Friday, January 14, 2011

Unit 3- January 18 - 21

It's A Girl
Please welcome the newest
addition to the Cub Cadet Classroom: Flower the Rabbit
She will be in our classroom over the next few weeks.

Weekly Reminders:
-No school on Monday
-HOMEWORK- How wind moves homework:  Please return it by January 18 so we can create a class book.

Week 2-Theme- Wind and Water
In unit 3, children explore wind and water observations, experiments, and books to learn about such topics as evaporation, weather, temperature, insulation, rain, and snow. Through the story time books, children hear about a boy playing on a windy day, baby rabbits and kitten finding shelter in storms, a child playing in the snow, and a silly hen trying to keep warm in winter. In addition, to listening to stories, children increase their listening and speaking vocabulary and continue to learn about rhymes and identify letters and sounds.

Theme Concepts
-We find water in different forms- as rain(liquid), snow and ice(solid), and as steam(gas). Temperature affects the form of water.
-Water soaks into, or is absorbed by, some things but is repelled by others.
-Wind- moving air- affects things. Lighter things are moved a lot by wind. Heavier things are moved less by wind. The amount of wind changes with the weather. In storms, wind can blow very hard.
-Water comes to us through rain or snow.
-Water evaporates from puddles and from things that are wet.
-Plants and animals need water to live.
-Water and wind provide opportunities for recreation.

Books this week
-Rabbits and Raindrops by Jim Arnosky
-The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Small Groups this week
-Math- Let's Make Tanagrams- We will be exploring tanagrams and matching these shapes onto pictures. We will use visual discrimination to fill in pictures.

-Science- Absorbancy of Materials-We will be experimenting with water to see what materials absorb water and which materials repel water (related to the rabbits absorbing fur in our Rabbits and Raindrops book)

-Journal Writing- We will discuss and create a journal entry based on our book Gilberto. We will talk about what we like to do in the wind and relate it to how Gilberto played in the wind.

-Where are the animal? -We will be learn spatial location such as above, below, left, and right. Then we will we place a game which will require children to use their memory skills to remember where the animals are after we hid them.

-Water Sound Exploration- We will use various objects in the water table such as cans, tubes, foil, and plastic. We will pour water on these objects to hear the sound it makes. We will then use spray bottles and eyedroppers to explore how the sound it different when we change how the water is placed on the objects.

-Clapping Syllables- We will be listening to the sounds of our unit vocabulary words. We will be creating charts to show if words have one, two, or three syllables. Some vocabulary words are umbrella, raining, sailboat, and many more.

**We present our small groups in groups of three. Some groups may be continued from prior weeks or will be continued to a future week.

Center Activities this week
Art: Rain Sticks made with papertowels, rice and foil
Easel: Painting with colors from Rabbits and Raindrops(green, yellow, black, and white paints)
Writing: Writing and drawing animals from Rabbits and Raindrops
Sand and Water: Snow from outside(we certainly have enough of it!!)
Library: Exploring books
Manipulatives: Uppercase Letter Clothespin Match Game
Dramatic Play: Taking care of animals (Pet Vet)
Blocks: building with blocks

Songs, Word Play, Letters
Songs: Come On and Join in the Game; Clap Your Hands; SNOWY(our snowy version of BINGO)
Poems: Hands; Stand Up; My Big Balloon; Mix a Pancake; Five Little Owls in an Old Elm Tree
Literacy Skills: Clapping out syllables of unit vocabulary words

Try this at home: Put snow in a container and bring it inside.  Have your child watch what happens to the snow over time.  In our story next week, the boy in the story brings a snowball inside and is disappointed when he discovers it melted in his pocket overnight.

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