Hi everyone,

Our family unit is continuing as we move into Thanksgiving.  The children made fun placemats for Thanksgiving dinner that they will bring home in time for Thanksgiving break.  They also made very cut handprint turkeys.  We will hang these up outside the classroom for all to see.  The three-year-old turkeys are especially entertaining.  Definately some budding Picassos in the class (or maybe more like Jackson Pollack).  The children also loved getting to bead once again — what a popular activity.

I loved seeing so many of the children participating in the spirit week.  The jammies were adorable.  80s day was a little more challenging for all of us, but the career day outfits (or accessories) were very cute.  If you got your bobcat shirt, Friday is bobcat spirit day.

We did a variety of fun literacy activities.  We read a poem about helping our families.  The 4 year-olds made a helping book that is still in the process of being published.  We had our first introduction to poetry and read a poem from a English/Spanish book called “Tortillitas Para Mama” The poem was extra fun when I substituted the names in the book for the children’s names and they got to choose the kind of tortillas they would get.  We had some amusing and creative ideas; the most popular kind of tortilla for the three-year olds was chocolate with sprinkles, while the four-year-olds got a little more inventive with car tortillas and skeleltan tortillas.  We also had a discussion of celebrations and ways in which we celebrate.

Thank you to everyone for signing up to help with our empanada project next week.  It is a nice way to do something special for Thanksgiving without getting too extravegant.

The children had their eye testing on Wednesday and on Thursday we got books from RIF (Reading is Fundamental) a program sponsored by Scholastic books.

Friday’s show & tell is the letter J.  Keep sending the great pictures and small items for out collages.  You can check out our work so far in the classroom.  Group 2 gets show & tell this week:  AM–Trevor, Will, Evelyn, Phoebe & Dayton; PM–Scott, Emma, Katie, Marin, Sosha.  My Friday readers for this week are Kristie Harris and Kate Phlugh.

Don’t forget to check the website periodically.  I do sometimes change and update the information there.

Questions:

What kind of totillas did you get when Ms. Gudder read the Tortilla poem?

What does the title page of a book say?

What are some ways you help the family?  (Why don’t I ever get to see you do these helpful things?)–oops, did I write that, I must have been thinking of my child.

What are some ways people celebrate?

I hope everyone had an enjoyable middle of the week Veteran’s Day holiday.  At school we are continuing our family unit.  This week has been about how families help each other.  We read “Thank You” about how children can help their families and we read “What Mommies/Daddies Do”  about what our parents do to help us.  The students had lots of connections to these books and their own lives.

We’ve done some fun art projects.  Marble painting was a big hit and something that I’m sure we will do again.  If anyone has small glass marbles that they would like to donate to the class, my collection has actually become a bit depleted over the years.  The family collages were very fun.  The children worked hard finding people that looked like the people in their family, so you can get an idea of how your children view you.  You will also get a “Helping Hands” picture, which will tell you how your child intend to help the family.  I’m not sure how realistic these promises are, but it can’t hurt to ask.

The letter of the week is I.  For Show & Tell, we are back to Group 1 (AM: Maisie, Ella, Gage, Grant, Miles), (PM: Piper, Ben, Drew, Asher, Andrew, Lilah). The vowels are always challenging.  Keep up the great work on the collage pictures (try to keep pictures about 2-3 inches), and I love adding 3D elements to the collage if you can think of any.  Some words I’ve thought of are; ice cream, igloo, iguana, ink, ice cube, insect, iron, infant, island, inch.

A couple special notes.

Christine VanDiest (the mother of Isabela in my PM class) is teaching a Spanish class at Babypower on Friday mornings from 9:15-10:15.  This is a great opportunity for the PM kids since the class is right before our Friday class time.

The date for individual picture retakes and class photos has been changed to December 8th.  I need the order envelope with payment on by the day of pictures.  If you want to have your child do a retake on the individual picture, I need the original packet back.  If your child missed the picture day, I need an order envelope with payment by December 8th.  If you need an order envelope for either individual or class photos, they have extras in the office.

