Pictures

Our Tuesday/Thursday girls love to build puzzles!

Jensen, Kaitlin, Jacqueline, and Britney

Nathan, Jensen, Ryder, Britney, Kaitlin, and Forest make jellyfish.

Jacqueline and Kaitlin build a tower.

Kaitlin, Ryder, and Nathan fingerpainting letters with shaving cream.  FUN!

Jacqueline and Jensen fingerpainting.

Jacqueline and Britney love to build.

Weekly Updates - May 27th

This week in class the children learned quite a bit about bees.  They learned all about what the bees do, how the hive works, and interesting facts about bees.  Be sure to ask them to share with you!  The also learned the waggle dance (the way in which bees communicated with each other) and today they did an exercise learning about pheromones (they had to 'find' their hive by matching their smell to others with the same smell). Wednesday we discussed the process of making honey and the children tasted honey.  We played a bee game today where they tried not to disrupt the bees in the hive, and counted the bees that they did disrupt.

We reviewed the letter g this week, writing the letter g, finding it, brainstorming g words, etc.  We have gone back and are reviewing the zoo-phonics sounds, to reinforce letter sounds.  We also wrote numbers and identified groups of items up to 10.  The kids participated in a frog race, rolling the dice and jumping that number.

We practiced "America the Beautiful" and talked a little more about the U.S. flag.  The Tue/Thur kids completed a listening activity and completed free paint art.  They also identified bugs (in a rice sensory bucket) and counted them.

The eagles read "What Lives Here", they brought the books home to read to you.  Nathan practiced reading "Kids Like" and "Come See My Bug".  The children all made butterflies with wings from their traced feet.  These will come home in the next week or so.

Reminders-

There will be no school Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

We will be having a pot luck end-of-the-year celebration on Thursday, June 9th at 11:00 AM.  Sign-ups for food are in the classroom by the attendance sheet.

Our promotion ceremony will be on June 12 at 10:00 AM.  ALL children will be acknowledged for their growth and successes this year.  Please arrive at 9:45 so I can have the children ready to sing at the opening.  This is a dressy event so please have the little ones dressed nicely.  I'm guessing it will last about 30 minutes or so, and afterwards, you are free to go or welcome to stay for the Sunday service.

I think that's all,

Have a wonderful weekend,
Ms. Jen

Weekly Updates 5/20

This week in class the children learned about insects, symbols of America, the letter f, and AP words (cap, lap, map, nap, etc). 

The children learned the characteristics of insects.  They made an ant on a leaf, a caterpillar, and an insect chart- where they had to categorize creatures as insects or not insects.  They completed a ladybug math sheet where the counted spots, matched the numbers and practiced writing numbers 1-5.  The kids practiced writing the letter f several times this week.  They thought of f words, found f words in a sentence, and practiced the sounds of all the letters of the alphabet. 

The hawks practiced subitizing with dice and corresponding actions and the eagles learned AP sight words and "read" their books (What Lives Here?)

Tuesday/Thursday kids completed a listening activity, practiced the letter f, and made boats.

Two reminders... graduation / promotion will be on Sunday, June 12th at 10 AM.  I really want to recognize all of the children and their growth this year, so I hope you all can make it.  I anticipate that the event will last around 30 minutes, then you may leave or stay for Resurrection Community Church's regular Sunday service.  Also, please note that the last day of school is Thursday, June 9th.

I've only had one family interested in our summer program.  Unless we have 4-5 children, we will cancel the program.  I assume that we will not have the program at this point, but I will let you know if something changes.

Have a super weekend!!
Ms. Jen

5/13

Updates for the rest of the week...

The children continued to practice the letter E, identify Es in a sentence, brainstorm E words, and write the letter.  The eagles matched letters and continued to read their books (which were sent home today- please read with them).  The Tue/Thur kids continued to work on their listening activity.  This has really strengthened their abilities to listen and follow directions.

Today we freed our butterflies.  It was great to watch them fly off, the kids loved it.  We cut, colored, and glued flags from other countries, started a soccer unit (practicing dribbling), and we measured liquids with measuring cups.  The kids got to "fish" in a water sensory bin during outside play time.  The children are also learning "America The Beautiful", which we practiced today.

5/10

I took this picture on my trip home from Catalina on Sunday.  We are studying flags in class though, so please bring in any country flags that you have at home so we can take a look at them!

Today in class the children measured again (this is pretty popular in class!), completed a listening activity, identified numbers, matched quantities to numbers, and painted.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all our moms out there!  I hope you all had a restful weekend and were treated like queens.

Just so you know, we have all four butterflies now!  The last one emerged today and we fed and observed them all.  They will be released on Friday.  We learned about the United States flag today and began learning "America The Beautiful".  The students also enjoyed measuring today.  They measured books, toys, each other, etc.  We practiced the letter E today as well.

Easter Egg Hunt

Parents,
Check out all our Easter photos online at snapfish.  Visit www.elmpark.snapfish.com/snapfish to view pics.  I have the password if you need it. Have a great weekend,
Ms. Jen

weekly updates 5/6/11

Weekly update of academics...

Science---This week in class we continued to learn about life cycles.  The students completed a cut out of the life cycle of a butterfly.  Two of our chrysalides turned into butterflies and we celebrated our new friends & fed them (sugar water).  We are still waiting for two more chrysalides to produce butterflies.  We felt ice in the "mystery cup" and used our senses to guess the contents.  Then we discussed the solid and liquid states of water.

Math---The students began measuring objects, they had a lot of fun measuring each others heights.  We also spent time on patterns, repeating and finishing sequences of colored squares.  The students worked on the number 8 and spent a lot of time counting.  The hawks searched for & counted bears in a rice sensory bucket and the eagles played a number scavenger hunt. 

LA---The letter of the week was D.  The children wrote the letter D in a variety of mediums (including lentils).  They identified D's in a sentence and created a list of D words.  The eagles began finding the beginning letter/sound of words and created a new reading book (Pond Life).  I introduced the children to AD words and they practiced identifying them (sad, mad, bad, etc).

Arts/Crafts---The students finger-painted, beaded, created Mother's Day cards, sponge painted and colored.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and to all of our mothers--Happy Mother's Day!!

Butterflies!!

Yesterday two of our chrysalides turned into butterflies!  How exciting to see the entire life cycle of a butterfly.  The children enjoyed feeding our butterflies today and debated names for them.  I'm not sure how we'll tell them apart, we can worry about that later.  We have two chrysalides left and plan to free the four of them late next week.