Last week we started talking about different feelings we can have at different times. We read the book Glad Monster, Sad Monster by Ed Emberley. The children made their own monsters to show how they were feeling.
We also learned about Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated by many people around the world. All of the children painted diya's, special oil lamps that are placed outside the home to welcome the good. Introducing............... Matman!! Matman is part of the curriculum we use called, Get Set For School. Matman teaches us how to draw a detailed person. We will practice this throughout the school year. This is also an introduction to the various wood pieces we use to build letters. Matman is made up of big lines, little lines, big curves, and little curves. This is the language the children will hear as I teach them to build and write the letters of the alphabet. We start by using these wood pieces for games to learn the names. Fall has arrived outside and in our classroom. We have been talking about the changes we see outside, apples, pumpkins, and the different animals of fall. Mr. Ken the Music Man made his first visit to our classroom this month. He is always a class favorite and something the children look forward to. It was great seeing many of you at our field trip to Ward's Berry Farm. Here is what we have been up to in the classroom:
Over the past few weeks we have been learning our new routines, meeting new friends, and exploring everything about our new classroom. We have been learning how to cut with scissors, paint at the easel and with water colors, explore with magnets, and stamp out our names. Last week we started an All About Me unit. We made self portraits from construction paper, explored the colors of our skin, and created people out of play-doh. This week we will talk about families and some of our favorite things. Here we are in action: Here are some books we have read:
During the month of February our theme was Arctic Animals. We learned all about the Arctic and Antarctic regions and the different animals that live there. Some of the animals we talked about were polar bears, arctic foxes, snowy owls, beluga whales, and the class favorite, penguins! The children each created their own penguin. This was a multi step guided art project. I was so impressed with the outcome! Everyone worked very hard! This month we also continued to practice hearing beginning sounds, creating and extending patterns, and opposites. We continue to work in our "big kid school books" , building and writing the uppercase letters. The morning class has completed all the letters with big and little lines only: L, T, H, E, F, and I. The curve letters are up next. The afternoon class has completed L and F. We are rolling through the Fundations alphabet in both classes! The morning class completed the whole alphabet on Friday and the afternoon class is up to letter U.
During the month of February we also celebrated Black History Month. We read about and discussed a few famous African Americans and the contributions he or she made to our country. We learned about Mae Jemison, the first black women to travel into space, The "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin, Venus and Serena Williams, and artist, Alma Woodsey Thomas. Her paintings were known for their bright colors and abstract design. The children saw a short video about Alma and many pictures of her beautiful paintings. They also saw a demonstration of how she created her work. The children were then able to create their own projects inspired by her work. These will be sent home next week. During the month of January it was all about winter in our classroom!!! We created winter scenes, read a class favorite, The Missing Mitten Mystery, by Stephen Kellogg and created our own snowman with a heart to go along with the book. We worked on sequencing short stories and talking about what a character is in a story. We practiced matching uppercase to lowercase letters, did a variety of beginning sound and rhyming activities, and had a letter snowball scavenger hunt. A new writing tool was introduced called, Wet, Dry, Try chalkboards. Each child has his or her own board to practice writing letters. See the pics at the bottom. We also worked on scissors skills this month and the dramatic play area was turned into a Hot Cocoa Stand. We served the best hot cocoa in town:) Some books we read and poems we learned: |
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November 2021
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