I LOVE February!

Hey Everyone! We have been having such a great time learning lots of new things! There are lots of pictures this time. Sorry, if it is too long. I had a hard time getting rid of any pictures. The kids are just so cute. :) 

Field Trip to Macey's Grocery Store; 

We saw the big oven and mixer at the bakery. And watched them make roses out of frosting. The kids loved getting a fresh cookie out of the oven. 

We learned about the rainbow section of the store and looked for all our colors in the produce section.

We got to go in their giant fridge and got a cutie orange for a snack.

We looked at their Deli and the kids loved trying some meat and cheese as well as the picture of their giant ice cream cone.

We went through other parts of the store and at the end we got a bag of goodies. It was a really fun day!

Groundhog Day

We talked about groundhogs and looked at pictures of them. We discussed how they hibernate and what they like to eat, and where they live. We watch the video from last year where Phil didn't see his shadow and therefore it meant spring would be coming soon. The kids were anxious to see if he would see his shadow or not this year. 

We made a pop up groundhog puppet that we sand a little poem to. "I'm a little groundhog, furry and brown, See me pop while I look around. If I see my shadow, down I'll go. Six more weeks of winter Oh No!" 

We also hid in a laundry basket while singing this poem and took turns being a groundhog popping out to look for his shadow. At the end of the day we practiced making shadow puppets. 

Chinese New Year

My friend Xiao Xiao is from China and she came to visit our class. She showed lots of pictures and brought her daughter who was wearing authentic chinese clothes. In China they celebrate the new year for many days. Each day they eat a different food and the enjoy visiting family. The children get a red envelope, since red is a lucky color, and they visit family who give them money to put in their envelope. 

They decorate with lots of lanterns and whatever the animal of the year is. So if it was the year of the snake they decorate their homes with snakes. THey have lots of fireworks and parades with dragons in them. 

We made our own lanterns and also colored envelopes red. I gave each child a quarter to put in their envelope. We finished out the day eating noodles with chopsticks and fortune cookies. The kids loved having me read their fortune to them. I had to make them easier for them to understand. :) 

This guy knew how to use those chopsticks really well. :)

5 Senses Week

I love doing this week. We always have so much fun. For Taste we talked about the tongue and all the different parts that help us taste. The kids were fascinated to learn about taste buds. We then tried different foods. For bitter we tried unsweetened chocolate (nobody liked this one), for salty we had potato chips, for sour we had a lemon and for sweet we had gummy worms. 

For sight we played a game where we would look at different objects and then take one away and see who could look and see what was missing. We made our own eye snack out of carrots (since they are good for our eyes, cream cheese, and olives. 

Spitting out the chocolate :) 

We also cut out pictures of foods that we  like to taste and glued them onto a piece of paper. 

For hearing the kids got to bring something from home and then hid under a table and made the noise. They loved trying to guess what each child brought. I was even stumped on a couple. :) For touch we guessed what could be in a sock by feeling it. 

For smell we rea

For smell we read the book What's that Awful Smell. This is such a cute book about a bunch of animals that are trying to figure out what a terrible smell is coming from the barn. They think it is a baby pig but it ends up being the cat's tuna fish sandwich. We then painted with koolaid and the whole room smelt so good! 

After going through all the senses we made a picture. We did googly eyes for sight, we did a cotton ball dipped in tree oil for smell, we did bells for hearing, we did licorice for taste and we did soft foam hands for touch. 

Valentine Week! 

The kids loved this last week. We talked about ways that we can show people we love them. We can give them a kiss or a hug, we can tell them we love them, we can get the a gift, we can do nice things for them. 

We also talked a lot about keeping our hearts healthy. We talked about eating healthy foods and getting exercise. We had fun feeling our heart beats and then exercising and feeling how it got so much faster. 

We made "Will you be my Valentine?" cards for somebody we love. 

We also practiced sorting a box of conversations hearts and comparing our colors to see which color we had the most of and which ones we had the least of. 

We marched to music and when the music stopped one lucky person got to pick up a heart off the ground. Each heart told us something silly to do. For example: Make a silly face, jump on one foot, wiggle like a worm. 

We also made heart people. 

We played a game with a bean bag. They each had a paper that had different exercises on it. (pushups, run in place, jump rope, pretend to kick a soccer ball) They would throw their bean bag onto a square and then do the exercise that the picture showed them. 

For our Valentine Party we played spin the bottle and said something nice about who the bottle landed on and then gave them a sticker, we made heart puppets, we played bingo and we decorated cookies. At the end we passed out Valentines. Thank you to all of my moms who came to help! Seriously that is always the hardest part because they are so excited. It was a great success and the kids all went home smiling.