A not so snowy January

I think the kids have been a bit confused without any snow this year. We keep talking about winter stuff and they don't seem to realize it is really winter right now. :) We have had a great month with lots of fun activities. I broke part of my camera and so I only have a large lens now that zooms super close. So I am sorry if the pictures aren't the best.

We started the year off by reading a book about Chinese New Year and then made some New Year's Resolutions. There were some great ideas. "Visit my Grandma more, see more fireworks, play with my mom and dad more, tickle my dad, play with more trains, and the list goes on."

We learned about Polar Bear and Penguins at the beginning of the month.

Penguin Day:

 For snack time they had to put the correct number of fishes on each penguin to eat. We have been working on our numbers a lot this month and they are getting really good at them.

Shape practice helping the penguin get to the ocean to go diving for fish. 

We watched a National Geographic movie about Emperor Penguins. They loved watching the daddy penguins take care of the egg and the baby until the mommy could get back with some food for them. We practiced taking care of our own egg with a sock rolled up by our ankles. 

Letter P practice making a penguin. 

Huddled close together to stay warm in the blizzard and keep our babies warm.

 Polar Bear Day: We practiced cutting and making patterns with our polar bear pictures.

Snack time: We made polar bears out of oreos, chocolate chips and bananas. 

Arctic Animal measuring game. The kids would use our bear cubes to measure how big each animal was with their partner and then write the number on their paper. 

Iceberg Day

Penguin Math Game: The kids picked a snowball out of a bag that would tell them a number. They had to put that many penguins on the iceberg.

We practiced writing letters in "Snow" which was shaving cream. They loved this! 

I gave them each their own mini iceberg floating in water that they had to melt to get a toy ball out of. They would breath on it, lick it, and roll it around until it finally melted. 

Iceberg snack: Blue Kool-Aid for the ocean with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream for the iceberg.

Number Day: We cut out lots of numbers and then the kids glued them onto their letter N. We also did number centers today. We fed the shark different numbers, Threw bean bags onto whatever number our partner told us to throw it onto, played a fun froggy game that we rolled a dice for and then fed the frog that many flies, and matched the right popsicle to the correct number of dots. We also connected dominos to matching numbers. The kids had lots of fun this day with their partners. 

Letter N and O: Nursery Rhymes

The kids loved learning the nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock. We stamped on numbers to make a clock. We also retold the story with other numbers and made up some of our own rhymes. The kids used a pointer to find all the letter O's, They loved this song I showed them. 

Hickory Dickory Dock Song

We finished up the day by playing a parachute game. I would tell them a word and then we came up with words that rhymed with it. For each rhyme we put a bean bag on the parachute. Then we said our Hickory Dickory Dock song. For verse 2 I said, "Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck 2, the mouse said "Boo", Hickory Dickory Dock." When we said, "Boo" they got to make the parachute move and get all the bean bags off it. It was a big hit! :) 

Field Trip to Macey's 

We loved visiting our local grocery story and learning about healthy foods and foods we eat just every once in awhile. We also took a tour and learned about the different departments. We learned how they make flowers out of frosting and where they keep all their produce to keep it cold. We counted how many doors of yogurt there were and looked at the different meats. We scared the pharmacist and got some fun snacks to eat. 

I didn't get any pictures of our last day this month. But we learned about letter Q. We painted our letter Q with Q-tips and then added glitter. We also wrote a journal prompt in my 4 year old class of what they would do if they were Queen for a day. We looked through Mrs. Julie's Big Book of letter Q and found all the letter Q's. We learned about the Quarter and read a book about George Washington and why his face is on the Quarter. It was a great month and kids are learning so much. Thank you again for all your help at home and for letting me teach them. They are adorable!