Miss McCabe's 4K Classes 2012-13: Enormous Elephants

It was nice to be back in the classroom again! Unfortunately it was too cold and wet to go for our walk in the school forest or for the morning session to work in the school garden. We will try to reschedule them for next week.

Today we learned about elephants. First we read a nonfiction story called Wild Animals: Elephants. Then we read a fiction story called Little Elephant's Trunk. We learned about how important a trunk is to an elephant! Did you know that elephants can even use their trunks as a snorkel? Their trunks are used for smelling and touching. We learned all sorts of interesting facts about elephants. See what your child can tell you tonight!

After reading, we made a list of some of the ways an elephant uses its trunk.

Another interesting fact we learned today was that elephants do not have good eyesight. Today during centers we used magnifying glasses to make things bigger. We had to hunt for tiny hidden letters in a jungle picture. Then we had to record both the uppercase and lowercase letter. It was tricky, but fun!

At another center, the children drew a self-portrait as an assessment for the progress report. We are hoping to see more body parts and details added to their pictures in comparison to the start of the school year. At the third center, the children colored a picture of a pig for a coloring contest sponsored by the FFA. One student from each grade will be selected as the winner and receive a prize.

After centers, we played. In the afternoon session, we have a new friend that joined our class. Her name is Shailinn. The children in the afternoon have been doing a wonderful job of welcoming her to our classroom and helping her to learn how we do things in our classroom. I am so proud of them!

After snack, we read a silly story called Seven Blind Mice. In the story, the mice explore an animal. They each touch a different part and believe it is something else. For example, one mouse touches the tail and thinks it is a rope. Another mouse touches the trunk and believes it is a snake. They begin to argue until one mouse explores the entire animal instead of just one part to find out it is an elephant. We talked about how elephants use their trunks to touch or feel. Then the children applied what they learned from the story about taking time to touch the entire object to try to guess an item in my elephant feely box.