100th Day, Earth Day & Plants week 2

Hi Mom,

This week we celebrated our 100th Day of School! It just so happened that it fell on Earth Day, which fell during our Plant unit. How's that for perfect timing?!? Oh, and Mother Nature give us a gift on Earth Day too- our first sprout from our planted seeds welcomed the day! We're just waiting for the other 3 to show themselves now. Maybe they're still sleeping... :)

Since we had so much to celebrate, we made sure to do it well! After counting our last group of ten and bundling all our tens together to make a hundred, we read 100th Day Worries by Margery Cuyler. This story was about Jessica, who was very worried about what she was going to bring as her "100 collection" on the 100th day of school. In the end, she had a great collection because of the generosity and love of her family. Our class members also brought in 100 things to celebrate the day. We brought snack pieces to make an awesome 100th Day Snack Mix with everything from miniature chocolate bunnies to rice cakes. We all loved it! As we put our pieces in, we counted to 100... and we ended up with 400 pieces in our bowl at the end! Yummy...

We created 100th Day hats that turned out so neat and we learned a new song (to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell) that went like this:
100 Days of school,
Each one has been so cool!
High Ho, the dairy-o,
100 days of school!

Our party today included lunch- that looked like a 100 number! We had chicken strips that looked like 1's, carrot rounds (0's) and watermelon chunks (0's...sort of!) Our celebration sweet was sprinkled mini ice cream cones. We even had "100% juice" juice boxes, which we were stoked to see the 100 on the outside of. :) But, the best part was probably the extra loud noisemaker blowers that had 100's on them. Aren't you glad I brought those home with me??




 
 Since our 100th day shared it's celebration with Earth Day, we learned about The 3 R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. There is a neat song by Jack Johnson called The 3 R's all about these three special words... with some math thrown in! You can watch it here and sing along- watch out, it's catchy. We created Earth Day posters and wrote (through Ms. Marianne) the things we could do to reduce, reuse and recycle and help our planet. We also drew on an Earth model (a blue balloon!) the things that we wanted to protect on our planet. There were drawings of cats and dogs, birds, our families, trees, flowers and even a monkey hanging from a tree! There's a lot on the Earth that we love and we have to do our part to keep it a great place to live!




We went on a journey with Little Ant and his mother as they learned about different types of plants in one of our stories this week. We visited the forest- filled with lots of trees and bushes; the jungle- full of plants with very large leaves, exotic flowers and vines; the pond- where the frogs and fish hide in the reeds and under lily pads in the water; and the desert, with it's cacti and sand. (We know all about the desert!) We matched plants to their habitat and imagined what it would be like to walk through each of the places we "visited". We even pretended to be frogs hopping from lily pad to lily pad on our "pond".

After we arrived home from our trip through the four plant habitats, we practiced our sequencing skills by ordering the life cycles of certain plants- seedlings, apple trees, sunflowers and carrots. Once we had the pictures in order, we brainstormed what we thought should be in the next picture in our sequence. For the carrots sequence, for example, the cards were: 1-plant the seeds, 2- water the sprouts, 3-
 harvest the carrots. We brainstormed that picture 4 should be of the lady making a salad with her carrots.


In math, we took a closer look at the Teen numbers. These are tricky numbers because 11-12 are their own names, while 13 and 15 don't follow the rule the rest of the Teens do- the numbers of ones + "teen". We practiced counting the numbers in order and then matching the number we were handed with the number on our number line. We're beginning to get it!



Finally, to end our unit on Plants, we discussed what we do with plants. Ms. Marianne brought in a basket full of things that are made with plants. We were shocked that our books were made of plants! We learned that books and papers come from trees (a nice tie in with Earth Day and how we can preserve trees by reusing papers whenever possible and treating our books with care too.) We looked closely at wheat "seeds", which we grind up to make flour to bake bread, cake and pancakes from. We also were surprised that we wear plants too! Ms. Marianne had a cotton towel that she let us feel and then showed us pictures of cotton plants. The balls of cotton are collected, cleaned, made into fabric and then into clothes that we can wear! We learned that we drink plants too- through juices, like apple, orange and vegetable.

Of course, there were plants in the basket that we eat too- tomatoes, apples, lettuce, cucumbers and more.  We created a book today that came home in our backpacks for us to read at home. It is called I Eat Plants. Each page is a fill in the blank sentence that I wrote (with only a little bit of help on spelling and letter formation!) something from a plant that I eat at each meal. I didn't think at first that I ate any plants! But after we talked about cereal and oatmeal, sandwich bread, peanut butter & jelly, salad and macaroni & cheese, I realized that I DO eat a lot of plants every day! Plants are very important to our lives in so many ways.

