Hi Mom!
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| In the fire engine |
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| When I grow up... |
There are so many people that help make our community a better place. We brainstormed some this week and began to learn about them. Our learning in this unit will take us through this week and next. We worked together to think of Community Helpers like doctors & nurses, teachers, crossing guards, construction workers, grocers ("grocery store payers" LOL), trash collectors, police officers, letter carriers, firefighters and chefs. To see just how much community helpers do, Ms. Marianne asked us what life would be like without certain positions. For example... what if the trash collector never took away our trash? It would smell so bad at our house! Or what if we had no letter carrier to bring us letters and important mail? We wouldn't be able to get birthday cards and our parents wouldn't be able to pay bills on time. We discussed how when we grow up, we can be community helpers too and earn money while making things better for people.
We created a
book that I can read to you at home, including a page that I wrote and illustrated myself! Each page reads "I am a _________." and has a picture of the community helper that it names. This is a great chance for me to build my confidence as a reader by practicing holding a book, tracking print with my finger as I read each word and recognizing sight words. There was also a page where I was able to write in what I want to be when I grow up. We have future chefs, firefighters, doctors and even "whoopin' cowgirls" in our class!
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| Budding Readers! |
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| Dentist Graphing |
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| Racing to the fire |
The first Community Helper that we discovered in depth this week was a firefighter (find printables
here). We learned some new vocabulary words like hydrant, turnout gear (their fire-fighting uniform), hose, helmet and fire engine. We played a fire fighting game that helped us to recognize and count numbers on a die, and then move our player the same number of spaces as we raced our firefighters to the burning house. We had to watch out for forgotten axes, other fires and other spaces that would make us go back a space or lose a turn, but we wanted to land on spaces that allowed us to jump forward, like the one that said there was a fire hydrant near the fire!
Speaking of counting, we worked really hard again on counting 1-100 this week. We're getting better every day! During Math time, we also rolled a "Dentist Die" (dentists are another Community Helper. We already learned about them a few weeks ago!) and we raced to see which dentist tool we would roll the most. The blue and green tools were rolled most often and we were quickly able to color in the squares on our graph for those colors. We compared all of our bars on the graph as we colored them in and made predictions about which color would win for each of us! Some of our predictions were correct and we were very excited about that. :)
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| our neighborhood |
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| Quick! The barn is on fire! |
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| Double hose power |
Another game we played to practice recognizing our numbers was
Put Out the Fire. When we came to school, there was a neighborhood drawn on Ms. Marianne's driveway. Each house had an "address" number on it, 1-20. We armed ourselves with spray bottle "hoses" and, when she'd call 911 to report a house on fire, we'd race to put out the fires that she had drawn on the houses. This helped us to practice recognizing numbers above 10 (the "teens") and also allowed us to practice squeezing, a motor skill that strengthens our grip and our arm muscles. We also got to work as a team to fight the fires together! Eventually one of us took over as the caller and fire drawer, which allowed us to practice calling out our numbers too.
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| Firefighters in action! |
Of course, you can't learn about fire fighting and safety without practicing what to do if you accidentally catch on fire yourself! We all thought Ms. Marianne was a little nutty when she first told us about "Stop, Drop and Roll", but we watched her do it and then tried it ourselves. She'd call out a scenario or piece of clothing that was on fire and we'd stop running, drop to the floor and then roll like crazy until the "fire" was out.
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| Stop... |
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| and Roll! |
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| Drop... |
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| Lucky me! |
We finished our Lucky Me Shamrocks this week too. Remember the ones that we roller painted the week before Break? We talked about how 4-leaf clovers are lucky and we put something on each leaf of our clovers that makes us lucky. Some things that we wrote were: getting to play soccer, my family, having a new TV and my home.
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| Off to help! |
Our big excitement of the week was our field trip to the Fire Station. When we got to our local fire station, we met Royce, a REAL firefighter! He took us around the station and showed us where the firefighters eat, sleep and train during their shifts. As we were walking around, we heard a loud, high pitched sound all of the sudden. The firefighters were getting a call out to help someone in need! While we watched in awe, the fire fighters quickly got into the fire engine and drove away with their lights and sirens on (this is called "going Code Three"). They asked us to wait for them because they were only going on a medical call, meaning the would help the ambulance EMTs if needed, but they wouldn't be very long. They were right! We waited in the quiet station, sitting in their living room and exploring their kitchen, dining room and outside eating area while we waited. Once the fire engine returned carrying the fire fighters, we continued our tour. Royce took us into the engine bay, where the engines wait until they're needed. We climbed into the cabin of the fire engine they'd just used and got to see all the buttons that make the lights and sirens work, the turnout uniforms and helmets they wear and where they sit as they ride to calls. Then we climbed back down the other side and walked around the engine, opening all the doors and getting an up close look at the hoses, ladder, water pumps (the truck holds 500 gallons of water inside it!!) and all the other "bells and whistles" that make a fire engine so cool! Royce answered all of our questions and even let us pose for some cool pictures in front of the engine. Afterward, we asked him about the types of calls that he's "run on" and he told us about some of the things that he's seen. He's only been a firefighter for a short time, but there are other veteran firefighters that he runs with during his shifts as he learns how to be a great fire fighter too! At the very end of our visit to the station, Ms. Marianne asked if Royce would mind letting us try on his turnout coat so we could feel what it was like to wear a real firefighter uniform. When he said we could, we took turns putting it on one at a time, even Ms. Marianne! It was very thick and very heavy!
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| The axes and other "big tools for chopping down doors" according to the kids |
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| Hoses and other equipment they use |
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| Junior Firefighters! |
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| Where's the fire?? |
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| Only a few more years (and feet!) to go! |
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| It's bigger than I am! |
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| Maybe I should change careers just for the stylish uniform! |
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| We're Ready! |
Next week, we'll be exploring more Community Helpers positions. We will hopefully have a guest speaker coming in on either Tuesday or Thursday to teach us about being a nurse and working in the medical field.
Keep practicing those letters and sounds! Pretty soon we'll begin making more words with them and even trying out some sentence building. Fun, fun, fun!
Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne
