I just want to start by saying thank you to all the moms who helped out with Valentine's Day and who came in to read and do art projects and activities with our class. The children love to learn and listen to parents read stories to them, especially their own. It is a very special time for all the children.
Two weeks ago, J's mom from the Purple Room was so gracious to come talk to us about Chinese New Year. This year we are celebrating the Year of the Horse. She showed us so many awesome things,including intricate paper cuttings, silks, books, how the Chinese character for the horse came about, a globe to show where China is located, and many little trinkets from China.
J's mom S let us pass everything around and feel how soft the silk was.
S helping J paint her hand to make a hand print horse.
Coloring for the Year of the Horse. We continue to practice holding our pencils with the correct grip, trying to stay in the lines, and taking our time to color without being in a rush. Thank you again to S for sharing your culture with us and teaching us all about Chinese New Year!
K's mom H brought some Chinese shadow puppets to show us.
They were very detailed and had beautiful colors and patterns.
P making his shadow puppet which was a ninja. This project had multiple steps. First, you would pick a puppet, dragon, empress, emperor, or ninja. Next,you would color the puppet, and then rub oil into the paper. The paper soaked in the oil and then H helped by attaching the parts with brads and straws to control the puppets.
As you can see in this shadow puppet show, P's brave ninja is trying to fight off G's fierce fire-breathing dragon.
K and M doing their show. The ninja and the empress were friends :)
This spurred interest in putting on our own puppet show, featuring the princess (K), the frog/prince (P), the white rabbit (M), and the evil fly and spider (Z). I was the narrator for this one and A was the back stage help, managing the curtains.
More puppet shows: the prince, the pig, and the spider.
L helping me make pink play doh for Valentine's Day.
J collaging her letter V using Valentine's day stickers and Veggies in the shape of hearts.
Our Vegetable tasting. We sampled cucumbers, carrots, and celery. Our friend L brought tomatoes from her garden for us to try. I was soo proud of all the children who tried new veggies. Even if they didn't taste them, they explored the way they felt, smelt, and explored the seeds. E was nervous to taste them and said he didn't want to, and then before I knew it I heard him exclaim, "Teacher, I really like the celery dipped in ranch!" This made me smile. I'm so happy when our children step out of their comfort zones to try some thing new and grow. In this instance, E realized veggies are not only good for us, but can taste good too!
The favorites, in order, were carrots, celery, cucumbers, and finally tomatoes.
This past week we collaged our letter Y with all Yellow things.
Practicing writing some y words: yellow, young, yes, and yak.
We made dream catchers out of "y"arn.
On Friday we went outside on a stick hunt.
S found a stick that was perfect for our letter of the week. Y!
J concentrating on wrapping his yarn around the stick. This was a tough activity for many of the children to wrap the yarn tight enough with out it unraveling.
Our master piece, a beautiful bouquet of sticks and colored yarn.
"Y"ogurt sampling equals "Y"ummy!!! We tried five different flavors, peach, strawberry, blueberry, Greek, and plain. We also had granola and honey as toppers.
Like with the veggies we had some children nervous to taste the flavors that were new to them, but before I knew it, many of the children cleaned their plate and came back for seconds before everyone even got firsts! I'd say it was a successful yogurt taste test. S.B. said that she liked the white(plain) and orange(peach), K said she liked strawberry, Z said he loved strawberry too, and S.L. said,"I love all of them except the very white one!" (Greek) :)
Teacher Karen in PreK this past week had three of her students back from kindergarten. E was excited to show his friends what day his birthday was this month. In PreK the children are working on number recognition, following directions, and cutting and scissor safety. They discuss a lot of topics during their community time and having the kindergarteners back added a lot to the group.
Perler beads make for a very tough fine motor project, but the children love them and were so excited to work on them. They are little beads that you put on a pegboard, and you have to make sure that all the beads are touching and then you iron them.
M concentrating on making her flower.
Teacher Jasmine
One of those priceless moments. Then is when you really love to have mixed aged groups and fun to have the kindergarteners back. They are able to help each other and really love to teach each other how to do things. Thank you M for helping E dress up like a beautiful princess.
Hide and go seek is a new favorite outdoors and indoors.
Sneaky P behind the tree.
Z popping out! You found me!
Last Friday we ended the week with J's mom A coming in to read "How full is your Bucket?" The book was all about having an imaginary bucket on your head and when others say something nice to you or you do something kind for someone else, it fills their bucket and your own too. But when people say hurtful things to us our water spills out of our buckets.
All the children really enjoyed this story.
A gave everyone a bucket and the children went around the circle saying something nice about someone else and filling their bucket with a pompon. The children said many nice things like, you're cool, I love you, you're my best friend, you run fast. We talk about being kind to others everyday and how it feels to not be included. Reading "How full is your Bucket" and doing the activity with the pompoms really helped the children grasp the meaning. Thanks again A for doing this activity with our class and Purple room!
It has been an awesome two weeks! Thanks so much again to all the parents who participated!
Hugs
Teacher Kristina
