bean boxes and snakes

Reptile man photos continued

Week eleven 2008

What an amazing, REPTILIAN week we had!

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Theme: Reptiles

Focus: Turtles & Tortoises, Lizards & Snakes Number: 14

Classical composer: Peter Tchaikovsky, Russian composer of the Romantic era (1840-1893) . Table Activities: We had great fun with lots of turtle pages…dot-to-dot, maze, color by number, etc. . Music: Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake, and 1812 Overture . Art: Miss Cristina showed the children some famous paintings using primary colors. The children used another primary color, yellow, to work on their canvas. They put a horizontal and vertical piece of tape on the blue background and discovered what happened when they removed the tape after painting with the yellow acrylic. . Handwriting and Reading: This short week was a review of the sounds we’ve practiced thus far. We focused on the relationship between the picture “name” for each sound train sound- /m/ Marko, /s/ Staccato, short /a/ Anna, long /e/ Ethan, /t/ Todd the Toad, and /r/ Rita the Rhinoceros. Such associations help the kids get the sound from their short term to long-term memory and have quicker recall each time they see the sound. . Theme: Warning: There are way too many exclamation points in the following paragraph!!!

Three words—THE REPTILE MAN! His visit was a great success! The children loved the hands-on presentation, which included riding the tortoise and wearing a snake. We also pet Lucy the alligator and Sheila the gila, and looked at a cobra and a rattlesnake…from a distance, that is! Hearing the rattlesnake rattle and the gaboon viper hiss was fascinating! The entire class pitched in to lift the enormous albino python to the couch where he almost made a quick get-away! We think we’d like to adopt him! Many of us were amazed at how soft and gorgeously patterned the skins of all of these animals were! We learned a lot of cool things to stick in our brains as we enjoyed using every one of our senses during this exciting experience! We certainly won’t be forgetting this tremendous treat anytime soon!

We had two cameras going so more pics will be posted soon!

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We ended our reptile week with coloring & cutting patterned spiral snakes. Each child was able to uniquely design the pattern and cut out the fun snake. Misses Tracy and Cameron gave each student a fun toy-snake to take home. It wiggles when you hold it horizontally by the tail! . Storybooks: The Tortoise and the Jackrabbit, Turtle Crossing, Verdi, A Color of my Own

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Math: Number 14 pages came home this week and the children practiced the equation 10 + 4 = 14. The middle teens can be a tricky area, so we are deliberately taking this part slow. . Free-Play Fun: The children had fun playing with the rubber play snakes, lizards, crocodiles and other reptiles. We also spent some time in the rice and bean boxes playing with reptiles and other creepy critters.

Week ten 2008

Happy birthday to Owen!

Here are highlights from week ten…

Theme: Amphibians & Reptiles

Focus: Frogs & Toads, Salamanders & Newts, Alligators, Crocodiles & Caimans Numbers: 11, 12, 13

Classical composer: Peter Tchaikovsky, Russian composer of the Romantic era (1840-1893) Table Activities: We decided that with the phenomenal success of the cutting of numerals 0-9, we could not stop cutting practice in the morning. So, this week the students practiced cutting the letters “F”, “T”, “S”, and “N” to go along with our amphibians. Also, we encouraged the children to color the lifecycles of the frog and the salamander. We also had great fun with reptile stencils and sandpaper cards (the reptile shadow cut in sandpaper to trace with fingers).

Music: The children had fun listening and moving to Tchaikovsky. We will continue Tchaikovsky into next week since there are so many beautiful pieces to hear such as The Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Swan Lake, portions of the Nutcracker Suite, 1812 Overture, etc. Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to the concepts of light and dark (gradation) and primary colors. The children began a wonderful multiple week project involving acrylic paint and canvas. The results will be amazing! Handwriting and Reading: We added the /r/ sound to our sound train. With one group, we reinforced the 6 sounds introduced thus far: /m/, /s/, short /a/, long /e/, /t/, and /r/ and practiced the sounds in a fun and competitive way—by playing a board game.

The other group used those six sounds and a few more to work with the –an word family. We matched –an words with their pictures, emphasizing the beginning sound and the rhyming ending. These papers can be kept and practiced at home to reinforce the skills. For handwriting we used wood pieces, slates, and for one group, paper and pencil or workbooks. We worked on making the numbers 11, 12 and 13 and “Rr” using these media. We demonstrated to the group, and then went around one-on-one to assist each child progress to success while the others practiced. When a student is practicing, the teacher will put a J next to her favorite letters…those formed best following the demonstrated process! Theme: We have collected quite a few plastic play animals, so the children had fun playing with the frogs & toads. We also used some non-fiction books and photos about our focus animals to learn some important facts and differences about frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, crocs, ‘gators, and caimans. One of our favorite activities was our finger play of “5 Green and Speckled Frogs” and the cute craft of the same name. You will see in the video clip that the students are using five “frogs” (ponytail holders with green pom-poms and googly eyes) to imitate the frogs jumping into the pond.

