Green and Speckled Frogs

Whew!  Today was a busy day indeed!  Yesterday we ran out of time to do the song "An Adventure in Outer Space" so I promised everyone that we could do it today!  It was a lot of fun!  We had to act out going to outer space by putting on our space suits, buckling up, helping to press buttons, and even jumping out of our spaceship to explore outer space!  We ran into some meteors on this adventure and had fun trying to dodge them.  Finally we made it safely back to planet Earth!  Sorry there are no pictures of this!  I was busy helping to model the actions!

The rest of the day was spent learning about frogs!  We read two different versions of the wide-mouthed frog.  Then we compared them to find the similarities and differences.  We also learned the names of some new animals, such as emu, possum, and koala, as well as the food that those animals eat.  One version of the story had neat pop-up pages that everyone loved!

Did you know that frogs don't only eat flies?  They also eat other types of bugs with their long sticky tongues!  We learned a song similar to "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A..." that helped us learn about some of the other bugs that frogs eat.  Then we did a counting activity.  Each child had to count out a certain number of bugs to feed to Miss McCabe's large frog.  They loved watching the bugs slide into the frog's tummy!

We learned the song "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" and used our fingers to sing along!  Do you know what a speckle is?  Ask your child if he/she can tell you!  In your child's folder, there are some activities to go along with the song that you can do together at home to reinforce skills we are working on at school!

Then we made our own large green and speckled frogs to display outside of our classroom!  This activity allowed us to use our fine motor skills to cut various shapes.  We cut out ovals, circles, triangles, and even a semi-circle!  Miss McCabe tried to trick everyone by saying they were cutting out a sphere, but those 4K students are too smart!  They knew it was a circle instead of a sphere because it was flat!

 

 

There was a birthday celebration in the morning session.

We played in the classroom.

 

 

Today was also the day where we got to find out who was a Super Star during the month of September!  Super Stars are chosen for following the Eagle 3 - being respectful, responsible, and safe.  Each month a new Super Star will be chosen from each classroom!

 

We also got to visit the Eagle's nest!  If we had 5 BEAK tickets, we could trade them in for a small prize, such as a ring, finger puppet, notepad, stickers, etc.  Some children chose not to spend their tickets and instead save up for a bigger item.  With 10 tickets, they can get items like a fossil rock or book.  With 20 or 25 tickets, they can get items like a Southern Door Elementary sweatshirt or a fleece pillow with a design of their choice.  Everyone was excited to finally get to go to the Eagle's nest!

Next week we will learn about all the changes that occur in fall and spend some extra time learning about fall leaves.  On Monday, we hope to take a walk into the school forest to take a look at all the fall changes going on around us (and maybe find some frogs in the pond too) if the weather permits!  Please make sure your child wears comfortable walking shoes and weather-appropriate clothing on Monday.

Have a fantastic weekend! :)

Rockets

Today was a great day in 4K!  After writing our names on our sign-in sheets, we greeted each other while singing "Twinkle Friends."

We reviewed the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle" and listened for the rhyming words.  Then we read a special rocket counting story.  We practiced counting the objects on each page.  It was a special story because there were also numbers hidden on each page that we had to try to find!

Later in the day, we also read a silly story about a lady who wanted a star.  She tried all different forms of transportation to get to the star, such as a bike, car, roller skates, and airplane but none of them worked until she used a rocket!  This story had many different rhyming words that we had fun listening for!

We visited centers and rotated to a new one - either the Hey Diddle Diddle grid game, the Hey Diddle Diddle rhyming game, or the name constellations.  One group had so much fun with the Hey Diddle Diddle rhyming game that they wanted to keep playing that instead of having free choice playtime! :)

 

We also played.  Some children got to play in the early childhood classroom too.

 

 

 

  

Miss McCabe was working with some friends on color identification.  We used color pointers to try to find specific colors around our classroom.  This became a big hit and now everybody wants to use Miss McCabe's pointers at playtime to go on a color hunt! :)

We also spent some time reviewing the new shapes we learned yesterday (cylinder, rectangular prism, sphere, cone, etc.).  Then we used some of the new shapes to build our own rockets!  One group used cubes to build their rockets while another used cylinders.

Do you know about Aikendrum?  We learned a song about him today!  He is a man that lives in the moon and plays upon a ladle.  We learned what a ladle is.  The song was funny because he had spaghetti hair, meatball eyes, a cheese nose, and a pizza mouth!  Then we made up other silly versions to sing, such as sock hair, a candy cane mouth, an apple nose, and m&m eyes!  It was a lot of fun!

We finally found time in the morning to play the "What's Missing? Astronaut" game to work on vocabulary!  Then it was time to play outside!

Remember that tomorrow is book check-out.  Please make sure to return the book your child checked-out last week so he/she can choose a new book to take home tomorrow!

Have a great evening!

Shape Hunt!

Today was another fun, but busy day in 4K!  We have been continuing to work on learning to write and name the letters in our names while doing our daily sign-in at the start of the day.

We reviewed shapes while looking at a picture of a playground.  Everyone did a great job of using positional words to describe where the shape they found was located!  We also spent some time describing how we knew each shape was a square, circle, rectangle, or triangle.

During circle time, we read a story about shapes.  We did a great job of trying to find all of the shapes in the pictures!  The story introduced us to some new types of shapes - spheres, cylinders, rectangular prisms, and cones.

We spent some time discussing the difference between a circle and sphere, triangle and cone, rectangle and rectangular prism, square and cube, and circle and cylinder.  After some discussion, we realized that circles, squares, triangles, ovals, and rectangles are flat while our new shapes have more than one side!  We touched some of our new shapes and looked at some items that were our new shapes, such as a birthday hat, ball, box, and container.

Then we went on a shape hunt!  We put on our good looking eyes and walked through the hallways and outside to see what shapes we could find!  We found all sorts of shapes everywhere.  Some of us even found our new shapes that we learned about, especially cylinders and cones.  We even discovered other shapes, such as octagons and hexagons!  It was a beautiful day to take a walk outside and discover shapes in our own environment!

 

 

 

 

Today we also visited centers.  Everyone rotated to a new center that they did not do yesterday.  The centers were a Hey Diddle Diddle grid game, a Hey Diddle Diddle rhyming game, and using fine motor skills to make a name constellation.

 

In the afternoon, we had a birthday celebration!

We also had some play time.  Some of us got a turn to play in the Early Childhood classroom too!

 

 

 

 We ended the day by playing outside!  Have a great evening! :)