Rr is for...

Happy Monday!  Since last week we spent some time talking about the signs of spring and spring weather, we are spending this week talking about flowers.  We know that in spring, one usually gets a lot of rain and sun.  Flowers need both rain and sun to help them grow!  We read a story about a tiny seed and got to see how it grew into a huge flower.  Some of the seeds didn't grow into anything because the wind blew them to places that were too cold, too hot, too wet, or too dry.  Others didn't grow because animals, such as birds and mice, found the seeds and ate them.  It was an interesting story.

Today we also learned about the parts of a flower, such as the roots, stem, leaves, and petals.  To help us remember the parts of a flower, we learned a song to the tune of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and acted out the song.  See if your child can show you the actions at home!  The words are in the "Here's the Scoop" note that went home today.

Next it was time to visit centers.  At Miss McCabe's center, we made name flowers.  We had to cut out two different colors of petals and pattern them around the center of the flower.  We wrote our first name in the middle and then our last name on the petals.  The children are getting good at writing their last names!  Sorry for the lack of close-up pictures, but I did not want to put both first and last names on the blog!

At Mrs. DeKeyser's center, the children colored in and cut out the parts of a flower.  Then they glued the parts together to create a flower and labeled the parts.

 The third center used watercolor paints to decorate rainbow Rr's for their alphabet books.

Afterwards we played.  There was a lot of excitement because our dramatic play area was turned into a Flower Shop.  Children took on different roles, such as delivering flowers, creating cards for the flowers, planting seeds, handling the cash register and phones, creating floral arrangements, and watering the flowers.  The sensory table was also filled with flowers and the children enjoyed searching for caterpillars and butterflies hidden in the flowers.

After snack, we learned all about our new letter Rr.  We learned some words that start with Rr, such as roots, roses, rain, radish, rabbit, roof, rainbow, and rake.  Then we practiced making the /r/ sound while tracing over ruby red r.

In the afternoon session, we got another class BEAK for being quiet in the hallway.  The afternoon class now has 5, which means we will get to have a special party in our classroom.  (The morning session children only need one more class BEAK to have their own special classroom party.)  The afternoon children brainstormed a list of types of parties they would like to have.  Then they voted.  The winner was a disco party with a popcorn party coming in second place.  The children are excited to wear their sparkles.  We will probably hold the disco party later this week and a note will come home once Miss McCabe has figured out what we will do for our disco party.  If any parents have any ideas, please feel free to forward them to me! :)

Have a great evening! :)