Snow, Winter

Our theme was Snow and winter again.

In our small group we talked about how all the snowflakes in the whole world are different.  Though some are close, they are all different.  Students put glue on a snowflake however they chose and then chose between rainbow, white, or silver glitter.  They then shook their own snowflake off using their fine motor skills, and then put it on the drying rack.  They are on our 3D tree in our classroom and look great!

We have been practicing The Gingerbread Man.  We have been practicing the role playing of the skit and showing how a story can be made into parts. Students are very excited.  

We also made snowmen.  I had printed three circles on white paper with a 30pt thickness line to allow ample cutting room.  Students wrote their own name on their paper.  They then cut out the three snowballs out.  They then put them in size order, small, middle big to make a snowman.  I gave students the choice to decorate the snowman with their scraps and/or crayons.  Students chose both options and they turned out great.

Through out the week, students come into the room looking for the trouble Herbie got into during the week.  He was hiding on the pencil sharpener on Monday and Tuesday, we think he liked it because it goes around and around.  The kids thought this was funny when I demonstrated!  (pathetic save, I know :-/) Wednesday he had drawn on the board!  It was a Christmas tree, his picture and his name.  We couldn't believe it!  Thursday he was perched up in the 3D tree just hanging out watching!  He is holding a piece of paper a student wrote his name on yesterday.  He was so happy a friend thought of him he HAD to show Santa!

I found a project in which the students can make an igloo IN the classroom.  (How to make a Gallon Igloo).

Igloo Progress

Afternoon class helped us make a circle.  One student held the middle
of the string and we went around the circle, each student applying
tape around the circle

Taping in progress

Taping in progress

Making our way around the circle

The circle is complete.  We did it!

This many friends fit in it right now!

I put the hot glue on the milk jugs, and then passed it
to the students.  They held it together while the glue dried

After students left today I finished gluing everything together and got as far as I could with the jugs we had.  This is a total of 48 milk jugs so keep them coming so we can build it up!  Also, upon reading the directions again, they did use some half gallon jugs as well.  If you have some bring them in!  I am so excited for them to play in the igloo!

Skills used thus far: counting jugs, sorting caps, making a circle, team work, taking turns, following directions of increasing complexity.

Apple Unit

We started the week with The Biggest Apple Ever.  

We then colored our apples red, cut them out ourselves, and sorted them by size: small, middle, big.

We read: Apple Countdown.

We then made apple cores by cutting out 2 half circles drawn by teacher on a paper plate.  The students then recycled their own extra pieces.  They came back, wrote their name on the back and then made the "bumpy parts of the plate" red with red bingo dotters.  They then picked a leaf with out seeing the number.  Once they chose their leaf, they flipped it over and I stapled it to their core.  They then had to bingo dot that many seeds into their core.  

We read: I am an Apple.  We talked about the life cycle of a tree.  

To reinforce this we did Apple tree Yoga.  

In a tiny seed 

Rain and sun need to go on their backs before they can grow!

Wiggle and grow into a tall tree

5 petals on our blossoms

Petals fall off one by one (count to five 2 times)

When all the petals fall off, you have tiny apples.

and they grow bigger, and bigger....

Huge Apples! 

The apples plop off the tree: plop, plop

The apples break apart and the seeds come out.

 Repeat!

We also labeled an apple:

We then cut an apple in half to see the star.  We then stamped with them, counted our stamped apples, and then counted the points on our stars.  

We watched these videos:

Finally: We used our 5 senses and Looked at, Smelled, Listened to, Felt, and tasted some golden delicious apples.  

Smell

Look

Listen to (shake)

Touch

Taste

And then documented our results: