Today we made vegetable soup!

Today we made vegetable soup. First we cut the vegetables in our small groups.

We then put all the vegetables in the pot. We went to the kitchen and put it on the stove to cook.

We all tasted the soup. Then each child was asked the question of the day: Did you like the soup?

We answered using our bear names on our chart. Most of the children liked the soup. 

It was a "SOUPer" day.

Things that grow week 2 May 2-6

Theme 6- Things That Grow

Children will explore how living things grow, using observations, experiments, and books. Through story time readings, children will hear about ducks who find a special home, a new baby on a farm, a boy who grows from baby to school age, and a girl who discovers the joys of growing vegetables. Children continue to learn about leters, sounds, and rhyming words, and participate in many other math, science, music, poetry, and art activities.

Theme Concepts:
-Living things grow and have life cycles.
-Living things reproduce, and the offspring are the same kind of plant or animal as their parents.
-Living things need food, water, and proper living conditions to survive.
-Immature living things need special care.
-Living things interact, and among animals ther are predators and prey.

Book This Week:
Make Way for Ducklings
Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
Chickens Aren't the Only Ones

Small Groups:
-Vegetable Dice Game- We will roll a cube with 6 different vegetables on it. Then record on a chart which vegetable was on the cube.  We will discuss which vegetable came out the most, the least, or the same.
-Vegetable Memory- We will play a memory game using vegetable cards.
-Worm Habitat Observations- We will observe real worms in soil.  We will spray water on them and watch how they react.  We will then draw a picture of what they look like.
-How seeds grow art project-We will use art supplies to show different parts of a flower such as stem, roots, leaves, seeds, and petals.
-Animal Babies born alive or in eggs- We will look in books to see what babies are born live like people and born in eggs like birds. We will then create a chart to take home.
-Sorting Seeds- We will give each child 4 different seeds to sort into 4 groups. Then they will use words to describe each different seed.
Some of these groups will continue next week.
Centers

-Dramatic Play- Garden Shop
-Sensory Table- filling gardening pots
-Art Table-creating flowers for our garden mural
-Science- Observing Tadpoles and observing our green bean plants(observation journals)
-Blocks- Little People Community Helpers
-Math- Counting Seeds Activity
-Library- Books about growing
-Technology-using Ipads
-Easel- painting with "mud"

Songs, Word Play, and Letters
-Green Grass Grows All Around
-Grow song
-When I was one (a growing poem)
-Letter Garden- Each child will be given a fruit or vegetable. A "seed letter" will be planted and they will be asked if they have a fruit or vegetable that has the beginning sound of that letter.

Happy Birthday Julie

Today we celebrated our teacher's birthday! We wrote cards at the writing center. We also sang and gave her flowers. She was very surprised!!

Happy Birthday Julie!!!

Things That Grow- Week 1

Theme 6- Things That Grow

Children will explore how living things grow, using observations, experiments, and books. Through story time readings, children will hear about ducks who find a special home, a new baby on a farm, a boy who grows from baby to school age, and a girl who discovers the joys of growing vegetables. Children continue to learn about leters, sounds, and rhyming words, and participate in many other math, science, music, poetry, and art activities.

Theme Concepts:

-Living things grow and have life cycles.

-Living things reproduce, and the offspring are the same kind of plant or animal as their parents.

-Living things need food, water, and proper living conditions to survive.
-Immature living things need special care.
-Living things interact, and among animals ther are predators and prey.

Book This Week:

Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert

The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin

Small Groups:
- Math- Which is Longer? - Children will compare various classroom objects. Vocabulary for this activity include; long, longer, and longest.
-Science- Making Greenhouses- Children will decorate their greenhouses. Then we will discuss what makes seeds grow. We will place a lima bean seed in a baggie with a papertowel and add water. We will put them in our classroom to observe them later.
-Weighing Veggies and Fruit- Using a balance scale, children will compare 2 food at a time to see what weighs more and less.
-Planting Seeds- We will plant green bean seeds in soil and discuss the sequence of growing from a seed to a plant to get food.
-Making vegetable soup- We will cut(with plastic knives) different vegetables in small groups. Then we will cook the veggies to make soup. Then we will taste the soup and create a chart to show who liked the soup and who did not like the soup. We will discuss our results of our chart.

Centers

-Dramatic Play- Making vegetable soup

-Sensory Table- Dried Beans for exploration

-Art Table- Printing Veggies on paper with paint

-Science- Observing Tadpoles and observing our green bean plants(observation journals)

-Blocks- Building and Bends Blocks( to make flower gardens)

-Math- Counting Seeds Activity
-Library- Books about growing

Songs, Word Play, and Letters
-Green Grass Grows All Around
-Grow song
-When I was one (a growing poem)
-Letter Garden- Each child will be given a fruit or vegetable. A "seed letter" will be planted and they will be asked if they have a fruit or vegetable that has the beginning sound of that letter.

