Pumpkins!

Pumpkin week was so much fun! We started the week by reading the big book "Growing Pumpkins" which helped us learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin. We talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin everyday and looked at this poster to help us remember. 

On Wednesday I read the book "Big Pumpkin" and had the students guess whether a large, medium, and small pumpkin would float. They were surprised to find that they all floated! During centers they discovered that yellow and red made orange if you mixed them together and they painted a paper plate orange to make it a pumpkin. 

The next day we read "The Littlest Pumpkin" and they students got to paint their very own littlest pumpkin! 

They turned out pretty cute! 

On Friday we got to carve a pumpkin! I let the students take turns scooping out ten pumpkin guys and seeds. They weren't too sure about this at first but after the first brave kid did it, the rest of them couldn't wait to try! 

It was another fun week! 

Community Helpers

Our community helpers week was a lot of fun! We got to have some great first hand experiences at a Curtis. We started off Monday talking about dentists. I demonstrated how to floss by putting a small chunk of play dough in a crack of a large Lego and then ran a piece of string through it to get the "plaque" out. I let the kids practice this themselves during centers. We learned about the letter H all week and sang this silly poem everyday. I had the kids come up and circle an H after we sang the song, 

Tuesday was policeman day and the kids got to meet a real policeman! Before we went out to meet him the kids got to make a police hat and badge to wear. They were some cute police kids! 

They loved seeing the police men and the police car! They even got to take turns climbing through the police car! Tuesday was also my birthday and I had the kids guess my age. I thought their answers were hilarious! 

Wednesday we learned the about doctors and vets and the differences between them. I gave each child either a human or an animal and they had to sort them in the correct category of who would take care of them, a doctor or a vet. 

Thursday we learned about the mailman. I wrote each child a letter so they each had one to open. They loved receiving a letter, they thought it was so cool! During centers they got to write their own letter to whoever they wanted. I then let them put it into our mailbox. 

Unfortunately I was not able to be their Friday when the kids got to see the Fireman! I heard they had a lot of fun though! 

Shapes and Colors

The students loved learning about their shapes and colors! We sang our shape song everyday to help them remember their shapes. 

The first day we read the book "Shapes Around Us" and went on a shape hunt around the classroom. The students were surprised to find so many shapes just in our classroom! At centers the students got to make shapes with play dough. 

The next day we read "It's a Shape!" and played a shape memory game. I showed the kids 3 shapes, told them to close their eyes, took one away, then had them tell me which shape was missing. During centers they got to participate in a shape dig! 

In another center they did a shape sort. They did a great job with this! 

On Wedneaday we read "Spicy Hot Colors" and the kids got to learn some Spanish color words! We then did a color bingo game during centers. 

On Thursday we read "Shape Detectives" and then went out to the playground to be shape detectives ourselves. I told the students a shape and they would have to go find it. They LOVED this and did an awesome job! They were finding shapes the rest of the day. During centers we did some shape tracing. 

Jacob did such a good job! 

Brilee was working hard! 

This silly girl was working on a shape matching folder game.

Stay tuned for our community helpers week! 

Here are a few memorable moments from the past few weeks...

These girls are always excited to be at school! 

This boy is so silly!

The kids found an ant outside while we were waiting for snow cones. I love their curiosity!

Another creature we found this week, a huge praying mantis! The kids loved it. 

Families

Family was our theme of the week and we had a lot of fun learning about each others families! I asked the student's parents to send their child to school with a picture of their family at the beginning of the week. On Monday and Tuesday I let the students stand up, show their picture to the class, and tell us about their family. They loved doing this and were so proud to show off their families!

After showing off our families the students got the chance to paint their house! These students love to paint and they are good at it!

Once the paint had dried we made fingerprint families. I had the students put their thumbprints down for their parents and then their pointer finger for them and their siblings. They then were allowed to use a pen to draw a face, legs, arms, and hair on their thumbprint family members.

Along with families, we also worked on our numbers a lot this week. I introduced the children to another Pete the Cat book, Pete the Cat and His Groovy Buttons. This was a big hit and we read it many times the last few days! I had a few number center this week, one of them being a dot counter center. The students had to use their counter beans to count the dots on the cards I gave them. I had them count as they put the beans down on the dots to help them with one to one correspondence.

Another center we had was number writing in the sand. This center went over a lot better than I was expecting! The students were very successful writing their numbers this way!

Howard did an awesome 2, all by himself!!