Insects...

We began our insect unit by reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We created caterpillars of our own by painting with balloons! We also enjoyed a snack of different fruits - just like the caterpillar ate in the book! It was yummy!

On Tuesday we read a wonderful story called "Waiting for Wings". We looked carefully at the plants and flowers that attract butterflies, and painted some gardens, using a little scrub brush to add the paint. We created the butterflies the next day, and added them to our gardens. Don't they look fantastic!

We created 3 D insect life cycle projects too!

We also have learned that all insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts...the head, thorax and abdomen. We drew diagrams in our journal and labeled the insect body parts. 

Our caterpillars finally arrive on Thursday! We were excited to open the box and look at them. We are documenting their growth and activity in a special journal. 

We had time to learn about one more insect this week...we learned that bees are helpful because they help pollinate plants and they make honey. 

We started out with some rain music on Monday morning. Miss Marlowe brought a rainstick and big drum so we could make rainstorm music - we loved the sounds these instruments made!

We continued learning more about oviparous animals. We learned that octopuses lay their eggs in strings inside of ocean caves. We watched a video and wrote about it in our journals.

We talked about frustration in our social skills lessons this week. Frustration is a yellow zone feeling, and our body cues can help remind us to use a coping skill. Frustration is a strong feeling, and it can be hard to think clearly - we feel uncomfortable. Coping skills can help us feel better and get back in the green zone. We identified some of the times we might feel frustrated at school and at home. Many children named "not getting what they want" and "doing hard work" as triggers for their frustration. 

We wanted to celebrate the spring like weather today, so we ended our oviparous animal study by learning about robins, our state bird. Next week, we will begin a big science unit all about insects! 

April Showers and Oviparous Animals!

We worked together to create this April bulletin board for the hallway! We practiced reading the poem together to find the rhyming words.

We began a science unit about oviparous animals - ask your child to tell you what that word means (egg laying) and have him/her name some oviparous animals. We have been reading many interesting books about oviparous animals and wrote about some in our journals. 

We read some stories about ducks, and painted some for our room. 

In our social skills lessons we talked about strong feelings like disappointment and frustration. We discussed how our bodies feel uncomfortable when we have these feelings and made a chart that shows some of the physical feelings we might experience. Learning to identify body cues can help children know when it is time to calm down... we practiced using a "stop" signal to interrupt the escalation of emotion, and then named the feeling. 

Our individual and group pictures for Picture Day were first thing in the morning. We think we looked pretty good for our pictures. Here we are waiting for our turns...

More authors, more reading!

We ended our Leo Lionni author study with a few more great books written by him. In "Swimmy", we learned how important it is to work as a team to solve a problem. We worked together to create this big fish, just like Swimmy and his friends did in the book. 

The book "Inch by Inch" was all about measuring by inches...so of course, we did some measuring ourselves. 

In preparation for spring, we did a mini author study about Beatrix Potter. We learned that she loved animals, science and drawing and she raised sheep.We loved looking at the letters she wrote to a little boy named Noel - she drew little animal pictures on the letters. Later, these were turned into some of her books. We listened to "Peter Rabbit" and created the scene from the story where Peter hid in the watering can! 

It was a busy, fast week - I hope you all have a wonderful, fun Spring Break. When we return we will be learning all about oviparous animals! 

***We would welcome donations of Clorox/Lysol type canisters of cleaning cloths - we try to wipe tables down daily. Much thanks!***

A Guest Reader and a new author study!

Mr. Gutman, our superintendent, was our guest reader on Monday. He read a great story, "The Most Magnificent Thing" and we had time to ask him a few questions. We had fun talking with Mr. Gutman!

We learned about chameleons when we read our first Leo Lionni book, "A Color of His Own" and we had fun painting some chameleons for our classroom. 

Our next book by this author was called "A Busy Year"- we talked about how trees look at different times of the year and which season we each like the best. 

We read another Leo Lionni book, titled "Frederick" which led to a new coping skill. In this book, Frederick describes happy things to his friends and they are able to put these things into happy thought bubbles. We learned that we can bump out negative thoughts and bump in happy thoughts in order to feel better about things, just like Frederick and his friends did. 

Reading Month Fun!

On Monday we had a visit from an author named Maria Dismondy. She chose someone from our class to come up and help her with part of her presentation. We learned that reading and writing are connected and that stories have a beginning, middle and an ending. 

We concluded our Dr. Seuss author story by reading many more of his rhyming books - we loved "Green Eggs and Ham" which only uses 50 words! We created "wockets for our pockets" after reading the book by that title, and had a lot of fun with "Hop on Pop". All of these Seuss books really helped us improve our ability to rhyme words - which is an important skill in reading!

In our social skills lessons this week, we talked about accidents and how we might feel when someone does something to us accidentally. Often, our students assume that others are behaving with hostility toward them, and may respond aggressively. We worked on stepping back and thinking if something may not have happened on purpose, and how we might react in a calmer way. We used our "size of the problem" lessons from previous weeks to build on this. In addition, we practiced how to apologize when we do something by accident. Apologizing helps people feel better about mistakes. 

We read a wonderful book called "A Visitor for Bear". We talked about the beginning, middle and end of the story, and thought about how Bear's feelings changed in each part. We also identified the characters and the setting in this story - we're getting really good at this! When you read with your son or daughter at home, have them retell the story with the beginning, middle and ending details. 

Our next author study will be Leo Lionni! And, next Monday afternoon we will have a guest reader - our superintendent, Mr. Gutman!

Dr. Seuss activities

We began our Dr. Seuss author study this week and really worked on rhyming words. After reading, "The Cat in the Hat", we created cats and fish from the story. We also created pages in our Dr. Seuss rhyming book for the cat, "Fox in Socks" and "One Fish, Two Fish". I LOVE seeing your kids enjoy reading these books during book box time! 

We were surprised to learn that Dr. Seuss' name was really Theodore Seuss Geisel. Dr. Seuss was his "pen" name. When he wrote the "Cat in the Hat" he only used 236 words! Mrs. Ellis was one year old when it was first published!

We continued to work on "size of the problem" in our social skills lessons. Have your child teach you all about it at home. It will really help if you talk about this often so that your child has many opportunities to think about the size of the problem and then match their reaction to it. Don't be surprised if he/she initially says a problem is medium sized - remind them that medium sized problems involve slight injury (do they need a band aid?), several people and last for several days. This will help remind them that most likely, they have a "glitch" or small problem - no crying/big upsets needed! They are getting good at this at school! Remind yourself that problems are opportunities for learning and practice!

We couldn't resist adding some spring kites to our board this week - we hope spring will be here for good!