Farm Animals: Week 1

This week was the first of our two-week study about Farm Animals! We focused on fiction books this week and will focus on non-fiction books next week. We started the week by reading the book On A Farm by Alexa Andrews. After reading the book we build our own farm on the felt board. I had each student come up and put a part of the farm onto the board. During centers the students water colored a picture of a farm.

A special center we had this week was our vet center! I had a doctors kit, a clipboard with pen, and beanie babies to use as patients! The students loved taking care of these animals!

In another center they attempted to build a farm puzzle. One group got it completed!

Tuesday morning we had a surprise visitor on our playground, a black chicken!! Me and a co-worker had to chase it off the playground, it was pretty humorous! It was the perfect week for it to show up on our playground since we were learning about farm animals :) Also, for lunch we were having chicken nuggets that day so the kids think we ate the chicken haha.

During our lesson we read the book Meow Said the Cow by Emma Dodd. This is a silly book about a mischievous cat who casts a spell on the farm animals that mixes all of their voices up! After reading it I let the kids listen to different farm animal sounds on my ipad and guess what they were. I then had each student come up and make his or her own farm animal sound for us to guess. During centers we played a fun game! It is called “Uno Moo”. It is the same concept of Uno but instead of cards we use different colored farm animals. It was simple enough for them to understand and they loved it!

This week we have been learning about the letter Q. Thursday morning we practiced writing it in our salt trays. We had some great Qs!

During lesson we read the book Little Lamb Lost by David Bedford. After reading, I asked the students if they had ever been lost before and what we should do if we get lost. During centers we made a little lost sheep of our own!

I also had the students build a pen for their farm animals (beanie babies) in another center. These boys made some awesome pens!

After lunch we had our bible lesson. We read the story of Noah’s Ark and then did an ark craft. The students glued a cut out picture of the ark onto their blue construction paper, made some waves and rain with a blue crayon, and then glued animal crackers onto their boat.

Friday was the day before one of my student’s birthday! For morning work we all made him a card.

During our lesson we read the book Hogwash! by Karma Wilson. After reading it we did a rhyming activity. I had a poem that we read called “Big Red Barn”. The poem was made to guess different farm animals. The students had to figure out what the farm animal was by listening for the beginning sound and a word that rhymed with it. They did an excellent job figuring out the rhyming animal name!

During centers we did some finger painting with pudding, which is always a hit! I had the students first trace the words on their paper (Pigs like mud). Then I had them color their pig pink and then finally they could paint some “mud” on it with the chocolate pudding.

Along with our vet center, I had some materials for a pet groomer. The students enjoyed “bathing” their pets and giving them hair cuts!

Here are a few other random photos from the week: 

Stay tuned for our second week of farm animals! 

Easter

We had a lot of Easter fun this week, including a fun Easter party on Wednesday! We started the week by reading There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick by Lucille Colandro. After reading the book I went around and asked each student the question: “If you were the old lady what would you swallow?” We had some pretty humorous answers!

During centers we did some fun Easter egg painting! I used the same concept of “marbling” but instead of marbles we used Easter Eggs! I squirted some paint into a bucket and they rolled their eggs all around to cover their white egg shaped paper. They turned out great and the kids loved this activity!

During another center we had some Easter egg letter and number matching. They had to match upper case letters with lower case letters at one and had to match numerals to sets (pom poms) in another.

The next day we read 10 Easter Egg Hunters by Janet Schulman. After reading I passed out some numbered eggs, held up a number, and had the student with the matching number stand. I then called out a number without showing it and had the student with the matching number stand. They are getting great a number recognition! During centers we did some Easter egg stamping! I took the tops of some Easter eggs and let the students dip them in paint them stamp them onto their yellow egg shaped paper.

Wednesday was our Easter party! We set up stations outside and thankfully it turned out to be a beautiful day! It turned out to be more of a free for all carnival but the kids seemed to have fun! One station was an Easter bean bag toss and ring toss.

Anther stations was an egg race. The kids each got a spoon and a plastic egg to balance on it. It was funny to watch them try to walk quickly without dropping their egg!

We also made a large birds nest/Easter basket for the kids to play in! We wrapped the kiddy pool with brown paper and filled it with colorful eggs (balloons, that popped pretty quickly) and nest fluff (shredded paper). It was a mess to clean up but the kids enjoyed it! :)

All of the kids also got a chance to have their faces painted to look like a little Easter bunny!

After they had been to all of the stations we had an Easter egg hunt! It was so fun!

I was excited to finally get a class picture with everyone in it!

The kids went home with a basket full of eggs, candy, and other goodies!

On Thursday we started the day by making some Easter bunny ears! I had some precious little Easter bunnies!

During our lesson we read the book Easter Mice! by Bethany Roberts. We then discussed the terms large, medium, and small. I have each student different sized eggs and we sorted them into three piles of either large, medium, or small. During centers we played an Easter egg memory game! The students had to pick up two eggs and see if what was underneath them matched. If it did match they got to keep them. This was so fun and a great way for the students to exercise their memory skills.

During another center we did an Easter egg dig! These kids love playing in the sand and rice!

Friday one of the students brought some Easter cupcakes for our class. They had a special surprise in the middle, and egg! The kids LOVED finding the egg hidden in there!

During lesson we read the book Minerva Louis and the Colorful Eggs by Janet Stoeke. After reading, it I let the kids loose to find some colorful eggs I had hidden around the classroom!