Next week (as a reminder) is a different schedule. We will have class at our normal time, but on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday instead of through Thursday because Ms. Marianne's family is heading out of town for a family reunion on Wednesday evening.

Next week also starts our Down on the Farm Unit! We'll be learning all about our barnyard friends, farmers, veterinarians, crop planting & harvesting and more! This unit will go for two weeks and culminate with a trip to Schnepf Farms (see link for directions) on May 8th from 9am-12pm. Watch for more information next week!
(By the way, if you're interested in the Schnepf Farms Peach Festival they have beginning on Saturday, May 10, information can be found here. It's free but really popular!)

Looking forward to school on MONDAY... :)

Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne

Plants- Week 1

Hi Mom!

This week and next we're learning all about Plants. Our books are small readers about a character named Little Ant and his mother, who is teaching Little Ant all about plants in the world around them. After we read Little Ant Learns About Plants, we sang "The Ants Go Marching" and had a special snack: Ants on a Log (celery with peanut butter and raisins).

Ants On A Log Snack

 We read the books From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons, and From Seed to Plant by Alan Fowler (yes, I know it's the same name!). These books touched on pollination and where the seeds come from and what they do as a part of the life cycle of a plant. We talked about seed pods and fruits and opened up some snap pea pods to discover what was inside. We were amazed!



inside our pods

carefully opening his pea pod to peek inside



 We talked a lot about the difference between living and nonliving things and realized that a good way to determine if something is living is to ask: "does it breathe? does it eat? does it drink?" If it does these three things, it's a living thing! We also made sure we knew the difference between a plant and things that are not plants. We did a cut and paste sorting activity to show the difference between the two classifications. Then we took a nature walk to collect living things- leaves and seed pods, especially-  to do rubbings for an art activity.

LOTS of seed pods on the ground right now!

two stems of many leaves- these made a NEAT design



each plant's leaves are different



more plant parts & living things

The leaf rubbings turned out beautifully! We were so excited because the leaf pictures appeared like "magic" as we gently rubbed the crayon along the paper over the leaf underneath. Ms. Marianne loves seeing the wonder on our faces!! 

The Frog is ON the Log

For math this week, we focused our attentions again on counting and also on positional words. We played games like Frog and a Log to use our direction following skills to put our 'frogs' where they were supposed to be.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Where Can You Be??

 
We also played "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Where Can You Be?" Ms. Marianne would sing that phrase and place the Teddy somewhere in relation to the chair. The kids would have to use a complete sentence to tell Ms. Marianne where the bear was, like "The bears is sitting on the chair". 

We did a practice page- again to use our listening skills to glue the animals where they were supposed to be on our papers, even if the cat was inside the doghouse instead of when we followed the directions exactly! :)

We also followed directions and gave each other directions about how to get around and through this blue stream of "water". Let's "jump OVER the stream; skip THROUGH the stream; swim DOWN the stream"... and more! Then we got to give the directions to our friends too and we got some fun ones like stomp and skip through the stream, leap and hop next to the stream, etc.



seed count number writing practice

How Many Apples?

Since we're working with plants and seeds, for math we also did some basic addition and number writing practice worksheets for numbers 1-20. We're really familiar with 1-10, so 11-20 were interesting. We're getting to understand the ones and tens places much more now, so we're grasping that 13 is one group of ten and 3 more ones... place value is tricky and we're practicing it a lot as we move throughout our days. And speaking of moving throughout our days, we're celebrating the 100th Day of Preschool next Tuesday. Technically it's not until Wednesday of next week, but since we're all here on Tuesdays, Ms. Marianne decided to have us celebrate a day early with a party and a Hundredth Day Snack Mix, where everyone contributes snack pieces in groups of ten, adding up to 100 pieces from each student. It should be yummy and a lot of fun next Tuesday!

Throughout this week, we've planted melon seeds and began sprouting beans in clear cups to study their growth process. We read another reader about Little Ant, called Little Ant Learns that Plants Have Parts and so we're looking to see the roots that come from the bottoms of the seeds and the sprouts that come from the tops. We created a "vegetable flower" to illustrate the parts of a plant (hopefully they made it home ok!) and cut out, glued and labeled the parts of a plant on a big sheet of construction paper to take home and discuss with our families.

