Miss Nelson is Missing!!

Our reading focus this week was "compare and contrast." A great

book for this is, Miss Nelson is Missing! We read the story and 

talked about Miss Nelson and Miss Viola Swamp and how they 

were different and then discussed how they were similar.  The best 

way to discuss similarities and differences is using a Venn 

Diagram.

To review sequence we read an adorable story called, Apple 

Trouble.  This story is about a hedgehog who made his nest for 

winter the perfect size, not too small and not too big, just right!  

When he's finished with his nest an apple falls on him and gets 

stuck, this makes it so he can't fit in his nest!  Through the story his 

friends try to help him but instead more things keep getting stuck 

on him!  In the end, he meets a friendly goat who eats all the stuff 

off his back.  It is hilarious!  What a funny concept for a story!  For 

our sequence activity, the children colored, cut, and glued the 

pieces on the hedgehog in the order of the story. (I don't know why 

some pictures won't rotate!!! Sorry!)

 

 

Our math centers this week included: Counting Boxes for 

practicing counting, Shelby's Snack Shack Game for fine motor 

strengthening and counting, Hi-Ho Cherry-o for counting practice, 

and a shape game.

Literacy centers included: A beginning sounds worksheet where the

children wrote the beginning sound of the picture and then colored 

in the pictures, silent reading, a community helpers book, felt 

pieces for matching beginning sound pictures, letters and words, 

number writing, and alphabet matching.

Welcome Miss Short!!  She is a wonderful new part of our class!  

She will be helping out for a few hours each morning!  She is great!

Fall, Fall, and more things Fall!

This week, we had a lot of fall themed

activities!  We are also working on community

helpers which brought to us a new discovery 

center!  Children are able to look at 

community helper books, sort community helper

 objects into corresponding buildings and 

create their own community.

 

Each community helper we have learned about 

has a corresponding activity.  For instance,

 for our doctor lesson we made our own 

doctor's kits: 

 In literacy centers we had some usual 

activities such as silent reading, 

handwriting, etc, but we also had our pumpkin

 syllable sort (sorry, I couldn't get it to

 rotate!) and also a short vowel game where

 the children had to say the short vowel

 sound and "fill" their buckets with apples.

 My absolute new favorite children's 

story....Otis by Loren Long...it makes my

 heart go pitter, patter!  It is just the

 most adorable story of friendship between an

 old tractor and a baby calf.  After reading

 the story the children did a sequencing

 activity pictured below.

 For retelling, the children have a new bin 

activity.  They are able to retell the story 

of the old lady who swallowed some leaves! 

 They can also retell Brown Bear, Brown Bear,

 What Do You See? using the accompanying

 pieces.

That's a little glimpse into our week!  Hope

 you enjoy our pictures and snippets!

Grandparent's and Special Friends Day!

Last week we had the exciting opportunity to bring grandparents

and/or special friends to school!  Here are some pictures for your

enjoyment!

All the Colors of the Rainbow!

It has been a little longer than I would have liked to post something

new, but it has been very busy since Grandparent's and Special

Friend's Day!  Come back in a couple days to see all the pictures I 

took on Friday!

Moving onto kindergarten things....last week we learned about 

colors!  Did you know that a rainbow actually has 7 colors and they

are always in the same order? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, 

indigo, and violet!  We also found out through the help of, White 

Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker, that you can mix primary 

colors to create secondary colors!  As you can see here we had a lot

of fun with colors:

 We mixed our colors with food coloring and eye droppers!

 

Our centers this week focused around our math skills we have been

practicing and literacy skills as well.  Our math centers focused on

patterns, shapes, counting, and number matching.  So far this year,

our math curriculum has been getting the children used to 

recognizing numerals, writing numbers, and using good counting

skills.

Here the children are rolling dice and coloring a pumpkin with the 

same number.

 Children are working with pattern blocks.

Matching amounts with numerals:

 Children are using shapes to build creations!

 Our literacy centers included letter sound recognition, name 

writing and short vowel sound sorting

Sorting pictures into the matching envelopes that have the five 

vowels.

Practicing writing their names the correct way with an uppercase 

beginning letter and the rest lowercase.  Something we are all 

practicing!

 Number writing!

Letter-sound recogntion with alphabet dominoes!

We also began our community helper unit and learned about police 

officers.  After reading Officer Buckle and Gloria we made our own

police cars out of shapes!

Check out our new Doctor's Office play area.  I couldn't pass up

this picture of Andrew in the nurse gear!

And....we had a Happy Birthday with Haley!

That's all for now!  New postings coming soon!