Storybooks: Tale of a Tadpole, Sophie’s Trophy, Newt, The Salamander Room, Catch That Crocodile, There’s an Alligator Under my Bed, If I Were a Crocodile.

Math: You will have seen the number sheets come home with lots of 11s, 12s and 13s. The students practiced making 11s, 12s and 13s by cutting out the 1s, 2s and 3s and gluing them over the zeros. This is a great way to reinforce the tens and ones places and show the kids the relationship between the numbers. We also practiced a lot of counting and looking at the numbers in isolation. On #12 day, we used Play-doh and trays (cookie sheets) to make a dozen cookies. The students really had fun pretending to make different varieties of cookies and counting them to make sure they had a dozen.

Free-Play Fun: In addition to the play animals, the children also spent some time in the reading loft. We brought out the flashlights and rainbow paddles to brighten up the gloomy Northwest day. For your information, we are back to assigned seating and having zero-tolerance on wrestling. The children respond so much better to having more structure. Also, we are looking to recruit 3 more students to begin in January and request your referrals. See you next Thursday for week 11!

Week nine 2008

Happy Halloween! Here are highlights from week nine! Theme: Autumn/Halloween Focus: Spiders, Bats and all things creepy! Classical composer: Igor Stravinsky, Russian 1882-1971 Here is a link to an amazing video of Stravinsky conducting the finale of his Firebird Suite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTep91oqgVk&feature=related The children really enjoyed Firebird, especially when the firebird comes out. We used the performance on the Fantasia 2000 CD, which covers a delightful amount of story and suspense with a broad range of emotions. It was delightful to watch the student’s faces as their imaginations engaged in the music. This was a big hit! Table Activities: Letter matching BINGO (Students have the uppercase letters on their board and we show them the lowercase letters. They find the matching letter and mark it.), autumn-themed coloring pages, dot-to-dots, mazes, and hidden pictures. Music: The children had fun listening and moving to Stravinsky. Also, continual reinforcement of the songs and terms are helping the children understand and remember remarkably well. Songs and Finger Plays: “Itsy, Bitsy Spider”, “Spiders Love to Party”, “Hunting for Dracula” and favorites from weeks past. Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to the concept of perspective using fall leaves, pumpkins, bats, craft stick gates, and moons. They used a ruler to draw the horizon line and placed the appropriate things in the sky or on the ground, in front of the gate or behind it, etc. You can see by the pictures how the children used these ideas to create their own special Halloween picture. There were no mistakes here…the pumpkins in the sky are flying pumpkins and some of the bats wanted to eat pumpkins on the ground! Very imaginative! Handwriting and Reading: We added the /t/ sound to our sound train. With one group, we reinforced the 5 sounds introduced thus far: /m/, /s/, short /a/, long /e/, and /t/ and practiced matching the beginning sounds to common pictures, including three of our school friends. The other group used those five sounds and a few more to work with the –at word family. We matched –at words with their pictures, emphasizing the beginning sound and the rhyming ending. These papers can be kept and practiced at home to reinforce the skills. We practiced making Play-doh snakes and using them to make uppercase letters and numbers. Play-doh is a great hand-strengthener and coordination-builder. We need lots of practice to make snakes and balls…it’s a learned skill! Using the snakes to make the letters following correct stroke order is another great way to practice the alphabet and numbers. Theme: Halloween is a favorite topic for kids and we spent time talking about some of the creatures that are common throughout this time of year. We learned some things about spiders (most spiders have 8 eyes) and about bats (bats can “see” at night using their super-duper sonar hearing - echolocation). We made a cool spider web by wrapping yarn around craft sticks and attaching our creepy, crawly friend to the end. We made Halloween pictures with Miss Cristina working on perspective. We also played Halloween BINGO with some spooky pictures. The winner (which was everyone) got some chattering teeth to take home. Storybooks: Diary of a Spider; Yellow Bird, Black Spider; Itsy, Bitsy Spider; We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House (“Which house?); Stellaluna; Inside a House That is Haunted; The Spooky Old Tree, Three Little Ghosties, Cocka-Doodle Whooooooooo! "Do they dare go into that spooky old tree?" Math: Every day we are reinforcing counting skills by counting the days on our calendar. We also practice counting numbers on the number line. Most days we practice counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s. (So far up to 20). The progress in calendar skills is really exciting. The students repeat the date and sometimes ask to do it all on their own as we point and sometimes give a bit of assistance. (“Today is: Thursday, October 30th, 2008”) It is fun to see their excitement as they say it all on their own. We also practice the days of the week. One song you can practice at home is: (To the tune of the “Eensy, Weensy Spider”) Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Then comes Saturday. Start all over again! Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Then comes Saturday. Those are the days of the week! Free-Play Fun: One big hit this week was our creepy, crawly flingers. The kids had so much fun free-playing with the flingers and trying to hit a target. Have a spooky and safe Halloween! We will see you in November…

Happy Day Cheer!

