Week 5

Well, i did so good to upload pictures right away...but I never got around to doing the write up of the week.



We learned the "letter L"...sorry if there was any confusion with the letter "A"...we are doing that letter this week.



We had fun making more rain forest animals...our parrots, iguana (or Lizard) hats, and butterflies. Before we made our butterflies I told them the story of the very hungry caterpillar. We discussed the life cycle of a butterfly, and actually have a cocoon here (my girls caught a caterpillar when we were camping...it has been a cocoon for MONTHS)...They were so fascinated by it all, I will be buying a butterfly kit in the near future so they can watch the whole cycle themselves!!



We also played a few games such as Rain Forest Bingo.



We read a lot of books, including one "book on tape"--they all LOVED that.



Our pattern this month is red flower, green lily pad, red flower, green lily pad, etc.



We learned how to say hungry and thirsty in sign language as well as every letter we have learned (m, r, s, l)



We had a good discussion about the proper way to cover your mouth (when you cough or sneeze)...into your elbow, and we talked about how important it is to ALWAYS wash our hands. I also demonstrated how we should wash our hands (front and back... in between fingers, etc) and for how long. I will be teaching them a song this week to practice singing every time they wash their hands.



Tune: row row row your boat

wash wash wash your hands

make them sparkly clean

wash your hands and do the trick

and make them nice and clean.



We related this to getting sick, and that hand washing is the best way to keep from getting sick and spreading germs. I keep hearing so much about the swine flu, etc...please please please if your child is showing ANY signs of sickness...please keep them home for 24 hours to truly give it time to see what is going on. Thank you!

We will also be moving on to the number 13. We have been doing three the past couple weeks:



around the tree

around the tree

that's how you make a THREE!



They can say that as they write a three and hopefully it will help them remember how. Practice at home for homework!! Which by the way...they are all doing fabulous with their homework. Keep it up...I can't believe how many of them can write most of their name already without any dots!!



This week we will be finishing making our rain forest animals. The last week will be more "work" they will be tracing all the letters we have learned, drawing pictures to go along with them, etc...and then we will be done with this unit.



Here are a few "teacher tips" that are in my lesson plan book...thought I would share a couple so you can see their reason for doing some of the things we do...

"Playing games like Bingo builds social competence and mathematical abilities. Repeat this game numerous times throughout the month."



"Lines are one of the core elements of art. This project (the iguana hat) invites children to explore the use of lines, both with crayons, and scissors while drawing free-form lines on the iguana and cutting small lines to create the iguanas back."



Just in case you were interested! :)



So that's a LITTLE insight as to what went on last week!! We have plenty more adventures planned for this week!! Hope you have a good one!