Don’t forget the fun charitable opportunities going on at the school.  There is the penny harvest.  Our class has been able to make a huge contribution to this great cause in the past, so bring in your pennies (or other change)  Once the pennies are collected, the middle school students choose local charities to receive our donations.  There is also the canstruction project.  The middle school students are collecting cans and will build a structure out of the cans and eventually the cans will go to the needy.  The cans must have their labels and they cannot accept soda cans.  There is a drop off box in our classroom.

Questions

How do you help the family?

How does the family help you?

What do you say when someone helps you? (Thank You)

Who is in Ms. Gudder’s Family? (Ms. Gudder, Tia, and Rochelle)

We’ve gotten right back into the swing of things after having our fall break.  The weather, like the children, have been lovely and cooperative.  Despite the nasty cough that I picked up over break, the children have been attentive and engaged and I so appreciate their enthusiasm for school.

We have started a new unit on The Family and have been doing a variety of activities and reading books about families.  The first day back, of course, both classes got to chart our Halloween Candy.  I have the chart hanging outside the room.  Such a fun activity that provided an opportunity for the children to sort, categorize, count, and have an early introduction to graphing.  This activity was a little challenging for the three year-olds, but I believe that exposure now will lead to competence later.  I was pleased with the four year-old’s enthusiasm about the project.  I think this hands on experience with graphing  was a success for both classes.

For our family unit, we are in the process of creating family wall hangings.  The children drew their families on paper plates one day, they painted the pictures the next day, and we will add the yarn so you will have a lovely picture to adorn your wall.  As would be expected, the 3’s are a little on the abstract side, but still the effort was there.

We’ve been reading family books, “Going on a Bear Hunt,” is a favorite, especially since we have been singing the song for some time.  The family unit is a nice time to read “Bear Hunt,” because it is about a family going on an adventure.  For their journal writing the 4s drew the story of their own family adventures.   The 3s are making great progress in their beginning drawings and most of them show progress each week.  We also read “Ninety-Three In my Family” by Erica S. Perl.  This a charming story that led us right into a project that involved counting our family members.  The 4s charted their families, while the 3s did a oral count of theirs.

Next week the family unit will focus more on how we help our families and the unit will lead us in to family celebrations and being grateful and all the Thanksgiving themes.

The week before Thanksgiving we will do a fun baking project that goes along with a story we will read called “The Empanadas that Abuela Made.”  As a class we will make and eat pumpkin Empanadas.  This is a project that will require parent help in the classroom and with supplies.  More details will come to you very soon.  I know people are chomping at the bit to volunteer in the classroom.  This will be one of those times.

Reminders:

The middle schoolers are collecting cans for their Canstruction project.  This is a great canned food drive with the added engineering feat of creating a large structure using the cans.  Please help them out by bringing in labeled cans (no soda cans).

The Penny Harvest. Our class already has a good start on our penny collection.  This is a school wide program that raises money for charity of the student body’s choosing.  Please bring in your pennies.  The kids love putting pennies in the jar and in the past my class has been one of the biggest contributors to this effort, which is always appreciated and acknowledged by those in charge of the program.

Show & Tell:  Group 4 may share something starting with the letter H. Everyone should bring a small picture or item beginning with H.  Don’t forget that our letter collages are only about 12″ high and so we can’t use pictures that are more than a couple inches.

No School on Wednesday November 11 (Veteran’s Day).

Questions:

Did the family in the story catch a bear?

Tell me about some of the members of the family in the book “Ninety-Three My Family.”

What does Title mean?

How do you move across the river when you go on a bear hunt with Ms. Gudder?

The Weeks of October 12-16 and October 19-23

We have had a wonderful couple weeks.  The class has been concentrating on learning about fall.  The week of October 12^th we did activities and read books about leaves.  The week of October 19^th we did activities and read books about pumpkins.  For our short week, we get to have fun with Halloween and pulling the whole fall unit together.

We read some great books including, “When the Leaf Blew In” and “We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt both by Steve Metzger, “The Little Yellow Leaf” by Carin Berger, “Pumpkin Town” by Katie McKy, and the “The Ugly Pumpkin” by Dave Horowitz.  This year, one of the teaching methods I’m using to help the children become deeper thinkers is called “Concept Based Learning.”  With this method we take one concept and incorporate it as a “lens” through with we look at all areas of learning.  This year our concept is “movement.”  So, many of our discussions about the books have to do with investigating how things move in our books.  This was especially fun when talking about leaves because we were able to talk about the many ways leaves move, flying, falling, blowing, soaring, sailing, etc. The four year olds are becoming especially interested in finding movement words and talking about ways in which people, animals, and inanimate objects move.

In art we made the beautiful leaf collages that are now adorning the hallway window to our classroom.  You can also see the jack-o-lanterns that the children drew as a guided drawing project; in guided drawing, I work with a small group of children and I break down the drawing into steps and the children copy what I am doing and add their own flavor to the project.  Later in the week the children get an opportunity to paint their drawings.  Guided drawing is a way of giving the children extra support in moving towards the goal of complete and recognizable stories.  The children also had an opportunity to work with stencils making leaves, they made pasta collages, and they made Jack-o-lantern pictures that are hanging with the houses in the hall.  This week for our short week, the children made white ghosts on black paper and they will have an opportunity to decorate the pumpkins that they pick from our ECE pumpkin patch.

Thank you to all of you for the great conferences.  I hope you got a good perspective on how your children are doing and the progress that we have made.  I enjoyed talking with all of you and I’m very excited about the amount of growth all the children are showing.

A few reminders of important upcoming dates:

1.  There is no school from October 28-November 2 (we start back on November 3^rd)

2. Orders for individual Original Works are due tomorrow (October 27).  I know this had a fast turn around, but I think our classes work came out especially cute.

3.  I am sending home an order form for the class original works project.  These are due back tomorrow October 28 (the form says Nov. 2, but we have an ECE no contact day that day, so they have to be in tomorrow, sorry for the short notice).  I think it would be great if everyone ordered a T-shirt with the class project and we could use them for special events like field trips.

4. The pumpkin patch part is tomorrow October 27.  Hopefully the room parents have given you times and details for these parties.  There will be no costumes.  Thanks.

5. Believe Catalog orders are still being accepted until tomorrow Oct. 27th.

Questions to ask:

1.  Can you sing the scary song Ms. Gudder taught you?

2.  A.M. Class:  Where did you go for a field trip?  (Upstairs to see the big kids)

3.  P.M. Class:  Who comes to class for stories on Monday and told you about The Day of the Dead?  (Senora Budenhagen)

4. What is the first thing you do before you draw a picture? (think)

5.  P.M. Class What was Ms. Gudder’s brother for Halloween?

What a fun week we had learning about apples.  We got a wide range of fun experiences in literacy, scientific experimentation, and math.

In art we created apple trees, with an emphasis on using paint brushes in a new way (stamping rather than do our usual brush strokes).  Creating the trees also gave the children experience gluing, which strengthens those important fine motor muscles,  following directions, and using the pre-cut shapes to create a familiar object.  We made paper plate apples, which involved ripping paper, another fine motor strengthening exercise.  The apple prints gave the children the opportunity to paint with an unconventional tool, it also provided a chance for the children to make “scientific” discoveries; what does the inside of an apple look like, what does the mirror image of the apple look like,  apples come in different shapes, colors, and sizes.  Our most exciting art project, of course, was the making of applesauce clay.  In making the clay as a class, the children learned about recipes, ingredients, they measured, stirred, rolled, and cut.  The children had an opportunity to have scientific discussions, predicting what the clay would look like, questioning whether the clay could be eaten, experiencing the sensory aspects of the clay (the smell and feel of the clay). The children also discussed how they would use the finished product, hanging on the door, hanging on a Christmas tree, etc.