Next week will be studying different plant environments and what specifically we use plants for (beyond eating!).

Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne

The Shape of Things

Hi Mom,
The things around us are all shapes and sizes. We have rectangle doors, square books, triangle sandwich halves, circle orange slices, hexagon Stop signs and more! This week, we focused on finding and describing shapes all around us. For example, a square has 4 corners and 4 sides that are all the same length. A rectangle also has 4 corners and 4 sides, but two of its sides are long and two are shorter.

We walked around our classroom and the neighborhood searching for the shape that Ms. Marianne called out and we came up with some fun examples! We read books called The Shape of Things by Janine Scott, Museum Shapes by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Mouse Shapes, by Ellen Stoll Walsh. After we read Mouse Shapes, in which the mice use shapes to create giant mice that will scare off the sneaky household cat, we used shapes cut in all sizes and colors to create pictures of our own! Our landscapes included houses, trucks, trees, clouds- even an airplane!! We were so creative!

 We practiced our listening and shape describing skills by creating a shape that Ms. Marianne described for us, and then used our own thoughts to create from open ended questions like: "What shape could we create with 3 sticks?"

A fun new game this week was Musical Chairs, but if we didn't get into a chair when the music stopped, instead of getting "out", we'd have to close our eyes, choose a foam shape from a bag and tell the class what it was. We played until all of our shapes were out of the bag- then we played again because we loved it so much!

 

We also learned a new song (an extension of the ABC song, and sung to the same tune) that is helping us put together the name, sound, action and a word for each letter of the alphabet. We've been practicing every day to make sure we've got those letters and sounds down PAT! We can practice at home too! :) It goes like this:
a, /a/, alligator (arms like alligator jaws)
b, /b/, bear (one arm reaching into a honey pot and eating the honey)
c. /c/, cat (cup hand into a 'c' and clean side of face)
d, /d/, dig (use a pretend shovel to dig a hole)
e, /e/, elephant (make an arm into a trunk and swing it side to side)
f, /f/, fish (one hand on top of the other, thumbs out and the thumbs circle to make the fish 'swim')
g, /g/, gorilla (thump chest)
h, /h/, hot (breath out into hand in front of mouth using /h/ sound)
i, /i/, inchworm (index finger inching upward)
j, /j/, jump (make two fingers 'jump' on other hand)
k, /k/ kick (kick arm up, kick arm down- think the shape of the letter)
l, /l/, lizard (flick tongue in and out like a lizard)
m, /m/, mouse (rub tummy like something is tasty)
n, /n/, nose (wrinkle nose)
o, /o/, (we say all three sounds for this one instead of a word, so /oh/, /o/, /oo/)
p, /p/, popcorn (pop up and down like popcorn)
q, /q/, quail (crook index finger on forehead like a quail's feather)
r, /r/, raccoon (crook fingers of a hand to resemble an 'r' or a raccoon's paw)
s, /s/, snake (wriggle arms back and forth like a snake)
t, /t/, tambourine (use index fingers to tap the tambourine)
u, /u/, up (point up)
v, /v/, vampire (point to teeth)
w, /w/, water (pretend to drink from a cup)
x, /x/, xylophone (tap fingers together in an 'x')
y, /y/, yes (both arms up in a triumphant pose, say "YES!")
z, /z/, zipper (zip a zipper up and down)

Now that we're getting so good at our letters and sounds, some of us are moving on to using those sounds to make words. It's a slow process, but we're finding words that are simple to build and sound out, and we are realizing that we are readers! What a confidence boost to know that we can put what we know into action. You can practice with me at home to. Just give me a word to spell and have me sound it out by breaking it into individual sounds and then stating the letter that makes that sound. For example: cat. I'd say /c/- C; /a/-A; /t/-T...c-a-t...cat! You can also go the other direction by writing down a word and having me sound each letter out and slowly begin to put the sounds together faster and faster until I hear the word that I'm saying. This is the trickiest part. We know the letters and their sounds, but trying to go from segmented sounds to a whole word gets hard. It's easier for me to hear you sound it out and me say it in many cases, but eventually I should be trying on my own, without any help. Another way we can practice is by changing the first (or middle, or last as I get more confident) letter of a CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word like PAN to make a new word and having me tell you what word it makes. For example: PAN changes to VAN when I switch the P to a V; or PAN changes to PAD when I change the N to a D. All of these techniques will help me recognize that I am a reader already and that I can do this!