If you need a refresher, here is the cheer we sing every day to begin opening circle. Sometimes we sing forte (loud), pianissimo (soft), or, like today, mezzo forte (medium loud) and largo (slow).

Week eight 2008

Happy Birthday to Noah!

Here are some more highlights from week eight.

Theme: Autumn

Focus: Scarecrows, Apples, Pumpkins

Classical composer: Berlioz, born in France early 1800’s, known for conducting large orchestras with as many as 1,000 musicians.

Table Activities:. Cutting and coloring zeros, fun with magnets, 24 piece puzzles, ABC blocks, alphabet puzzles (matching capital and lowercase letters and filling in the entire alphabet puzzle).

Music: Songs and rhymes included: “If I Only Had a Brain”, “Way up high in the apple tree…”, “Five Shiny Apples”, “Five Little Pumpkins” . We are continually playing games with and reinforcing the music concepts we’ve worked on thus far: Forte/Pianissimo, Presto/Largo, Staccato/Legato, Treble/Bass. We have also introduced “mezzo forte”, which means “medium loud” and is represented by a normal singing or talking voice. This new concept has produced some beauty-ous results in our opening circle-time! Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to watercolor. First, they looked at some beautiful watercolor paintings by Miss Cristina and saw the different techniques used in watercolor. They practiced strokes and using lots of water. First they only painted with water. Then they added just one color, then another and saw what happened as the paint spread. The children were amazed to see the effect of salt on their paper. They also experimented with using crayon first, then watercolor painting over it. The results are beautiful and will go in their portfolios.

Handwriting and Reading: We added the long e (with a horizontal line over the top) to our sound train. Miss Tracy made a small sound train to allow the two groups to advance through the train at the rate they are ready for. We are working on handwriting and reading in two groups. Both groups made Mat Man and played “Tap Big Lines”. We reviewed the stroke names. Both groups worked on forming uppercase letters correctly on the slates with small pieces of chalk with emphasis on going all the way from the top to the bottom and making straight lines as well as use of the helper-hand. We are happy to lend out any of our HWT supplies if you are interested in doing a little homework with your child.

Theme: We couldn’t talk about scarecrows without moving like them. We practiced being very floppy and dancing around like scarecrows. We made scarecrow puppets and the kids were so proud of their results. Apple day was a smash as we made our very own applesauce…Mmmmm. We also made apple prints with paint and real apples. We counted apple seeds and saw the “star” made when cutting the apple horizontally through the carpals. We discussed real mummies and saw some pictures of a sarcophagus, the pyramids of Giza, and actual mummies. The oldest mummy ever found is 5500 years old! We looked at the map to see different continents where they have found mummies: Asia, Africa and South America. We made our very own pumpkins into mummies. Each child’s picture is on the previous post proudly displaying their pumpkin and includes directions for making the mummies. We also had fun being 5 little pumpkins sitting on the gate (balance beam) and rolling out of sight (somersaulting).

Storybooks: The Scarecrow’s Hat, Three Little Ghosties, Ten Red Apples, Ten Apples Up on Top, Johnny Appleseed, Pumpkin Soup, Five Little Pumpkins, Inside a House That is Haunted (You might hear your child say, “Here is the hand that knocked on the door….”) .

Math: Small group work included: Counting skills and counting by 5s and 10s. We used the linking cubes to make groups of 10 on two different days, practicing counting skills to make sure we had the correct amount. Then we linked the 10 towers together to make a long number line. The groups of ten were different colors so they were easy to differentiate. One of the groups counted by 10s to 50 and the other group went on to 100. We discussed and demonstrated making all of the 10’s up to 50 by adding a zero We also reinforced counting by tens on the 100s chart so the children can begin to see the relationships of the numbers to each other. This week we also spent time talking about the teens (11-19) and the “tens” place and “ones” place. We used cards with 10s and each of the numbers 1-9 to create 11-19. All of the children were able to see that the 1-9 went in place of the zero. We then practiced jumping as we counted to get the rhythm of the teens which can be tricky to order correctly. This is something you can do at home!

Free-Play Fun: We spent some recess time in the reading loft, playing with the fishing pond, balance beam, cars, people figures, running around and making very loud noises! (We allow a certain amount of this during free-play!) Several of the boys are enjoying wrestling and rough-housing. We are careful to monitor this activity and frequently ask each child if they are having fun, encouraging them to ask for it to please stop if they aren’t enjoying themselves. So far, it has generally been a happy, fun thing. Please let us know if your child tells you otherwise so that we can intervene appropriately.

Scarecrow Ethan!

Listening closely about mummies!