Musical Performance Today

Today our classroom watched children's musician, Rick Golden.  We sang and danced along with the music and his silly puppets. Everyone enjoyed the performance.

Tadpoles in our classroom

Today Mr. Papadonis from the Burlington Science Center came into our classroom. He gave us tadpole eggs for us to keep in our classroom science center.  He talked with us about the life cycle of tadpoles.  We will be carefully watching the eggs for the next several weeks.  We will create tadpole journals to draw how the eggs change.  Mr. Papadonis told the class we might have some of the egg hatch over the weekend. When we come back to school on Monday, we may have some tadpoles swimming in our water. Ask your child on Monday.

Emotions Unit April 11-15

 The Cub Cadets are getting in touch with our emotions and feelings this week. We will be exploring a variety of emotions.  We will be reading a variety of books that explore how we feel in various situations.  We will role play and discuss how we feel in different situations(ie, when someone takes a toy, when a friend shares with us, when a friend falls and gets hurt).

Stories:
The Bravest Fish
Glad Monster Sad Monster
Have You Filled Your Bucket Today?
Silly Sally
My Mouth is a Volcano

Small Groups:
-Feelings Bingo- Children will have a bingo board with different feelings on them.  A picture of a child in a situation will be shown to the group and we will discuss what the feeling is. Then they will find the matching emotion on their bingo board.
-Sorting Emotions- We will take pictures of the children and ask them to make a happy, sad, or angry face.  The pictures will be printed for each child to sort. They will sort the pictures by emotion then create a chart.
-Feelings Journal Book- Each child will create their own feeling book and decribe when they are happy, sad, and angry.
-Patterning Emotions- Children will create a pattern strip in an AB, ABC, or ABB pattern.

Choice:
-Easel – primary colors
-Sensory– sand and buckets
-Dramatic Play – making food for others
-Art – Filling Buckets with happy things
-Manipulative Table- alphabet arch and letters to match
-Writing Center – writing cards to friends
-Puzzles – letter puzzles
-Blocks – blocks
-Science Table- Touching Table (Exploring how items feel)

Songs, Word Plays and Letters
-Eentsy, Weentsy Spider (emotions version-The sad little spider, the happy little spider.....)
(children will act out the emotion of the spider)
-If your happy and you know it, If your sad and you know it, If your scared and you know it.....

Shadows and Reflections week 4

Shadows and Reflections – Week 4

Theme – During this unit students will explore shadows and reflections, using observations, experiments and books to learn what makes a shadow and a reflection. Through Story Time books, children hear about a girl playing by a still pond, a puppy who thinks he is a kitten, a crocodile collecting reflections in a pail, a sleepy boy who sees a shadow save a cat, and a raccoon who has an adventure with only his reflection for company.

Theme Concepts:

Reflections are images thrown back from a shiny surface.
There must be light or there is no reflection.
Mirrors and still water reflect light well; dull surfaces do not.

If water is moving, its reflections are blurry or crooked.

Objects are opaque, translucent, or transparent.

Shadows are the dark areas made when an object blocks light.

Stories:

Moonbear's Shadow

Guess My Shadow by Stephen Swinburne

Night Shift Daddy by Eileen Spinelli

Small Groups:

-Snake Patterns- We will create AB and other patterns along the body of a snake.

-What is a Shadow?- We will look for shadows in our unit books. Then we will discuss how shadow can change shape by being closer or further from a light source. We will also go on a shadow hunt around our school to find shadows of chairs, tables, easels and other classroom objects.

-Class Book- Each child will create a page in a class book. They will write about the pet they would wish for.
-Constructing Shadows and Reflections- We will use blocks to build shadows using flashlights.  We will also build with blocks using the reflection to create a block creation with a peer.
-Measuring Frogs on a Log- We will be using non-standard units (frogs) to measure how long logs are.
-Bears in a cave- We will use bear manipulatives to count how many bears are in and out of a cave. We will develop concepts such as in and out, as well as beginning adding concepts. We will also create a book.

Choice:
-Easel – Bendaroos on the easel to create letters and shapes.
-Sensory– plastic green grass along with snakes, frogs, and turtles. We will search for the hidden animals in the grass then sort them into containers
-Dramatic Play – construction zone. In Moonbear's Shadow, he tried to use hammer and nails to hold down his shadow.

-Art –open ended painting
-Manipulative Table- Fish manipulatives
-Shadow Table- children can go under the table with a blanket over one side, to create shadows with flashlights and shadow puppets.
-Writing Center – animal labels
-Puzzles – Animal Puzzles (Raccoons, crocodiles, grasshoppers, and fawns).
-Blocks –Fishing for magnets. In Moonbear's Shadow, the bear noticed shadows when fishing.
-Science Table- Reflection Exploration- Mirrors and magnifying glasses. Snake skin and bumble bee specimen. Pictures of animals to create reflections.

Songs, Word Plays and Letters
Eentsy, Weentsy Spider
Bingo – with the word Snake
Whose Reflection is in the Pool?
The Turtle
Five Little Fishies