Week of May 9 - 13

Another Busy Week in the JK classroom!

We had a wonderful surprise on Monday morning!  Four of our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis.  This week's observations have been so fantastic.  The children have enjoyed taking turns being the butterfly keeper, making sure the butterflies have fresh orange and banana slices, and fresh water sprays to keep them moist.  The children have been learning about the life cycle of the butterfly and how the butterfly life span is 2-4 weeks.  We are waiting for one last butterfly to emerge and then we will release the butterflies so they can lay their eggs and the butterflies life will continue.

In addition to learning about the butterfly, the children have been exploring other insects as well.  The JK kids have been fascinated to learn that most insects all have 6 legs, a head, a body, 2 antennae, and wings!

Our field trip to the Nature Museum on Friday tied in our lessons this week and will give us more to explore next week.  The children started their trip in the Nature Museum classroom, where they learned about ladybugs.  They investigated live ladybugs, heard a story about what makes a ladybug a ladybug, explored pictures of ladybugs, discovered that ladybugs love aphids, and hunted for aphids around the room.  Then they each made their own original ladybug.
After investigating in the classroom, we enjoyed our lunches then headed into the butterfly haven.  The children loved exploring so many different species of butterflies from the Buckeye to Cabbage White Butterfly.  It was amazing to be among the flittering creatures and to investigate their natural habitat.
From the butterfly haven, the JK kids went to the water works area and explored building dams and rivers and also had some plain fun:)  The trip was jam packed with learning and adventure.  It was a great trip.

This weeks centers were again testing the children's prior knowledge and building on it to further enhance their learning.  In the math center, the children explored bugs!  Colorful and creepy bugs!  They started by counting a variety of bugs, some children grouped the bugs and skip counted with them.  After each child counted the bugs, they made patterns, first by extending the patterns they saw then were given rules such as making an ABC pattern with the colors, then AB pattern with the bugs, then ABB patterns, etc.  The kids made up their own patterns and then rotated to each others places to investigate the patterns and then continue them.
In the Language Arts center, the children learned two new popcorn words: run and said.  They read a book and looked for old popcorn words too.  The children have really gotten good at identifying and reading their popcorn words.
In the fine motor center, the JK kids made colorful butterflies with clothespins, pipe cleaners, and tissue paper.  They enjoyed ripping the paper, twisting the pipe cleaners, and pinching the clothespin for the final touch, and then flying them around the classroom exploring with their imagination what it would be like to be a butterfly!
In the independent center, the children worked together to build amazing structures with waffle blocks, ladder blocks, and circular building blocks.
Our 3rd grade Reading Buddies came on Thursday to read to us.  We love when our buddies visit!
A Peek Ahead:
We will continue our investigations of butterflies and insects through books, songs, and word play.  We will take our investigations of bugs in the math center and explore subtraction facts.  We will explore more patterns in words in the language arts center.  Everyone will get a chance to make an insect of their choice in the fine motor center.   In the independent center the children will listen to a DVD of sight (popcorn) words for review of the ones they've learned all ready.
Our 7th grade buddies will visit us this week.

April 24 - May 6

JK's Got Spring Fever!

The JK kids have been so busy over the past few weeks!  


We celebrated Vincent's birthday!  Happy fifth Birthday Vincent!  Thanks for the yummy fish cupcakes.  Thanks to Mr. Molden, Vincent's dad, for staying and reading If You Give a Mouse a Muffin.  The kids really enjoyed the celebration.

Our field trip to the Farm at the zoo was a big hit!  See the slide show to the right for more pictures.  Thank you to all of our wonderful chaperones.  We couldn't have been able to explore all of the places at the farm without your help.  We were able to explore new signs of spring too and really enjoy the outdoors.  We had a gorgeous day at the farm!


The learning in the classroom has been enhanced because of this outdoor experience.  We have been working on identifying farm animals vs. zoo animals, draw pictures about our favorite farm animals, read stories both fiction and non-fiction, use farm animal manipulatives to count, identify numbers, and add and subtract numbers.

