Happy Valentine's Day!

Today was our Valentine Party! We played ABC heart bingo, made heart pizzas and passed out Valentine's. Earlier this week we made animals out of hearts. This activity was a bit of a challenge for the kids because I showed them some I had made but told them they needed to be creative and make theirs all on their own. They turned out so cute! And full of lots of glue.

Pics from our party! It was a little crazy today so I didn't get a lot.

Reading Valentine stories.

Little toddlers enjoying all the candy!

Passing out Valentine's.

Heart shaped pizzas made from English muffins. 

Heart Art

My examples: 

With the butterfly you can talk about symmetry and making the same hearts on the other wing.

The kids art work!

This is a fish with multiple eyes! I love how all the hearts stacked on top look like scales on the fish. 

He was so proud of his!

Celebrating Groundhog's Day and Chinese New Year!

What a fun week we had! We got to celebrate 2 holidays :) We started out with Groundhog's Day. My camera wasn't charged this day so I didn't get to take any pictures of the kids. We first talked about what a groundhog is. Most of the kids had never heard of one. I showed them some pictures of them. A lot of them thought they were a beaver or a squirrel. (So cute) After telling them about a famous groundhog named Puxatony Phil we watched last years announcement of whether or not he saw his shadow. They got so excited to find out the next day if we would have 6 more weeks of winter or if Spring was on it's way. (I am really hoping that his prediction will be right, I am ready for sandal weather!) Afterwards we talked about what a shadow is and how it is made. We then made shadow puppets on the wall with a flashlight and all the blinds closed. They absolutely loved this part! For art we made a little groundhog that pops out of the grass to see if he can see his shadow or not.

I posted this years CBS announcement for Groundhog's Day in case you didn't get to see it!

Puxatony Phil 2011

For Chinese New Year we were so lucky to have one of the student's mom come talk to us. She is from China and had all sorts of fun pictures to show them. She talked about how long they celebrate, decorations and clothing, the color red is the lucky color and she also shared a fun tradition that all the kids get red envelopes to take with them when they visit family. Instead of getting presents they get money from their relatives. She brought some chocolate coins for them all to have as well as some sweet egg rolls that are more like a dessert. They were so yummy. Thanks again Xiao Xiao it was such a fun day! 

After she talked to them we made Chinese Lanterns for decoration and then practiced eating ramen noodles with chopsticks. This was one of my favorite days we have had. The kids were so happy and it was so much fun to see so much excitement on their faces. 

Icebergs

Today was so fun! It is my birthday and the kids kept singing happy birthday over and over again to me. They were so well behaved and I felt super lucky to have things go so smoothly today. We learned about icebergs in the arctic and talked about them melting. We started by writing our name in the snow (shaving cream).

Afterwards I had frozen little paper cups of water that they pulled out and dumped blue water and salt on to watch them melt. They loved doing this and started a little competition to see who could make their iceberg melt the first. 

And last today we made our own edible iceberg floats! Just make blue Kool-Aid and pour half into a clear plastic cup, add some sprite and then a scoop of vanilla ice cream at the top for the iceberg. So yummy! 

Strangers

We have been talking about safety and today we discussed strangers. We watched a quick little movie clip on Little Red Riding Hood and talked about who was the stranger in this story. Of course they all yelled out, the wolf. I like this version because they make the wolf appear to be very friendly at first  and he looks nice when he really is a big bad wolf. We discussed how not all bad people look mean. Some of them can look really nice but may want to still hurt you. We also talked about Little Red Riding Hood and what she said to the wolf that you should never say to a stranger. For example; telling him her name and where her grandmother lived. I also found a great list of things that are good to talk to your kids about when discussing strangers. It talks about things a stranger may say to you to try to get you to come with them. And what to do if you get lost. I have included the movie and list for your convenience to look at. Afterwards we made puppets of the big bad wolf to remind them that they should stay away from people they don't know.

Little Red Riding Hood story



Talking to kids about strangers

The Bean Museum

We were able to go to The Bean Museum again this year for one of our field trips. We always have so much fun here seeing all the animals and finding them in a scavenger hunt. We also had a reptile show given to us again. This part is so fun to see real reptiles and learn about different things that make them different from other animals. Just a side note though: They don't open until 10 if anybody is wanting to go earlier. We learned this the hard way. :)

 Answering questions about reptiles.

 Must use 2 fingers to touch the animals.

 Pretending to be a turtle and hide in the shell.

 Snake names Cuddles:) How appropriate for a boa constrictor.

 A little nervous about touching the snake.

 A gecko.
I can't remember his name and it has been bugging me. Oh, I think it was Bruskie. Not sure on Spelling.

Snowy Owls

We have been talking about Arctic Animals this month. One of them that we talked about this week was the Snowy Owl. This bird is so beautiful to watch especially when flying. They are a brownish color during the summer months and the rest of the year a beautiful snow white. They primarily eat lemmings.
We read a book about these birds and then made an edible owl for cooking. They loved eating these. Thanks to Amy from superhealthykids for the idea.

recipe from SuperHealthyKids