Theme: My Amazing Body!
Focus: My amazing brain and 5 senses, My amazing digestive system, My amazing skin
Spanish: los ojos (eyes), la nariz (nose), la boca (mouth), las orejas (ears), la piel (skin), los intestinos (intestines), el estomago (stomach), la lengua (tongue)
Theme: This week wrapped up our Amazing Body theme. This theme is near and dear to Miss Cameron’s heart…it is so fun and interesting to learn about the way our bodies work!
For the brain and 5 senses, we talked about how the brain is like a computer in charge of our body. Nerves carry messages from the body to the brain, and from the brain to the body. We have billions of nerves! The nerves and the brain work together to make it so we can see, taste, smell, feel, and hear. We did some experiments identifying different smells while blindfolded, and also identifying different raised pictures on rubbing plates. Noah’s mom, Miss Darla, led the class in a sensory craft that practiced the skill of tying a shoe, and also allowed us to experience many different-feeling textures as we decorated our “shoe”. Thanks so much, Miss Darla! 
We observed with our eyes and hands the different parts of a cow’s eye…the cornea, t
he iris, the gelatinous 
vitreous humor, the retina, and the ever-
fascinating and fun lens. It might be good to mention here that we really work as teachers to teach good hand-washing and also the art of keeping our hands away from our mouth, nose and eyes. It’s a work in progress for many of us! We looked at a science model of the brain and talked about how different parts of the brain do different jobs. We also listened to some different sounds and identified what they were….a baby crying, a siren, a fire-bell, a timpani drum, a hungry kitten, etc.
We observed with our eyes and hands the different parts of a cow’s eye…the cornea, t
he iris, the gelatinous 
vitreous humor, the retina, and the ever-
fascinating and fun lens. It might be good to mention here that we really work as teachers to teach good hand-washing and also the art of keeping our hands away from our mouth, nose and eyes. It’s a work in progress for many of us! We looked at a science model of the brain and talked about how different parts of the brain do different jobs. We also listened to some different sounds and identified what they were….a baby crying, a siren, a fire-bell, a timpani drum, a hungry kitten, etc.
For the digestive system, the students were excited to learn about spit and poop…seriously! Our tongue, teeth, tongue and saliva (aka spit) all work together to start the digestive process. They break the food down into small, slippery parts so we can swallow them. The students got a lot of giggles saying the word, “Esophagus”, the muscular tube that connects our mouth to our stomach. It takes about 7 seconds for the food to move through the esophagus and into the stomach where it gets mixed up with more stuff and breaks down even smaller. Then the food moves into the intestines where the parts of the food we need are given to the blood to take to every part of the body. The intestines make what we don’t need into poop. We had fun being the digestive system (sorry, no pictures!). The mouth broke a bunch of velcro-ed together ping pong balls apart and put them into the esophagus/ tube sock. The esophagus pushed the balls through the tube sock into the stomach/ bowl. The stomach stirred the balls around then put them into the intestines/ tube sock. The intestines separated out some of the balls to give to the blood, then pushed the rest of the balls through the sock and put them into the (sanitized) potty-chair. Ethan really got into his part as the intestines! :-)
Another very fun activity was creating our giant food pyramid. Miss Cameron really, really prefers the older up-and-down format pyramid instead of the newer side-to-side pyramid, which just totally baffles her. The Happy Day emphasis in teaching the food pyramid is to learn which foods are healthy that we need a lot of, what we need some of, and which foods are treats to be eaten only once in a while. It is also fun to learn a bit about where the foods come from as we sort them into their categories. 
After we built it big, we made a paper hard-copy food pyramid using our cutting and pasting skills. The book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” led to a class-discussion about how eating too many unhealthy foods makes us feel sick.
Our bodies need variety and good foods to stay healthy. They were surprised to know that if they only ate carrots all day, every day, their skin would turn orange and they would feel very sick. We looked at the food rainbow picture and have used lunch-time for several days to show the rainbow of veggies and fruits that our great moms pack for us! You moms do a great job…I don’t think there was a day that we were missing a color!
We also read a fun book called, “Clarabella’s Teeth” about an alligator with lots and lots of teeth to brush every day.
For the skin, we learned about how our skin protects us from germs, holds our insides in, helps us stay not-too-hot and not-too-cold, can get dirty but is easily washed (much more easily than our clothes!), gives us our sense of touch, and grows when we grow. The skin is an organ of the body. So often we don’t think about how amazing it is! Miss Cameron had a bobby pin (two points close together) that she touched to the back of each student’s hand, and then to one fingertip. The question was asked, “How many points do you feel?” Some of the students were accurately able to feel one touch on the back of the hand, and two on the fingertip. Other students had fun making up numbers, even into the hundreds! J Our fingertips are full of nerves to send messages to the brain, while the back of the hand has less, and so interprets the two points as one. 
We had fun feeling the soft petals of a rose on our cheeks. This activity was also a great photo-op! Several students were surprised at the softness, because they first thought of the prickles.