Lots of children turned in their Spring Detective sheets too this past week.  They shared with the class signs of spring and then picked a prize from the prize box!  Way to go Spring Detectives.  We are still accepting papers:)

The children enjoyed the Spring Backpack homework so much that we now are sending home Farm backpacks!  I hope everyone makes time to complete the projects and enjoy them with your children.  The JK kids love to share what activities they did with their favorite themed animals!  They started to bring home the farm backpacks this week with Moo Moo, Peepers, and Oinkers!

The children have been working on their monthly self-portraits, concentrating on the shape of their features, the color of their skin, hair, eyes, etc.  They continue to work hard in their journals as well, drawing pictures about Spring time activities and then writing about it.

 In the math center, the children worked on number identification, counting objects, matching numbers and objects, and adding numbers together through a fun ladybug game.  First they counted the lady bugs spots, then they found the flower that had the number written on it.  After playing the matching game for a while, those that were ready to add numbers together were given either two ladybugs with dots or two flowers with numbers and they were asked to add the numbers together.  If that skill was mastered then they went on to illustrating a number problem.

This past week's math center also had multiple levels to it.  The children started by identifying a number, then counting pigs to match the number and put them in their pig pen, then some went on to having two pig pens with different numbers on it and adding how many in all.  Finally they illustrated how many pigs they had or solved a number problem and illustrated it.

 In the language arts center, the children worked on popcorn words want and new. The predicted what the story, Socks was going to be about, they tracked their reading, and discussed what the story was about when they finished it.  Then they went back and used wikki sticks to circled the words.  The children loved the bendy, sticky, sticks to help them with their new words.

This week they read a book called A Duck.  In this story they read about a silly duck who met a buck and they drove a truck!  The children found popcorn words, rhyming words, and made a list of rhyming words to help them learn more about word patterns which is so important when reading short and long words.

In the independent center last week the children worked together to build floor size puzzles.  This week they worked together on smaller farm puzzles to make farm shapes. They really did a great job working together.

In the fine motor center the children found spring pictures to cut out of magazines and paste them on their blankets they weaved from the week before.  Check out these beautiful spring blankets outside of the classroom.

This week the children picked their favorite farm animal and drew a picture of it.  Then they filled in the blanks for Old Ms./Mr. ____ had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.  And on his/her farm he/she had a  _________.  They had a great time with their very original pieces!

Third grade reading buddies came to visit!  We love being read too and being silly with our big third grade friends.

Our seventh grade reading buddies came to visit too!  They helped us with a secret project that you mom's will see on Sunday! (NO PEEKING)  When the JK friends finished they were read to.  

Thank you to Mrs. Susmita Sahoo for coming to our classroom and sharing your community helper job with the children.  Susmita is a postdoctoral research scientist.  Her research is in stem cell therapy for treating cardiovascular diseases.  She talked to the children about how the heart works and how the foods they eat and the exercise they get helps the heart function.  She showed them lots of healthy and sweet foods.  She brought in a model of a heart and showed them the different parts of it.  Then she read a Magic School Bus book about the heart.  We learned that our hearts are as big as our fists and when it beats it expands kind of like our hand when it opens and closes.  The class loved it so much!  


The JK class has been learning new spring and farm poems.  They are a very interactive way for us to learn and hear language.  We read a lot of springtime books and farm books these past weeks.  We read a book about Ten Dirty Pigs and Ten Clean Pigsbecause it's funny, because it so warm, That's their only bath they could have, because they like mud and sometimes they drink it, because they have it, instead of sunscreen, because it's the certain things pigs do.  Then the kids experimented with mud and how it felt.  They said, it feels sticky, slimy, and cold.  We concluded that farm animals roll in the mud to keep cool!  

Here's our beautiful class project.  Thank you for all of your help.  We hope to see you at the Auction!