March 25, 2011
Room 123 has been learning about all the activity that goes on at a farm. They have been studying different animals and the foods that they provide and their work on the farm. We have been sorting seeds that grow a variety of foods and we will be planting them soon too. The children have been pretending to be farmers as they build farms out of blocks and make tractors to plow the fields.
Next week we will visit the farm at Lincoln Park Zoo as our culminating activity. After that we will see what new interests arise as we head into spring. Our crops will grow as are our children!
Miss Hopkins (Preschool) Room 121
March 25, 2011
We have busy learners throughout the month of March. With the Kohls Children's Storybus that came at the end of February, we were engaged and creative in our Three Little Pigs unit! Our class went through a three step building series of making their own house. Students drafted the type of house they liked, what materials they would use, along with how many windows, doors, etc.Then they went into creating on a large piece of construction paper their two dimensional model of their house, and lastly they used milk cartons as the base of their 4D model. The kids learned a lot from this project, and had a lot of fun as well! As an ending project, we created a "preschool life-size" house! The children voted on which house to build from the Three Pigs. They chose the brick house. Using a large box saved from last year, the children painted, colored, pasted, and constructed their house of bricks! (Including the chimney for the wolf to come down!) This brick house was greatly enjoyed throughout the month of March, but has retired to the land of fairy tale houses!
A wonderful event that has been going on throughout the month of March is that there has been a little Leprechaun visiting some of the kindergarten rooms and room 121! His name is Leroy the Leprechaun, and he has been playing tricks and leaving clues for the children for the past six years! On March 17th, Leroy the Leprechaun sent the preschoolers of room 121 on a huge treasure hunt for the Pot of Gold! The children were squealing with delight, and were amazing problem solvers, communicators, and partners in helping to read the clues, and following the map to the treasure! It definitely was an awesome way to end the week in Preschool!
Currently in room 121 we are underway with our amazing ZOO unit! All of preschool classrooms will be going to the Lincoln Park Zoo on Wednesday, March 30th to see the animals we've been studying, exploring, and creating within our art area! The preschoolers in room 121 decided to focus their animal study on two different types of animals. Our morning class is studying Giraffes and our afternoon class is studying Gorillas! We have been busy bees in our classroom these past two weeks!
A favorite math project we conducted this past week was measuring the height of how tall these animals can be. Using yellow yarn, a yardstick, and some adult supervision, the children laid out the string of the height of a giraffe! The children found through their research that giraffe's can get up to be 19 feet tall! We wanted to see how tall that would be in preschoolers! So, the children lay down next to the yarn, and we found that it takes 5 1/2 preschoolers to equal the height of a giraffe, and 44 preschooler footprints to equal the height of a giraffe! The data collecting was awesome for the children to experience! They were amazing mathematicians, scientists, communicators, and team players! Awesome job preschoolers in room 121! You kids rock!
Mr. Wanberg (Kindergarten) Room 128
March 17, 2011
Yesterday, the day before Saint Patrick’s Day, we read a story about a leprechaun. Some kids decided it might be fun to write to one. I had some extra paper, so we put together some letters and decorated some cups with things that leprechauns like. Gold mostly, but some kids had different ideas too.
One girl decided that a leprechaun might be named Jack Goldstein, so she wrote her letter to him.
Well, imagine our surprise when we arrived this morning to find green footprints leading from the closet to the tables. And our notes were gone, and the cups had shrunk, and each cup contained leprechaun gold.
Some of them decided that he got in the room from under the sink, and they spent a lot of center-time on their backs under the sink looking up at the plumbing and saying things like, “There’s shiny stuff under here!”
The very best part (for me) was after lunch, when we were about to read a story, I overheard them still talking about how the leprechaun managed to do what he did. One child said that well, he did have all night, and another one immediately responded, “No, no. Leprechauns aren’t nocturnal."
Cross my heart.
They might have said more but I got up as fast as I could to write that one down.
http://mrwanberg.wordpress.com/
Ms. Sheller (Kindergarten) Room 101
Posted on April 2, 2011
We finished our unit on frogs this week. Students were very excited to learn that not all frogs are green and some are even poisonous. Stop by and see our frog puppets. We also made books about the life cycle of a frog.
We are working on our new bulletin board so we cut out and painted umbrellas and boots using watercolors. The flowers will appear this week.
I have also included some pictures from Family Reading Night. It was a huge success! I was happy to see so many families in attendance.
http://mrsscheller.wordpress.com/
Ms. Fitzgerald (Kindergarten)
Room 102
Posted on April 1, 2011
In language arts, our unit theme is animals. Phonics: short vowel /u/ and /q/. We will also continue word building activities. Reading comprehension skills will focus on details and main idea. Will continue to use graphic organizers to show comprehension strategies. Our high frequency words are: and, there, give, little, that and have. We will continue with our daily journal practice and also writing letters.
http://fitzgerald102.wordpress.com/