One of the goals this year is to use a teaching technique called “Concept Based Learning.”  This technique involves looking at everything we learn through a conceptual lens.  The ECE team has chosen “Movement” as our concept.  This practice provides an opportunity for the children to have a deeper learning experience and learn how one concept can apply over a variety of areas.  This week I began putting more emphasis on this concept based practice. So in many of our stories, we spent time looking for “movement” words. The stories we read this week included, “Up, Up, Up, It’s Apple Picking Time.”  This is a sweet story about a boy whose family goes to their grandparent’s farm to pick apples.  This book went through the entire cycle of harvesting, selling, and using apples.  We discussed the movement of the family waking up (opening their eyes), driving, climbing, picking, and eating.  We then read Dr. Suess’ “Ten Apples Up On Top.”  This story of course is filled with apples and movement; running, jumping, swimming, flying, crashing, etc.  The children also got their first classroom exposure to a non-fiction book about apples and we read two different books called “Ten Red Apples” both very different books, which provided an opportunity to see that two books can have the same name, yet be very different.  Don’t be surprised if your child starts talking to you about movements, this will be a strong theme for us this year.

I have to say that the highlight of the week was our Apple Taste Testing.  What a fun introduction to scientific experimentation.  The children learned that apples don’t all taste the same, that apples come in many colors, and we tried to stretch our oral language skills by talking about the tastes and comparisons between different apples.  We will hang the resulting charts outside the classroom.  The children have some way to go in developing their descriptive oral language, but there were some interesting observations.  Many of the children were able to describe different apples as sweet or sour, there were a variety of descriptors used including fantastic, delicious, yummy, and horrible.  There was also some comparisons made between the different apples that the children tasted.

We also played with “apple pie” play dough this week.  We had a variety  of math lessons, including several lessons on patterning, a measuring lesson that included comparing, and predicting, and Mr. Stan put his Mathematical PhD to use by doing a lesson on mathematical operations (+, -, and =).  Our welcoming circle routine includes counting and I have seen those mathematical wheels turning in many little brains, as the key to counting to 100 starts to click.

Thank you to everyone who donated apples, applesauce, and cinnamon.  We had more than enough for our projects.  If anyone is in need of cinnamon, I greatly overestimated the amount needed for the clay and I have quite a stockpile of cinnamon.  Ask me before you buy more for any baking projects.

Tomorrow, October 9th is Show & Tell.  We are on the letter E and group 1 should bring in items for show & tell.  Everyone else should bring small pictures or objects for our E collage.  I know that the vowels are especially hard for coming up with objects, here are a few suggestions that I came up with: Ella, Emma, Elephant, Eggs, Elk, Engine, Elf, Envelope, Eagle, Earmuffs, Earrings,  Elevator, Escalator, Ears.

Please make sure you check my website.  I have added some new information under events and notes.  Of particular importance is explanation of DPS early release days (these are different than the Bill Roberts early release Fridays, the first one is Oct. 16).  I have also included upcoming dates for parent teacher conferences (hopefully you got the Jooners sign-up), individual pictures, and our pumpkin patch.

Homework: Next week we will be moving on in our fall unit from Apples to Leaves.  We will be making a leaf collage on Tuesday October 13th.  Before that day I will need each child to bring a ziplock bag of leaves (we only need about 5-6 leaves per child).  Hopefully it won’t be too snowy this weekend and you will be able to take a short walk to find some leaves.

Questions to ask:

What color was your favorite apple?

Do you remember the name of any of the apples you tasted?

What ingredients did you use to make applesauce clay? (applesauce, cinnamon, a little flour)

What did Mr. Stan teach you?

What did you make with the applesauce clay? (boy, girl, or gingerbread man)

What did the farmer say when the animals ate the apples in “Ten Red Apples”?  (Save some for me)

What a fun week we had learning about apples.  We got a wide range of fun experiences in literacy, scientific experimentation, and math.

In art we created apple trees, with an emphasis on using paint brushes in a new way (stamping rather than do our usual brush strokes).  Creating the trees also gave the children experience gluing, which strengthens those important fine motor muscles,  following directions, and using the pre-cut shapes to create a familiar object.  We made paper plate apples, which involved ripping paper, another fine motor strengthening exercise.  The apple prints gave the children the opportunity to paint with an unconventional tool, it also provided a chance for the children to make “scientific” discoveries; what does the inside of an apple look like, what does the mirror image of the apple look like,  apples come in different shapes, colors, and sizes.  Our most exciting art project, of course, was the making of applesauce clay.  In making the clay as a class, the children learned about recipes, ingredients, they measured, stirred, rolled, and cut.  The children had an opportunity to have scientific discussions, predicting what the clay would look like, questioning whether the clay could be eaten, experiencing the sensory aspects of the clay (the smell and feel of the clay). The children also discussed how they would use the finished product, hanging on the door, hanging on a Christmas tree, etc.

