A short and busy week....

We continued our zoo animal learning... we read about lions and giraffes and compared our hands to the actual size of a gorilla hand...

On Tuesday we had a guest reader in our room! Mr. Hess came from the ESC and read a great book called "Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon". Miss Ross and her class came in to hear it with us - we loved hearing Mr. Hess read to us!

We spent a lot of time during our social skills lessons talking about what "angry" feels like and what we can do when we have this feeling. It is important for children to make the connection between the feeling of anger and the behaviors that follow it...will they engage in behaviors that make the problem bigger or will they engage in calming coping skills in order to solve the problem and make it smaller? There is quite a "leap" between knowing a coping skill (many children know 8-10!) and actually using a coping skill. One thing that is helpful is to have your child choose the coping skill they will use before you need to say "no" or give a direction - then praise them for using it! It is also helpful to remember that kids need a lot of practice with this - saying "no" and giving directions are opportunities for this practice!
This chart helps us remember what we need to do when someone gives us directions... 

I hope you all enjoy the long weekend! Next week we will learn more about zoo animals and the week of April 4-8 is Spring Break! The marking period ends today, Thursday March 24 - report cards for this past marking period will go home on April 13. 

Zoo Animals

This week we began learning about zoo animals. We read about tigers. kangaroos, snakes and giraffes. We learned that giraffes are "unique" because they have long, blue tongues. We learned that tigers are carnivores and eat meat and giraffes are herbivores. Both are mammals, but snakes are reptiles. This is a high interest topic, so you might want to consider a trip to the zoo over Spring Break.  We did a lot of writing about animals...

We created tigers and snakes and added marble painted squares to our board...

We learned that kangaroos are marsupials - mother kangaroos have pouches for their "joeys". We like to add diagrams and details to our animal pictures. 

When Miss Marlowe came for music we sang some Dr. Seuss music...

She also helped us sing a song about our recess chart...

We have been working on being safe and respectful at recess, and have been practicing listening calmly to adults when they need to give us directions. When children run off or tell adults they don't need to listen to them, the problem gets larger. We are practicing these steps when an adult is speaking to us:
  Stop    Listen    Say OK    Do It. 

We had a great parent support group meeting the other night. One of the parents offered to organize a play date at a local park over spring break. If you would be interested in sharing your email/phone/contact info, please send it to me and I will pass it on to her. 

Another Week with Seuss!

We enjoyed some more Seuss books this week, including "Green Eggs with Ham", a "Wocket in my Pocket", "One Fish, Two Fish" and "McElligot's Pool". After reading these books, we are pretty good at rhyming words! Here is some of our Seuss artwork...

We had so much fun with hat day and glow stick reading on Friday...

We also used our glow sticks at Center Time...

Next week we will begin a big zoo animal unit! 

Yesterday (Thursday) we had a substitute teacher for the entire day while I attended a district training. 
In our Social Skills lessons we talked about "worry". We brainstormed different coping skills that can help us when we feel worried or anxious, including deep breathing, positive self talk, expressing our feelings and getting adult help. Sometimes children feel anxious or worried, but their behavior is displayed in a way that looks aggressive or disruptive. Building skills to calm down when worried can help students cope with school and personal stresses in a more positive way. 
Next Wednesday, March 16, is our Parent Support Group Meeting - 6:00 in our classroom. 

On Monday we predicted if March would come in like a lion or a lamb. We painted lions with forks! 

We began our Dr. Seuss author study by reading "The Cat in the Hat". We learned that Dr. Seuss spent a long time writing this book and he made many changes to it before it was published. We  painted hats...

and made cats....

The children had to really watch carefully during our directed drawing of the cat's face....they did a fantastic job! 

Friday was especially fun! We read another Seuss book, "Fox in Socks", made foxes and wore crazy socks! We made a list of rhyming words and put them on our foxes. 

We had a wonderful assembly this afternoon and everyone did a great job sitting and listening. Here is our leader of the month for the trait of integrity. 

Just a reminder...our Parent Support Group Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 16 from 6:00-7:00 in our classroom. We would love to have you join us!