We summarized by guessing what Miss Cameron was acting out as we talked about the four important things our body needs to stay healthy…Sleep, A Variety of Good Foods, To Be Kept Clean, and Exercise. Taking good care of our Amazing Body is important so that we can feel good, learn lots and have fun!
Art: Miss Cristina jumped right in on the theme by focusing on the senses of taste and smell. She did a sweet vs. sour vs. salty taste experiment and read a book explaining the sense of smell. 
The students continued their work on their 5 senses accordion booklets. She also had the students complete their acrylic on canvas projects with their names and some embellishments.
Reading: We did some fun practice using our very long sound train to put sounds together to make words. The students would pick out many of the sounds to use. We made the word “yes”, “pot” “pet” “pat” “pit” and “spit”. Wow! These kids are impressive in their confidence with the sound train!
Math: We practiced counting by fives and some other patterning. As always, number recognition and counting forward and backward to thirty.
Handwriting: Drawing and opportunity to write their names…still a work in progress for many of us!
Music: Food Pyramid, “The Higher you climb, the less that you need! It’s the Food Pyramid!” by Cathy Fink and Marcy Marx, “Shakeable You” by Imagination Movers
Gross Motor: Somersaults on mats, outdoor play, follow the leader
Free Play/Table Activities: Tubes and Balls, Toy kitchen with pretend food and dishes, blocks and vehicles, dollhouse with figurines and ponies, sort and count foods, stethoscopes, alphabet interlocking mats, sorting plastic ice cubes and mini animals, free drawing, ABC puzzle
Another very fun activity was creating our giant food pyramid. Miss Cameron really, really prefers the older up-and-down format pyramid instead of the newer side-to-side pyramid, which just totally baffles her. The Happy Day emphasis in teaching the food pyramid is to learn which foods are healthy that we need a lot of, what we need some of, and which foods are treats to be eaten only once in a while. It is also fun to learn a bit about where the foods come from as we sort them into their categories. 
After we built it big, we made a paper hard-copy food pyramid using our cutting and pasting skills. The book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” led to a class-discussion about how eating too many unhealthy foods makes us feel sick.
Our bodies need variety and good foods to stay healthy. They were surprised to know that if they only ate carrots all day, every day, their skin would turn orange and they would feel very sick. We looked at the food rainbow picture and have used lunch-time for several days to show the rainbow of veggies and fruits that our great moms pack for us! You moms do a great job…I don’t think there was a day that we were missing a color!
We also read a fun book called, “Clarabella’s Teeth” about an alligator with lots and lots of teeth to brush every day.
For the skin, we learned about how our skin protects us from germs, holds our insides in, helps us stay not-too-hot and not-too-cold, can get dirty but is easily washed (much more easily than our clothes!), gives us our sense of touch, and grows when we grow. The skin is an organ of the body. So often we don’t think about how amazing it is! Miss Cameron had a bobby pin (two points close together) that she touched to the back of each student’s hand, and then to one fingertip. The question was asked, “How many points do you feel?” Some of the students were accurately able to feel one touch on the back of the hand, and two on the fingertip. Other students had fun making up numbers, even into the hundreds! J Our fingertips are full of nerves to send messages to the brain, while the back of the hand has less, and so interprets the two points as one. 
We had fun feeling the soft petals of a rose on our cheeks. This activity was also a great photo-op! Several students were surprised at the softness, because they first thought of the prickles.
We summarized by guessing what Miss Cameron was acting out as we talked about the four important things our body needs to stay healthy…Sleep, A Variety of Good Foods, To Be Kept Clean, and Exercise. Taking good care of our Amazing Body is important so that we can feel good, learn lots and have fun!
Art: Miss Cristina jumped right in on the theme by focusing on the senses of taste and smell. She did a sweet vs. sour vs. salty taste experiment and read a book explaining the sense of smell. 
The students continued their work on their 5 senses accordion booklets. She also had the students complete their acrylic on canvas projects with their names and some embellishments.
Reading: We did some fun practice using our very long sound train to put sounds together to make words. The students would pick out many of the sounds to use. We made the word “yes”, “pot” “pet” “pat” “pit” and “spit”. Wow! These kids are impressive in their confidence with the sound train!
Math: We practiced counting by fives and some other patterning. As always, number recognition and counting forward and backward to thirty.
Handwriting: Drawing and opportunity to write their names…still a work in progress for many of us!
Music: Food Pyramid, “The Higher you climb, the less that you need! It’s the Food Pyramid!” by Cathy Fink and Marcy Marx, “Shakeable You” by Imagination Movers
Gross Motor: Somersaults on mats, outdoor play, follow the leader
Free Play/Table Activities: Tubes and Balls, Toy kitchen with pretend food and dishes, blocks and vehicles, dollhouse with figurines and ponies, sort and count foods, stethoscopes, alphabet interlocking mats, sorting plastic ice cubes and mini animals, free drawing, ABC puzzle
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