One of the goals this year is to use a teaching technique called “Concept Based Learning.”  This technique involves looking at everything we learn through a conceptual lens.  The ECE team has chosen “Movement” as our concept.  This practice provides an opportunity for the children to have a deeper learning experience and learn how one concept can apply over a variety of areas.  This week I began putting more emphasis on this concept based practice. So in many of our stories, we spent time looking for “movement” words. The stories we read this week included, “Up, Up, Up, It’s Apple Picking Time.”  This is a sweet story about a boy whose family goes to their grandparent’s farm to pick apples.  This book went through the entire cycle of harvesting, selling, and using apples.  We discussed the movement of the family waking up (opening their eyes), driving, climbing, picking, and eating.  We then read Dr. Suess’ “Ten Apples Up On Top.”  This story of course is filled with apples and movement; running, jumping, swimming, flying, crashing, etc.  The children also got their first classroom exposure to a non-fiction book about apples and we read two different books called “Ten Red Apples” both very different books, which provided an opportunity to see that two books can have the same name, yet be very different.

I have to say that the highlight of the week was our Apple Taste Testing.  What a fun introduction to scientific experimentation.  The children learned that apples don’t all taste the same, that apples come in many colors, and we tried to stretch our oral language skills by talking about the tastes and comparisons between different apples.  We will hang the resulting charts outside the classroom.  You will see that the three-year-olds have some way to go in developing their descriptive oral language, but we have to start somewhere.

We also played with “apple pie” play dough this week.  Both books about ten red apples, provided wonderful math lessons involving adding and subtracting of apples.  So fun that the children can learn their beginning math concepts without even being aware that it’s math.

Thank you to everyone who donated apples, applesauce, and cinnamon.  We had more than enough for our projects.  If anyone is in need of cinnamon, I greatly overestimated the amount needed for the clay and I have quite a stockpile of cinnamon.  Ask me before you buy more for any baking projects.

Tomorrow, October 9th is Show & Tell.  We are on the letter E and group 1 should bring in items for show & tell.  Everyone else should bring small pictures or objects for our E collage.  I know that the vowels are especially hard for coming up with objects, here are a few suggestions that I came up with: Ella, Emma, Elephant, Eggs, Elk, Engine, Elf, Envelope, Eagle, Earmuffs, Earrings,  Elevator, Escalator, Ears.

Please make sure you check my website.  I have added some new information under events and notes.  Of particular importance is explanation of DPS early release days (these are different than the Bill Roberts early release Fridays, the first one is Oct. 16).  I have also included upcoming dates for parent teacher conferences (hopefully you got the Jooners sign-up), individual pictures, and our pumpkin patch.

Homework: Next week we will be moving on in our fall unit from Apples to Leaves.  We will be making a leaf collage on Tuesday October 13th.  Before that day I will need each child to bring a ziplock bag of leaves (we only need about 5-6 leaves per child).  Hopefully it won’t be too snowy this weekend and you will be able to take a short walk to find some leaves.

Questions to ask:

What color was your favorite apple?

Do you remember the name of any of the apples you tasted?

What ingredients did you use to make applesauce clay? (applesauce, cinnamon, a little flour)

What did you make with the applesauce clay? (boy, girl, or acorn)

What did the farmer say when the animals ate the apples in “Ten Red Apples”?  (Save some for me)

As we continue our all about me unit, we focused this week on our homes.  One of the highlights of the week was the reading of Audrey and Don Woods’ book “The Napping House.”  We read the book multiple times and did a story retell, which reinforces the children’s story comprehension and allows a deeper examination of the book.  We also read the book “The Big Orange Splot,”  by Daniel Pinkwater.

