We enjoyed the company of a very special guest, Teacher Lisa’s mom! Very fitting since Mother’s Day was the day before. She joined us on Monday during our free choice time. She was a teacher and certainly knows her way around a classroom still the students loved showing her around the room. They talked about some of the art they did that was up on bulletin boards. She read them a story at rug time titled Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems. I’m sure the students would be happy to have her return anytime!
Dino’s in the texture table. They were buried, dug up and transported across the green landscape!
Snow in May? Sort of. It was baking soda and hair conditioner! It wasn’t cold like the real stuff but it sure was fun!
On Monday at the art table the students were finishing their self portraits by adding colorful features, eyes, eye lashes and brows, mouth and hair. The self portraits are a long standing traditional project at Small Friends. These always turn out adorable!
The students played a numbered, dinosaur puzzle game with dice at the second table on Monday. They took turns rolling their dice, they then counted the dots on the dice and took the corresponding number of the puzzle to get all 5 pieces and reveal the dinosaur they each made.
Robot builders were at the building table but the students soon discovered that they could make all sorts of things with the larger nuts and bolts! A lawn mower, a shopping cart and picture frames, just to name a few items.
The students did a black line drawing then added colorful dinosaurs to the scene and dictated a sentence about their art. Teacher Lisa read the book Whatever happened to the dinosaurs? By Bernard Most, that this project is based on. The book invited some silliness which some of the kids embraced!
A dinosaur game of tic tac toe at the second table worked on game playing skills such as learning how to play the game, taking turns and being a good sport.
A favorite item made its way back to the light table, magna tiles, with small dinosaurs added in for some very imaginative play.
We had a messy and loud project on Wednesday. The students played the roll of paleontologists and excavated a dinosaur from an egg using a wooden tool, a hammer and a small brush. It was lots of work that was rewarded with a dinosaur that they got to take home along with an informational card about their dinosaur!🦕
For a gross motor activity there were giant dinosaur foot prints out in the hall. Lots of jumping, hopping, leaping and twisting too!
On Thursday we switched from snow to water in the water tub with frozen dinosaurs to rescue from their ice enclosure! Basters, cups, warm water and even some rock salt all helped to free the dinosaurs. Way fun!
Creation station is still up and running!
Our art project on Thursday was to make a skeleton of a stegosaurus out of Q-Tips using our trusty glue guns!
At the second table the students added May items to their memory boxes, butterflies and panda stickers and the parent wrote down their favorite memory/activity. They also had to add a memory for space week as we forgot to do that one. They put star stickers in their sticker book and a glow in the dark star into the box.
Besides our stories and familiar songs, we did a new song with movement and the alphabet that teacher Lisa found. The song works on crossing our body (example:right hand crosses across to the left shoulder) while saying the letters and their sounds. We tried to touch our toes and got a much needed rest break during our Jump song by Patty Shukla.
Here’s how the students used their free choice time…
The weather for recess was fantastic and we took full advantage! We brought out the bikes and some bouncy balls, even the bubble machine!
We will continue our dinosaur unit for one more week then move into the ocean/beach/summer unit. It was a super week. Springtime is such a time of growth and it’s wonderful to see how the students are growing and changing right before our eyes. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday!
Warmly,
Teachers Jelena and Lisa
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