Day of Surprises!

I told the kids during circle time today that we had two surprises: The first one was that our caterpillars made it in the mail yesterday and will hopefully hatch in 3 weeks into butterflies! Just in time for graduation.

For art we read the book "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle. Thank you Natalie for letting me borrow your book, hopefully I can find mine. After reading the book and learning all about aphids (the bugs ladybugs eat) we made our own ladybugs using our hands and paint. Most loved getting their hands messy and dirty and others chose to use a paintbrush so they didn't get their hands "yucky". :) 

They kept asking when the surprise was coming and I told them to keep waiting. Eventually one little girl's mom showed up with a book to read. That wasn't too exciting.

 

But it was a book about cats and kittens, and then next thing she brought in was A LOT more fun! 

Their cat had kittens and they were so adorable. Just 3 weeks old. They will need homes soon so let me know if you are interested in getting one and I can give you a phone number. Thanks Angie for bringing them in, it was so much fun!

Sand rocks, lava rocks and heat and pressure rocks

Last week we finished up our unit on plants. I will have more pictures soon of our sock heads that we planted grass seed in. I am hoping that they will start growing soon. I used a different soil this time so I am a little worried that they may not grow as well. For cooking we made a "dirt pie" basically just a chocolate oreo pie and the kids loved it.

On thursday we started our rock unit. I taught them about the 3 different ways that rocks are made.

Sedimentary Rocks (sand rocks) form over thousands of years of sediment laying in water.

We alo learned about Igneous Rocks (lava rocks): rocks that form when molten lava cools. This was the kids favorite of course making melted chocolate and letting it cool into their lava rock. 

I didn't take picture of our last rock but it is the metamorphic rock (heat and pressure rocks) these are formed when igneous and sedimentary rocks change into a new rock because of heat and pressure. We layered igneous (honey) and sedimentary(bread) rock and then we put a lot of pressure on them. I actually sat on it and squished it. They thought is was funny to see me sit on the food. Next week they are bringing their own rock collection for us to do some experiments on. Each kid will get to be a geologist. 

P.S. Tomorrow we have 2 surprises, can't wait to show the kids what they are :)

Plants

This week we started to learn about plants and flowers for our science unit. We made these cute flower masks. The kids really liked them and would look at each other and start laughing. They really enjoyed learning about all the different parts of the plants. We even talked about the different parts of plants that we eat all the time. Roots: Carrots, radishes and beets; Stem: Celery; Leaves: Cabbage and lettuce; Seeds: Peas and Corn; Fruit: Tomatoes; Flower: Cauliflower

For cooking this week I tried out a yummy recipe from superhealthykids. The kids really liked it. I think it will be a recipe I make for our family. It was so yummy. All you need is: 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt, 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 1/4 tsp. Cinnamon, and 1/4 cup of chocolate chips. Mix them all together and then dip apples, strawberries, bananas, pretzels and whatever else you like. 

We decided to eat picnic style today! It was so much easier, I think we may cook on the carpet a lot more.

My little girl woke up earlier than normal today and joined us. Yum! Yum!

Zebras

I hope you had a great Spring Break last week. We met on Tuesday and had a very small class of 3 kids. Even though it was small we had a lot of fun. And it was great to be able to give the kids some one on one attention. We made these Zebras with bleach for Art. The girls did such a great job on them. I'm looking forward to getting back to our normal schedule this week. See you on Tuesday.