Use Your Noodle! (W, 20, Blue, Triangle)

Our theme this week was "Use Your Noodle" and we focused on the letter W, number 20 and we revisited the color blue and triangle shape.

Our school is getting ready for our Art Show in the middle of April. When all the projects are completed I will take pictures and show you our super cool "Garden". I can't wait! For a little preview this week... Frogs! I got the project idea here. (Here are two of our "toad" class pets too!)

We read this week: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
                               Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
                               Baby Beluga by Raffi
                               Tumford the Terrible by Nancy Tillman
                               1,2,3 Peas by Keith Baker

Our question of the week was "What do you eat with noodles?"Some of these answers myself and our class parents giggled at and questioned...

For our theme of the week, we counted 20 elbow macaroni and glued them on a plate of pasta with meatballs.

We also got to have some sensory exploration with cooked and uncooked spaghetti. This was a lot of fun. They touched and described the uncooked pasta first, and then got to play with some cooked pasta. We did this in three different groups, and they were all really great with explaining what they were feeling!

Our song of the week was "On Top of Spaghetti".. now there were some conflicting feelings about the lyrics of this song between the teachers in the school. I was taught the long version when I was little, so that was what we sang. Plus my kids thought it was hilarious to have a meatball tree.

"On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.

The mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And then the next summer,
It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered,
All covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs,
And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
Whenever you sneeze".... phew!

We talked again about the color blue. Since we already found blue items in the classroom. We played a little game called "Category Brainstorm, and tried to list as many things that we could that are the color blue. Then we turned our list into a class book!

We talked about the shape triangle and the kids loved singing our triangle song from this week.

The kids also practiced tracing and recognizing triangles. These came from the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 20.

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see.

With my math boxes (check them out on this post- at the bottom), we counted out 20 items (we did the same activity for the number 17. Then I had the kids divide it into two groups. Using this worksheet that I made, we started doing and talking about addition to get to 20. They liked being able to make up their own groups to add. 

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Ww from this book.

The students wrote in their journals for the letter W. It's really cool to see the children thinking about what they want to put in their journal. They love these books and always want to go through them when they're finished writing for the day.

We turned a W into a Worm! This book is great.

This book has great pages for helping the kids work on the letter recognition of both the capital and the lowercase versions of the letter, and they are always a little different, which is great!

The kids made a book full of the letter W called "What's in Walrus' Window?" from the Letter of the Week Book 2.

We acted out a Whale poem from the Letter of the Week Book 1.

For our alphabet wall we made whales! Now these were huge! We would have needed a very large ocean to fit all of our whales, so I randomly selected some to go on the ABC wall and sent the rest home. This was also from Letter of the Week Book 1.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Spring has Sprung!" and a focus on the letter Xx, number 21, color pink and square shape.

Hibernation! (N, 11, Brown)

Our theme for last week was "Hibernation" and we focused on the letter Nn, the number 11 and the color brown. I have to say after all the short weeks and holidays, it feels SO GOOD to get back into the swing of our routine. =]

  
We read this week: Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson
                               Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
                               Curious George's Dream by Margret and H.A. Reys
                               Corduroy by Don Freeman
                               Bear's Loose Tooth by Karma Wilson

Our question of the week was "How long would you like to hibernate?" It fit perfectly with our theme this week, and some of the answers were so funny!

For our theme of the week, we talked about hibernation and sleep!

We met a bear! I am not a supporter of hunting, but it was interesting to see how the kids remembered what we had talked about in relation to the bear (claws, fur, nose).

We pretended to be grizzly bears. We talked about what they do throughout the year, foraging, hunting, playing and hibernating. I called out the seasons of the year and the children changed heir activities. They had so much fin looking for a "cave" to hibernate in when I called out WINTER!

With white and black paint and a little glitter, we painted polar bears! I love how each child did it a little different. So fun!

We talked about the color brown, and we sang "3 Brown Bears" to the tune of "3 Blind Mice"

"Three brown bears, three brown bears.

See all their beds, see all their chairs.

The Mommy cooks in a big brown pot.

The Daddy's porridge is much too hot.

The Baby bear always cries a lot.

Three brown bears."

I found it here.

When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk

around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is brown. The tricky thing is that they have to bring different things, no duplicates allowed! Here is what we found for the color brown.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 11.

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see.

We drew 11 balls for an elephant named Elmo to juggle.

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Nn from this book.

We did this worksheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book.

The students wrote in their journals for the letter N.

We turned a N into a Nightcrawler! This book is great.

We made a short book all about "In The Nest" that I got from this Mailbox book.

Painting with noodles was super fun!

Using pictures of different food, we discussed as a group and sorted them into healthy/not healthy groups. It was a great way to start talking about nutrition.

Practicing writing the alphabet Aa-Nn was a good way to review the letters that we have already talked about.

Using old magazines, we made number collages. This is a challenging activity because of it's steps. Looking on the pages for numbers, cutting them out and then gluing them.

For our alphabet wall we used q-tips to paint nests. I love the "stripey" effect that the q-tip gets.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Let it Snow!" and focusing on the letter Oo, white and 12.