3-29-12

ANOTHER NEW WORK STATION~

At the Overhead Station, students can practice their spatial reasoning skills, using pattern blocks.  Seth and Anna filled in 2 different forms on the task card with the pattern blocks.

 FREE CHOICE FUN~

M.J., Theo, and Owen work to put together a Space floor puzzle.

 Seth and Owen put together a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle.

SPACE STORY~

 We had a guest reader today in our class!  Ms. Saide, a first grade teacher at Academy, visited our classroom to read the story, Dogs in Space.  She had the children participating in the story and even wore some fun glasses as she read the story! 

Y IS FOR YUCKY AND YUMMY!~

During Free Choice time, children visited the Lily Pad to draw pictures of foods that are yummy and food that are yucky.  They used their inventive spelling to label their pictures.

3-28-12

OUR NEW POPCORN WORD~

FREE CHOICE FUN~

Theo, Kaitlin, and Cooper work together to complete a Dr. Seuss puzzle in the Book Nook.

Alek and Sophie working at the Writing Station.

Lauren and Adrianna making their own rockets at the Discovery Station.

Astronauts Seth and Jack ready to blast off!

M.J. building in the Construction Zone.

Jake building in the Construction Zone.

Cooper makes a flower using the hexabits.

RHYMING BOOK~

We will begin sending home our class rhyming book beginning tomorrow!  Happy Reading!

HANDWRITING~

Today we worked on learning the correct way to make letters I and T in our handwriting books.

THE MOON~

We read the book, On the Moon, and learned that it takes an astronaut 4 days to travel from the Earth to the Moon.

NEW WORK STATIONS

This past Monday we introduced some new activities to be completed during Work Stations.  Here they are...

FINE MOTOR STATION~Children have been asked to complete 3 cutting pages.

 ALPHABET STATION~Children are completing a rhyming task.

 WRITING STATION~Children are tracing 5 of our recent passwords.  As they trace the word, they say each letter out loud as they are tracing.

 PROJECT STATION~Children are working on the following math activities...

 PATTERNING~Children complete the patterns on each card using unifix cubes.

 TANGRAMS~Children use the shapes in the photo below to complete the puzzle cards in the following photos.  The cards start out simple and then become more complicated.  This is an example of a spatial reasoning activity.

LILY PAD~  Children complete the following language tasks...

 Children are required to match pictures that rhyme.

 Some children will match the rhymes using the words instead of the pictures.

 Children need to identify the beginning sounds of words in the activity in the photo below.

 Some children will identify the ending sounds of words using picture cards and letters such as in the example below.

DISCOVERY STATION~Children discriminate between pictures that are representative of Spring and those which do not represent Spring.

NURSERY RHYME~This week we will finish our study of Outer Space with learning more about the moon.  Today, we introduced a new nursery rhyme that includes the moon!

3-9-12

Today we changed Friendly Frog into his Springtime outfit!

STAR OF THE WEEK~

Our new Star of the Week is Jack!  We learned that Jack's favorite color is yellow; favorite dessert is brownies; and his favorite animal is a porcupine.  Jack shared many photos with us and one of his favorite toys...the Joker from Batman! 

 BALLOON ROCKET EXPERIMENT~

Using a balloon, a drinking straw, tape, and a piece of string stretched from the ceiling to the floor, we did an experiment to represent how a rocket blasts off into Outer Space.

 We first asked the children how we could make the straw travel from the floor to the ceiling on the piece of string.

 The children suggested a blow up the balloon, tie it, and tape it to the straw.

 I followed the students' suggestions but then they changed their mind.....

 I blew up another balloon but the children told me not to tie it.

 I taped the balloon to the straw and we did a countdown!

 When the balloon was released, the air came out causing the straw to travel up the string.  The straw wen half-way up the string.  The children quickly commented that if more air was put into the balloon, the farther the straw would travel.  Of course they wanted to see the straw travel to the ceiling.

 So, Mrs. Spolter blew up the balloon again putting more air into the balloon this time.  As a result.....

 the straw traveled all the way up the string to the ceiling!