Next week we will begin our two week unit on Plants. So excited!

Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne

Community Helpers- Week 2

Hi Mom,
We have had such a great time learning about the Helpers in our community! We finished out the Community Helpers Unit in preschool by doing activities about Police Officers, Doctors & Nurses and Mail Carriers. You can find all the printables for the rest of the Unit as follows:

Police Officer printables here
Doctor printables here
Mail Carrier printables here 

Fingerprinting our counting books

Reading the Street Sign Shapes book

On Tuesday, we became officers and made cool hats and badges for ourselves and called each other "Officer ________" all day long. Our story of the day was Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann- which we all loved! Gloria is a very entertaining police dog...and we all learned that life is always better (and safer!) with good friends. In addition to talking about the duties of a police officer, we made a Policeman Lap Book that had a counting fingerprints book (which had OUR fingerprints in it!), a street sign shapes book (we keep talking about the shapes of the signs that we've seen now) and a 3D stoplight. We practiced our street address and phone numbers, both of which are found in our Lap Books as well, and Ms. Marianne offered us a special prize if we could recite our address and phone number to her. She taught her daughters a song to remember the numbers of her phone number and they sing it all the time! One important thing that we discussed when we learned about police officers is that it's OK to talk to them, even though technically they're strangers to us. We should be comfortable going to them if we need help, because they are our protectors!

Honorary Officers!

As a part of our Community Helpers Unit, we had an exciting visit from a Registered Nurse who showed us all kinds of neat things from her tool kit that she uses on a daily basis. Nurse Mary took our temperature and our blood pressure, showed us a Butterfly Needle for drawing blood (we didn't get to handle this tool though!), opened up some bandages, let us listen to our hearts and hers, and talked about some of the things she gets to do as a nurse every day, like assisting doctors and making her patients more comfortable. We put on our special "doctor masks" and latex gloves and made a Doctor kit that we can use to help our own patients, complete with bandages, tongue depressors and cotton swabs. :) Now we're ready to go!

Doctor Kit construction

Our hearts beat fast!

Nurse Mary showed us how her stethoscope works.

all of us were the perfect temperature (or close!)

Her blood pressure cuff- it squeezes your arm!

the Butterfly needle retracts into the butterfly part to prevent the nurses from getting stuck

 We learned a new song: My Doctor Helps Me (to the tune of Old MacDonald)- found in our resources link above- and read Froggy Goes to the Doctor by Jonathan London. Froggy is so silly! And I know the doctor's office is nothing to be scared of, especially now that I know so much about the tools that doctors and nurses use to help keep me well.

French Fry Math

Shaving Cream writing

Pill bottle ordering by size

These past few weeks, we've been working hard on counting. Almost all of us can count confidently to 50 now (or we're really close!) We've been practicing using our fingers, adding an additional finger each time we get to a ten number. So one finger at 10, two fingers at 20, etc until we reach 50. It seems to help with turnover because we can look at our fingers and think about what tens place number is coming next. We also practiced number writing with shaving cream writing time and simple subtraction by playing a fun game called French Fry Subtraction where we got to pretend to "eat" French fries from a paper container as we set up a subtraction problem. We loved the act of noshing on the fries while we wrote out the number sentence. We also worked on sorting and ordering by size by cutting out, lining up and gluing paper prescription bottles in order from largest to smallest.

Fun fact: one day this week was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Day, so we celebrated with a special lunch / snack that day!

Peanut Butter-Jelly Time!

 Our final Community Helper that we studied and experienced during this Unit was the Mail Carrier. They have an important job! We practiced writing our names and addresses on envelopes and putting them into our preschool mailbox. Then we wrote REAL cards and addressed them to someone who we love and walked them down to the mailboxes in Ms. Marianne's neighborhood. We also wrote thank you notes to all the community helpers that we have been to visit during the last few weeks, like the dentist, the firefighters and we even made a special card just for the mail carrier!


checking the preschool mailbox for mail!

We have mail!

"How do you spell that word?" :) yay for thinking it out!



Addressing our REAL mail envelopes

Getting the mail ready to send



Practicing putting the mail into the box and lifting the flag

Off to the REAL mailbox!



We're ready for the mail carrier to take our mail and get it to our loved ones.



In it goes!

 Next week, we will practice more with identifying and describing shapes in the world around us. We will also practice some of our skills that we've learned- especially our numbers, letters & sounds, and counting.

Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne