sticks, colored pencils (these have been a hit and teach good grip).   We also have been measuring and doing some addition in Math.   Being done going through the alphabet sounds, I decided to try an experiment.   We learned to sound out "at" and all the "at" words:  cat, mat, sat, fat, rat     I was surprised how they caught on to the concept!  (More about sight words and reading next session)  The first part of reading is learning those sounds!

I journaled with the children and we mailed our own letters..shh.....

We've been working on journaling and I love hearing their stories!  They have begun to ask me to write their stories.   This is great for language development and I value journaling in my teaching to prepare for reading.  This shows our words and stories can become print.

Ask your child about our puppet show with the zoo phonic puppets.  I have a video but can't seem to get it to link here : (

I hope you all have a great Valentine Day.....maybe mom and dad will get out on their own?

What a Surprise!

We had a great day at school today!   Miss Kathi let us leave the room without even cleaning up.  We had a surprise waiting for us!

Today we were visited by the Gilbert Fire Department!   We learned that we do NOT hide from the firemen if there is a fire in our house.  And .....toys can be replaced (they liked the idea of buying all new toys).   It was interesting that they all first said they would hide when they saw firefighter Mike suit up.   He looked and sounded like Darth Vader.  

We got to sit in the truck, but we just weren't too sure about it.

After we learned about the tools they carry and how to stay safe, we all went inside so our ears wouldn't hurt when the sirens went off.  We even saw the flashing lights!   How cute is that???

We talked about how even girls can be firefighters and now they give out pink hats!

Miss Kathi loves her new firefighter hat, too.

Vroom, vroom, here we go!

The transportation unit is always fun with kids.   They see community workers throughout the day as you are making your trips to Target, Walmart or even Starbucks ; )   I like to teach things that are in their environment and we will be  looking at signs that we see in our town, too.
The race cars were a big hit (my husband calls me the Recycle Queen!)

We even painted roads with trucks.

  

We have a new over-the-door easel in our room and it brought some surprising artwork.  Elias decided to make a "growth chart" and numbered it to see how tall he is.  According to him, he is "50 feet" tall.   : )

The children are starting to really get into working with our "Handwriting Without Tears" tools, making letters, tracing them with their fingers.

Olivia and Saira made "trains" after stringing the alphabet.

We made floating boats!    Cole as a construction Worker...

Wait,  who is that?  Our Custodian, Mr. Eddie reliving his childhood, I think.    The children like the surprise of having our transportation table to play with.