Friday, January 17

We had a messy day today in our classroom!  (But it was fun!)

First we headed out to the playground where we found some ice on the sliding board.  We had some ice races on the slides and then searched the whole playground to see if we could find ice anywhere else.

 

When we came inside we had music with Miss Jenna.  That's always fun!  We worked hard at following our patterns with shakers, rhythm sticks, and rests.  We also had a great time singing and dancing!

 

 

At our Rug Center, we had another day of playing with our Little People.  At Miss Paula's center, we made snow dough (two parts cornstarch to one part hair conditioner) that got us very messy!  We got to put it in a ziploc bag to bring home with us.  If you put it in the refrigerator, it will get really cold all over again!  At Miss Kathleen's center, we had some more messy time making snow (equal parts baking soda and shaving foam) and then "melting" it with vinegar.  We had a lot of cleaning up to do before we had our snack!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, January 13

It was so nice to be able to get out on the playground today!  We had a wonderful time--even if it was a little bit wet!

 

We came back inside and started our centers.  We had our Little People tub at the rug center again, but today we added a castle!  That was cool!  At Miss Paula's center we had one more day of snow stuff.  We played in our pretend snow (various combinations of Epsom salt, styrofoam peanuts, and glitter) and built/decorated a snowman with our window clings.  At Miss Kathleen's center we read a Clifford magazine about animals who hide in snow (and practiced using the word camouflage) then we traced shapes with our fingers and a pencil.  We also practiced making our mark/writing our name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, January 10

As we start the second half of the year, we focus a lot more on the fine motor skills of cutting, drawing, tracing, and writing.  Some of us are really good at these skills, some of us are just starting to work on them, but all of us are practicing!  We also have our other imaginative play/manipulative table out for Morning Work each day.

Before we started music with Miss Jenna, we went for a quick walk outside to see what had happened to all of the ice and icicles.  Miss Kathleen told us that she was pretty sure they had all melted because it wasn't very cold any more, but we wanted to check for ourselves! 

 

Miss Jenna used her music cards today to see how well we could follow directions.  The boys had rhythm sticks and the girls had shakers.  We had to pay attention to the pattern on the cards to see who was supposed to make music.  Then Miss Jenna fooled us by putting the rest sign out!  Whenever we saw that we all had to be quiet!  Shhh!

 

 

 

After music, we read Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.  We really liked all of the different snowmen in this book. 

Then at Miss Paula's center we played in snow centers!  We had snowmen and penguins and snowflakes and some really cool crystals that looked like snow!  At Miss Kathleen's center, we made our own snowballs (out of newspaper) and stuffed them into white bags to make our own snowman!  We also colored some snowman pictures--and some of us drew other  members of the snow family.

 

 

 

  

Wednesday, January 8

We made the most of the cold weather today by bundling up and heading outside to find some ice.  We knew it would be cold because the cup of water that we left outside on our windowsill had frozen.  We checked out the fountain in the garden and found that it was frozen solid--with icicles!  Then we headed over to the old playground field where the sprinklers had been left on overnight.  The grass and bushes and soccer net were all covered in ice!  It was so cool!  We explored for a few minutes, then took our cold fingers back inside to warm up.

 

After we cam inside and warmed up, we had our centers.  We had another day of playing with the Little People house and garage at our rug center.  At Miss Paula's center, we finished our January placemats and then made some sticker pictures.  At Miss Kathleen's center we painted with wintery colors of blue and purple and silver.  We found a surprise on our paper as we continued to paint.  Each of our names was printed on our paint papers with a white crayon.  That was really cool!

 

 

Monday, January 6

It was so exciting to be back at school!  We all missed our friends and had a lot of catching up to do.  We talked about the new year and the new month at calendar time and practiced saying January 2014! 

After our Morning Circle/Calendar time, we started our centers.  We loved playing with the Little People house and garage at our rug center.  We also did a very good job of sharing.  At Miss Paula's center we made our January calendar with snowmen and then we looked at books.  We have a brand new crate of books all about winter.  All of them have a W on the back.  At Miss Kathleen's center we practiced our fine motor skills by putting beads on our sparkly pipe cleaner snowflakes.  It took a lot of patience to do that!