I want to wish you all a happy new year and welcome everyone back to school. It was so exciting to see all my smiling kiddos' faces eager to have fun and reconnect with friends and teachers. I hope you all had a joyful and relaxing break!
Last week they were wanting to make ice creams but the playdough was not working out because it was heavy and didn't stand up on the paper cones. So, I introduced them to "floam," a new kind of play dough which is foamy and slightly sticky in texture. They used that material in making food, landscapes and islands (science), sculptures, and even did some math with it. Check it out!
Food: Ice Cream ..U scream...we all scream for Ice Cream ;-)
A volcano...
Making land and water and creating habitats...
Island with tigers and big trees...
Making snowballs as they thought the white one looked just like snow!
Sculptures...
A Bird!
An ooooo face!
People!
We did a little treasure hunt and then they counted how many treasures they found...
Hunting...
Counting...
Last week we also opened up a little grocery store and got involved with a lot of buying and selling using coins that I tagged with numbers from 1 to 5. We used those coins to count how much the item was for and paid money at the checkout. We came up with many equations like how we could pay $5 using two $2 coins and one $1 coin, or we could even pay 2, 1,1, and 1. Some choose to just pay using all $1 coins. We also came across how to greet the customers and answer their questions.
Selling...
Buying...
Shopping...
Some of the children were upset that they were not getting any mails, so we opened a station about writing letters to each other. They wrote letters, posted them in the mail box, and after lunch our mail carrier (which is one of our new jobs) delivered them to their respective mailboxes. Luckily I could capture the picture of A and S getting super excited on receiving mails!
Some highlights of their creativity using different shapes!
B said, "Its a Christmas tree!"
D, totally engrossed in making a Bee Hive!
Last week was letter J week. I tell you it was one of the most Joyful and a reuniting week. We Jogged over the week doing many fun J letter activities and to my surprise they came up with sooo many J words too. The best and most loved one was 'Jelly Beans.'
So later, we worked to make our own Jelly Bean Jar.
Some counted them while some just guessed...
We made letter J collages using Jelly fish, jack in the box and jelly beans cutouts.
This led us to making jack-in-the boxes and jelly fish.
Making the jack-in-the-box was a long project where we started with tracing our hands and cutting them. Next we swirled the pipe cleaners on a pencil to give it a spiral shape. That was the most loved part. Adding a body and attaching our own faces with a silly hat added to the excitement.
Jelly fish...
We also practiced doing Jump rope and Jumping Jacks outdoors.
Making Jello Jigglers with Jelly Beans was an awaited moment since Monday.
Discussing the transparent red liquid...
Watching it get darker and darker red as we kept adding the powder...
Guessing if the Jelly beans will float or sink! (Well, I got to confess, I didn't know either :0)
We all shouted together when we saw the result, "It sinks!!!"
Feeling the texture before eating...
Finally, enjoying the most desired moment...yum!
Dear parents, you are more than welcome to come and read a book in the morning at drop off or to do some hands-on activities in class. Kids love to see either their own or a friends parent come over and do fun stuff with them. Feel free to discuss how it could work at your convenience.
See you around!
Warmly,
Rashida.