In art the children made wooden  houses with popsicle sticks–they tried to recreate the 2 dimensional outline of a house with the sticks.  The was an exercise in creating shapes, as well as gluing and working with a new material.  The children also made houses out of pre-cut squares, triangles, and rectangles.  We will be hanging these pictures with the children’s house stories that you have emailed to me.  Which reminds me, that if you have not emailed your house story, please do so, we would like to display these adorable pictures tomorrow.    The children also got their first opportunity to use stamps and stamp pads, this is a very fun art project for the children and helps strengthen fine motor muscles.

We started using an alphabet sound card, which will be an activity that we will do at least a few times a week.  It is a way of reinforcing a variety of skills the children need for reading.  With the sound card I teach them to use their “reading finger,” to use pictures as clues, to track from left to right, and also teach the alphabet by sound, sight, and by a word beginning with that sound.

Finally, we created house stories in the writing journals and did our first guided drawing, which was quite successful.  The children drew houses, which they will paint and we will display in the classroom window.

One important note, it was made clear to the teachers yesterday at our in service training that DPS does not support the serving of snack in half day programs.  Therefore we have decided as a team that we will no longer serve snack as of Monday, October 5th.  Therefore, if you are signed up for snack, you can scratch that off your calendar as something to do.  I have put the formal statement of this new policy on my website.  We still welcome special treats to celebrate birthdays and the curriculum provides a variety of opportunities for the children to prepare and experience food at school throughout the year.  I do apologize for this sudden change of policy.

Questions to Ask:

What was everyone doing in the napping house?  (sleeping)

What is another word that means sleeping?  (snoring, dreaming, dozing, snoozing, slumbering).

What did you discuss in small groups with Ms. Gudder? (building igloos)

As we continue our all about me unit, we focused this week on our homes.  One of the highlights of the week was the reading of Audrey and Don Woods’ book “The Napping House.”  We read the book multiple times and did a story retell, which reinforces the children’s story comprehension and allows a deeper examination of the book.  We also read the book “The Big Orange Splot,”  by Daniel Pinkwater.

In art the children made wooden  houses with popsicle sticks–they tried to recreate the 2 dimensional outline of a house with the sticks.  The was an exercise in creating shapes, as well as gluing and working with a new material.  The children also made houses out of pre-cut squares, triangles, and rectangles.  We will be hanging these pictures with the children’s house stories that you have emailed to me.  Which reminds me, that if you have not emailed your house story, please do so, we would like to display these adorable pictures tomorrow.    The children also got their first opportunity to use stamps and stamp pads, this is a very fun art project for the children and helps strengthen fine motor muscles.

We had a great time with a couple new songs that I introduced to the class.  Both are part of the Everyday Math program, which is the math curriculum used throughout DPS.  These songs are “Children Work with One Hammer,” and “Going on a Bear Hunt.”  Both these songs reinforce skills such as counting, one-to-one correspondence, rhythm, positional words like over, under, through, across, and they are a lot of fun.

In our writing journals, the children are continuing to refine their abilities to draw recognizable figures.  I feel we are making some headway in this area.

One important note, it was made clear to the teachers yesterday at our in service training that DPS does not support the serving of snack in half day programs.  Therefore we have decided as a team that we will no longer serve snack as of Monday, October 5th.  Therefore, if you are signed up for snack, you can scratch that off your calendar as something to do.  I have put the formal statement of this new policy on my website.  We still welcome special treats to celebrate birthdays and the curriculum provides a variety of opportunities for the children to prepare and experience food at school throughout the year.  I do apologize for this sudden change of policy.

Questions to Ask:

What was everyone doing in the napping house?  (sleeping)

What is another word that means sleeping?  (snoring, dreaming, dozing, snoozing, slumbering).

Tell me about your bear hunt.

As we continue our All About Me unit the focus has been on feelings and diversity.  How are we the same?  How are we different?  Our hair, and eyes, and skin may look different, but we all have feelings.   We read a lovely multicultural book called Hairs, which describes how everyone in the narrator’s family has different hair.  The children love the colorful illustrations, which depict the people as having wildly colored skin, and hair; Papa is purple with brown hair, sister is pink with orange hair, brother is blue with black hair, etc.   We also read a fun book called “The Way I Feel,” which describes a variety of feelings from silly, to angry.  Today, we read Rosmary Wells’ book “Yoko.” It is a good anti-bullying story, told from the perspective of a character who brings sushi to school for lunch.

