Writing

Writing is one of my favorite things to teach, and it is one of the most fun to see develop!  In 4K we write often, and this year my class was even more excited!  When I brought out the clipboards writing began to happen in every center.  Students would ask to measure things in blocks, write orders in Dramatic Play, write stories and play library in teacher center, and of course write letters to their friends and family.  We would also do journals throughout the week, and at least once a week do a class book.  Below are some examples of the stages of writing some students are in!  All have made such progress this year, and I am so proud!

Worms

Spring was in the air and my science theme this week was soil and plants.  I challenge myself to add new ideas to my curriculum, so this theme I added worms! We talked about where worms live, what they eat, and how they are helpful to the Earth.  We graphed if we liked worms (everyone said yes), we painted with worms (cooked spaghetti noodles), and we observed real worms in our classroom.  It was easy to find the worms (at Walmart) and I set them out in the classroom and we used our 5 senses to observe them.  Again, I was very happy that every student touched the worm. 

eventually we took the worms outside and watered the ground and dug up some dirt and put them in the dirt.  About an hour later we came back outside to see what happened.  Our prediction was that the worms might be on the sidewalk, might be in the dirt, might get eaten by a bird.  what we found out was that most of our worms disappeared....probably into the soil we decided.  A few of our worms died (more water next time and spread them our more).

Easter

We had a great time celebrating Easter this week! Now on to a much needed break!
Here are our rainbow Easter bunnies that I found on pintrest.  We painted first, then decorated the bunnies the next day.

We also made crosses to remember that Jesus died for our sins.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A few days before St. Patrick's Day, my class began to talk about what happened last year in their 3k classes when the leprechaun came into their classroom and messed things up.  With the help of a great professor at CUW Mequon, we took some time to make traps.  We created plans, letters, and had a lot of conversations about how this would work.....

Where to set up the trap? What to use? I had saved some boxes from our snacks and we ended up using all of them, the kids decided to use the doll house as a trap, and used the boxes and lego center to help the leprechaun get up to the house.

It was decided that the windows would have to be covered with paper, and you can see a student also building stairs to get up to the house

Lucky Charms were used as the bait, a few in each cup until the top where all the marshmallows would be waiting.

This was a dinosaur play area, we would eventually add water to the cup to see if the leprechaun was thirsty or would spill it

Eventually we had 3 traps or two traps and a play area....when it was all said and done, below are the some of the notes we left outside the door (low enough that the leprechaun could read them)

We graphed what we thought would happen (if we would trap him), and then we talked about why we didn't catch him and what we could try differently next time.  I would definitely add another writing piece to this next time, a class book to help remember all the work we did.

The Igloo

I have always wanted to build an igloo in my classroom.... So this year right after Christmas Break, I began to collect milk containers. I found a lot of other teacher posts that made it seem very easy..... So I started.

Seemed easy enough when I started, but quickly I realized that I did not have enough milk containers

So this is how far I got with my husbands help after about 3 hours....and we knew that it was not very stable...maybe our glue wasn't hot enough, maybe we had too many different sizes of containers, or maybe we needed a stronger base, but I knew that we would not be able to do a roof.  So the kiddos decided it was a castle (like from Frozen) or a snow fort, and they liked it just the same.  I am not sure that I will ever do one again...it was a lot of work!  So far it has held up fairly well, and the kids really do enjoy playing in it, so that makes it worth the hard work! 

100th Day of School

I love the 100th day of school! We spend a few weeks before practicing how to count to 100.  We count by 1's, but also learn how to count by 10's.  My favorite song is by Jack Hartmann on his Math in Motion CD.  Then for the 100th day, I have the students bring in 100 things so we can practice counting by 10's to 100.  We use the small mats and this year everyone brought in stuff small enough to stack on each circle, but next year, I think I will make the mats larger. We also made 100 day hats and had 100 things to create with during centers.

  Here are some pictures. 

100 screws!

 

Counting with 100 cups

building with 100 blocks

what can we make with 100 cubes?

Letter People

I am lucky to have the Letter People in my classroom.  They are a great addition to a Language Arts program in 4K.  They definitely get the kids attention!  My group loves to interact and relate to the puppets and in return are learning letters and sounds with these fun puppets, songs, and stories!

This week Ms. S visited our classroom, she taught us the s sound, how to be brave, how to make letters Ss, and words that begin with S. With every Letter Friend, we also do letter sorts and take a picture if that letter is in our name (first and last names)

We also got to have silly socks day and letter S show and tell!