Brown Bear

We reviewed our colors this week through the story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.  The children loved this flannel board activity.  We also sorted bears by colors using our bear counters.  In addition, the boys made brown bear prints with different size bear cookie cutters.

Since it was so rainy outside, we watched the Scholastic video of James Marshall's story of Goldilocks & the Three Bears.  We also watched Marshall's story of  The Three Little Pigs along with a story about a garbage trucks.  The boys especially like this one!

I'm so proud of how well the boys play together!  It seems that this day in time, many children have forgotten how to play.  The boys always seem so engaged and engrossed in their activities each week.  Here's a link on play and it's importance:
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=591

Goldilocks & The Three Bears

Last week was "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" day.  We had so much fun with this fairy tale.  The children decorated porridge bowls and danced and learned the song, "Goldilocks Came Knocking."  They also helped me compose two letters to the Bear family and Goldilocks.  Here are the letters:

Dear Bears,
Always lock your doors.  Don't whine.  If there is was a stranger in my house, I'd throw him in the pond.  You should call 911 if there is an emergency.  Don't do like Goldilocks and go in stranger's houses.  


Andrew, Bennett, Jackson, & Ryan

Dear Goldilocks,
Never go in stranger's house.  Never eat their food.  Don't sleep in their beds.  Please be safe.  


Andrew, Bennett, Jackson, & Ryan

Children learn to read and write when real-life opportunities make learning fun and easy.  Activities such as the one we did last week, also play a role in social interaction, expression of emotions, as well as learning about the shapes of letters and words.  When the children dictate stories to me, they learn that printing and reading begin from left to right. 


We are still working on writing single stroke letters.  The letters that we've learned so far are lowercase letters c, i, j, i, o.  Once your child is able to write these letters, we will move on to letters e, f, k, s, t.  The complexity of the shapes of letters make some easier to write.  You might ask why focus on lowercase letters?  Marion Blank points out her book, The Reading Remedy, that less than 10 percent of words on a page appear with even one capital letter.  In other words, there is a belief that writing skills and reading skills are enhanced when children are primarily exposed to lowercase letters verses being taught that capital letters are dominate.  I've experienced this firsthand and I've seen how capital letters get mixed into words because of traditional teaching methods.  

Tomorrow, we'll be doing activities around the story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.
That will be our last day of the bear unit.  Winter will soon be over so it's time to move on to a new unit.  I am working on lesson plans for our study of art.  We'll incorporate shapes and colors into this study.  It really is my favorite unit, for obvious reasons, and I look forward to spending the next three months bringing out the boy's creatives sides.  

 

Valentines

What a blustery day Wednesday was!  The children made the most of it though.  They were creative and made  kites/windsocks out of plastic grocery bags and yarn.  They had the best time flying them!

We took a break from our study of hibernation and winter and we learned about being bucket fillers on Wednesday.  We read the story, Have You Filled A Bucket Today? and we learned that everyone has imaginary buckets that they carry around.  You can fill other buckets by doing and saying kind things.  You also fill your own bucket this way.  You can be a bucket dipper by doing the opposite.  It was an especially wonderful theme for Valentine's Day.  We decorated buckets to go with our theme.  They made great Valentine holders.

Thanks to all of you for bringing in treats for our party.  The children loved having snacks throughout the day.  Also, we made a healthier Shirley Temple drink  for the party and the children really liked it.  Here's the recipe in case you'd like to recreate it at home:

1 cup of pomegranate juice
2 cups of club soda
2 cups of Sprite
maraschino cherries (for garnish)

Next week, we'll be reading about Goldilocks and her encounter with the three bears.  We'll be decorating porridge bowls.  After this month, I'm considering spending the final months of class doing creative art activities and learning about famous artists.  I mentioned it to the boys and they seemed excited.  They've been less interested in art lately so maybe this will spur on their creativity!

I hope that you all get to enjoy another rare weekend of snow! 

Bear Hunting

This past Wednesday was our bear hunting day.  We went hiking through the woods in search for bears.  We never saw any, thank goodness, but we did find a fluffy black animal (see picture below).  Prior to the bear hunt, I was able to capture some cute sledding pictures of the boys.  They found a few snowy patches on some of the hills in the woods. 

We cooked a granola snack for our hunt.  I've included the recipe below.  We also read the story, We're Going On A Bear Hunt.  It always seems to be a class favorite.  The children enjoy acting out the parts of the story. 

CHOCOLATE GRANOLA CLUSTERS:

2 cups of granola

1/4 cup of milk

4 tablespoons of butter

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup of peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS: Warm the milk and butter in medium saucepan over moderate heat.  When the butter is mostly melted, str in the sugar and chocolate chips.  Stir the mixture carefully until it comes to a boil.  Quickly reduce the heat and boil for one minute while stirring.  Remove the pan from heat and stir in peanut butter and vanilla until smooth.  Mix in granola and stir well.  Scoop mounded tablespoons of mixture onto lined baking sheet.  Once they have cooled, cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 3 hours. 

We certainly missed Ryan, who was out sick on Wednesday.  We did save you a granola snack, Ryan. We look forward to having you back with us next week for our Valentine's Day party.  I've asked everyone to bring a snack to share that day.  I will provide some red punch so it would be wonderful to have some sweet and salty goodies to go along with it.

Farm Animal Days @ NCSU

Great news!  Farm Animal Days will be held this year from March 24-26.  The event was not held last year due to budget issues.  This is an excellent field trip and we had a great time when we went two years ago.  Please let me know if you'd like to attend.  Most likely, I'll plan our outing for the 26th, which is a Friday. 
 
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/farmanimaldays/