In art this week we created pages for our “All About Me” book that will hopefully be completed next week.  If you still haven’t gotten me your child’s pictures, the deadline is approaching.  We also created a beautiful collage of the people of the world.  I plan on hanging that in the classroom, so you will be able to see it soon.  Finally, we made fun paintings using people shaped sponges.

We did a fun project where the children chose paint chips that matched their skin, their hair, and their eyes.  I have already sent these home and I hope you had a chance to look at it with your child.  I led a discussion group with the children about feelings.  We will have these discussion groups at least once a week. They give the children the opportunity to become proficient at the etiquette of group discussions, and also helps to extend their oral language skills.

The children had a chance to work in their journals this week.  We are beginning to add more detail to our “writing” and I am starting to emphasize the story telling aspect of our journal work.  The journals give me an opportunity to see how the children are doing with their fine motor skills and with their ability to create a story.

This week’s show and tell is the letter C.  Group 3 is Reagan, Josh, Jack, Greycen, and Isabela.  We need everyone to bring a small picture or object for our C collage.  Keep in mind that the collage is approximately 16″ X 12″ and so the items need to be small, but can be 3 dimensional, some ideas I’ve had are cat, cow, computer, corn, capital, cactus, circle, circus…etc.  Some 3 dimensional items that might work are cotton ball, coin, comb (a tiny one), card… You get the idea .  Our A & B are already hanging in the classroom if you want to check them out.

Questions to ask:

Tell me about the boy in the picture that you talked about in small groups with Ms. Gudder.  (He was sad–children had a variety of ideas why)

Are Ricky Rectangle’s sides the same?  (”my four sides are not the same.”)

What was Mama’s hair like in the “Hairs” story? (curls that smelled like bread)

As we continue our All About Me unit the focus has been on feelings and diversity.  How are we the same?  How are we different?  Our hair, and eyes, and skin may look different, but we all have feelings.   We read a lovely multicultural book called Hairs, which describes how everyone in the narrator’s family has different hair.  The children love the colorful illustrations, which depict the people as having wildly colored skin, and hair Papa is purple with brown hair, sister is pink with orange hair, brother is blue with black hair, etc.   We also read a fun book called “The Way I Feel,” which describes a variety of feelings from silly to angry.  Today, we read Rosmary Wells’ book “Yoko.”  A little wordy for the three-year-olds, but it is a story about the food of many cultures.  It is a good anti-bullying story and I was able to edit it down for the children’s appreciation.

In art this week we created pages for our “All About Me” book that will hopefully be completed next week.  If you still haven’t gotten me your child’s pictures, the deadline is approaching.  We did a fun project where the children chose paint chips that matched their skin, their hair, and their eyes.  I have already sent these home and I hope you had a chance to look at it with your child.  We also created a beautiful collage of the people of the world.  I plan on hanging that in the classroom, so you will be able to see it soon.  Finally, we made fun paintings using people shaped sponges.

The children had a chance to draw in their journals this week and I was pleased to see the progress that has already been made in creating representational drawings.  I did quite a bit of modeling and coaching, but one of our goals for the year is to have all the children proficient at drawing figures that will eventually be part of stories they create.  The drawing is also important because it gives me an opportunity to see how well each child follows directions, and how much assistance each particular child needs.

This week’s show and tell is the letter C.  Group 3 is Jacob, Peter, Graham, Aynslee, and Hayden.  We need everyone to bring a small picture or object for our C collage.  Keep in mind that the collage is approximately 16″ X 12″ and so the items need to be small, but can be 3 dimensional.  Our A & B are already hanging in the classroom if you want to check them out.

Questions to ask:

How do you draw a circle? (”around, and around, and stop)

Are Ricky Rectangle’s sides the same?  (”my four sides are not the same.”)

What was Mama’s hair like in the “Hairs” story? (curls that smelled like bread)