They have heard a lot about Australia throughout the year because I occasionally tell them stories about my time spent teaching in Australia several years ago. This has sparked an interest in learning more about Australia from the children so this week we will learn about several Australian animals, such as kangaroos, koalas, and kookaburras! The children have also requested that I share some pictures from my time in Australia so I promised I would try to post a couple kangaroo ones on the blog today.
Zookeeper Bob helped us learn a new word today - marsupial. See if your child can tell you what a marsupial is (it is an animal that has a pouch for its babies). We also learned that kangaroos, koalas, and even wombats are marsupials because they have pouches!
Our story today was called Marsupial Sue. This story has a great message - be happy with who you are. We talked about how we are all special just the way we are. In the story, Marsupial Sue did not like being a kangaroo so she tried to climb a tree like a koala and eat fish like a platypus. By the end of the story, she discovered that she really liked being a kangaroo and that she should be happy just the way she is.
We also learned that kangaroos can jump as far as 30 feet in one hop! The children guessed how far 30 feet was. Then we took out a piece of yarn that was 30 feet long and measured. Can you believe that 30 feet went from one wall of our classroom to the other wall?! We tried jumping to see if we could jump as far as a kangaroo. We discovered that kangaroos are very good jumpers!
During centers, the children played a kangaroo game. They decorated a kangaroo pouch and had to hop around the room to find their color of joey to put in the pouch. Then they had to sequence the numbers in numerical order. See if your child can do it for you tonight!
At another center, the children made pita pocket pizzas to reinforce the word "marsupial." The original plan was to make them tomorrow, but then I was told on Friday that there would need to be a substitute teacher in the classroom tomorrow and I didn't want to make the poor substitute teacher make them with the children so I altered our plans to make them today. They were delicious! :) Thank you to everyone who helped donate items to make this cooking project successful! It is greatly appreciated!
Today we also began to work on painting our T-shirts for the zoo! It was very exciting. The first step was painting a big yellow circle in the middle of the shirt. Tomorrow we will get to paint our hands to make handprints on the shirt!
We also played, but Miss McCabe did not get to take many pictures during this time as she had to keep a close eye on the oven so that our pocket pizzas did not burn!
Some time was also spent learning all about the letter Kk and words that begin with that letter, such as kangaroo, koala, kazoo, kettle, kick, kerchief, kite, katydid, and king.
We practiced making the /k/ sound while tracing over kicking k.
Then we made our own kicking Kk's for our alphabet books! The children enjoyed using the brads to attach the leg so their Kk's could kick! :)
It was also a beautiful day to play outside! The children were excited that it was warm enough not to need to wear jackets outside today!
Tomorrow a few children will be pulled out of the classroom for the first portion of the PALS assessment. They will be tested on name writing, uppercase letters, lowercase letters, letter sounds, and beginning sounds. Please make sure your child gets plenty of rest for tomorrow!
Please also note that classroom surveys and field trip bus sheets are due back tomorrow!
Have a great evening!
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