Welcome to our class webpage! Here you will find pictures of the children and get a glimpse into all of the fun learning activities we have been doing.
3/16/20
Parents, I wanted to let you know that we are thinking of you and your child during this time of uncertainty in our world. Making a daily routine will help kids know what to expect. Make time for play--both indoor and outdoor. Here are some activities to do with your children to keep them learning and having fun!
I sincerely hope that we will get to see your son or daughter soon in our classroom.
Parents, I wanted to let you know that we are thinking of you and your child during this time of uncertainty in our world. Making a daily routine will help kids know what to expect. Make time for play--both indoor and outdoor. Here are some activities to do with your children to keep them learning and having fun!
- Build a fort in your living room with chairs, couch cushions, pillows, and blankets. Bring stuffed animals, other toys, or books into the fort for hours of fun.
- Bake a cake, cookies, bread, or other baked goods with your child. This will incorporate math and science!
- Children can draw pictures and you can write letters to local healthcare workers thanking them for their service and care to patients during this time. You can mail the pictures and notes to local hospitals.
- Children can build with legos or blocks and work on their engineering skills
- Let children be creative by coloring with crayons, colored pencils, and markers. They can place stickers on pieces of paper.
- Read a book together. Reading to your child is one of the most important things you can do to develop their literacy!
- Go on a color or letter hunt around your house looking for specific colors or letters.
- Work on a puzzle together.
- Play some music and have a dance party!
- Go outside and take a walk and listen for the sights and sounds of Spring.
- Color or draw with sidewalk chalk.
- Blow bubbles and have the kids try to catch them.
- Throw a ball back and forth to one another or practicing kicking the ball.
I sincerely hope that we will get to see your son or daughter soon in our classroom.
We have been learning about rainbows! We have been reading fiction and non-fiction books about rainbows. We have been learning about the order of colors in the rainbow. We practiced making a rainbow of colors with dot markers and made our own rainbows with paint and play doh rolling pins! We also practice sorting rainbow colors of counters.
In our class, we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday, an American children's book author, and Read Across America Week. We read several books by Dr. Seuss including Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and What Kind of Pet Should I Get? We made our own popcorn in class and each helped to turn the kernels while they were popping. We made a class graph showing the type of pet that we would choose if we could.
Fun dancing with streamers during music class!
We made a polar bear art project by finger painting. Some of the children enjoyed getting their hands messy while others preferred to use a paintbrush! We also made our own snowmen after reading the book, "Snowmen at Night."
Outside fun with our friends!
We had a visit from the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore! They read the children a book about animal tails and we sang a song together. They brought a lion head rabbit named Cinnamon, a snake named Groot, and an African grey parrot named Echo. The bird said hello in the male voice of her trainer and sang for us!
We had a special snack--pretzels and marshmallows in the shape of a snowflake! The children enjoyed this treat.
Even when it's too cold or snowy to play outside, we get our energy out practicing our balance, throwing and catching balls, and crawling through tunnels!
In January, we learned about winter, snowflakes, snowmen, and arctic animals. We counted snowflakes, made snowflake pictures, played with instant snow, penguins, and ice in our sensory bins, made snowflake playdoh, played in our new vet clinic dramatic play area, examined animal x-rays, made winter paintings, painted on ice, and discussed winter vs. summer clothes. We read the story, "The Mitten" and practiced retelling the story using the different animals who ventured into the mitten during winter. In science, we demonstrated blubber that arctic animals have which keep their bodies warm using crisco and ice cold water. We have also been sorting by color and practicing spelling our names with magnetic letters!
In December, we have been focusing on the themes of gingerbread and Christmas. We made a gingerbread person art project, made holiday-themed play doh, baked pretend cookies in our kitchen, explored magnet science with jingle bells, made beaded candy canes while working on our patterning skills, sorted holiday-themed mini-erasers, played a color recognition game with Rudolph's nose, played with gingerbread scented play doh, "caught" gingerbread men with magnetic fishing poles, and played with our Little People nativity scene. We also practiced singing our songs for the Christmas program. What a month! :)
We had two different science experiments this month. First, we made predictions on which holiday items would sink or float. Then, we tested different items like a candy cane, orange, ornaments, cranberries, etc. and watched if they sank or floated in a bucket of water. We also used our sense of smell and tried to guess different holiday scents like cinnamon, vanilla, and peppermint. It was interesting which scents the children liked and did not!
During November, we have been learning about and exploring leaves! We have been reading books about leaves, painting and stamping real leaves, making play doh imprints with leaves and pinecones, playing in our leaf and lentils sensory bin, and even went on a nature walk to search for and collect leaves of changing colors. The children loved walking through the woods behind the school searching for leaves and hearing them crunch beneath our feet.
We performed a hopping corn science demonstration for the kids. We combined baking soda and vinegar which made a chemical reaction to form carbon dioxide gas. The gas forms bubbles in the water which circle around the corn kernels. The bubbles lift the kernels up to the surface and when they get there, they pop and the kernels sink again. Our reaction lasted for about 20 minutes and the children got to observe this cool science experiment.
We have been getting ready for Thanksgiving by reading books about the holiday, talking about what we are thankful for, decorating our turkey with feathers, making turkey handprints, and playing with pumpkin pie play doh. Since this holiday focuses on food, we talked about healthy foods vs. sometimes foods. We sorted foods based on those that were healthy and those that we should eat only sometimes and sorted foods by color. We made fruit and vegetable prints by dipping cut apples, onions, and peppers in paint.
The two chickens in our classroom have been growing bigger each week. We took the children to visit another classroom where the eggs were incubating and they got to see a baby chick just hours after it hatched! All of the chicks hatched and they were returned to the farm. Everyone enjoyed having a first hand look at the life cycle of the chicken!
Pictures of the children exploring centers working on identifying numbers and letters, counting, building with magna tiles, sorting, reading books, tracing lines, and developing our fine motor skills.
We have been learning all about pumpkins the month of October. We have been learning about parts of a pumpkin, examining real pumpkins, painting pumpkins, hammering golf tees into pumpkins to improve our fine motor skills, and even cut open a pumpkin to see what was inside!
Two baby chicks and seven eggs have arrived to our school! We got to have the baby chicks in our classroom one day this week and the children were SO excited to see them! We have been talking about the life cycle of a chicken and will visit the seven eggs which are incubating in another classroom. We are looking forward to seeing the baby chicks hatch in the next two weeks!
Building with pumpkins and wood blocks, and playing with cars and trains.
Rainy days mean inside play but these kids know how to have fun! They loved throwing balls and balancing on our river rocks.
Table time activities including stringing beads, identifying numbers and letters, art, counting with pegs and spiders, puzzles, and Halloween playdoh.
The children have been busy outside developing their gross motor skills by running, rolling tires and tree stumps, and climbing. The children are working together to roll the tires and tree stumps. They have been making music on our outdoor xylophone and making new friends!
Music class with Ms. Karen has been so much fun exploring different instruments and ways to move to music!
The children enjoy center time! They are engaging in pretend play, working on fine motor skills, developing literacy skills, identifying parts of the body, exploring different art mediums, building with blocks, identifying shapes and colors, and sorting by color.
Fall has arrived in our classroom! The fall-themed sensory bin is filled with real corn, fake pumpkins, and fake acorns. Our Halloween sensory bin has black beans and Halloween erasers. The children enjoy scooping and dumping and developing their fine motor skills. Our dramatic play area has been filled with pumpkins, gourds, and apples so that the children can pretend they are at a pumpkin patch.
These first two weeks of school, the children have been busy exploring our classroom during center time. They have been building with blocks, playing with play doh, puzzles, and magnetic cars. They have explored different art mediums including paint and crayons.
Exploring our playground!
Snack time
The children completed their first art project where each child made a handprint with paint and decorated their paper by gluing torn pieces of construction paper.
Each child decorated a sitting mat for use during our circle time. The sitting mats will help the children learn to identify their name and seat on our carpet.
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