Transportation Week 3 April 2-6

Week 3

Books This Week:

Subway Sparrow

How Will I Get to the Beach?

Weekly Questions

What is public transportation?

What are different kinds of transportation?

Discussion of 3D shapes

Small Groups For This Week:

-Journals- How do we get to school?

-3D shapes sorting-  We will look at real world objects and sort them based on their 3D shape (ie a soda can is a cylinder)

-Racing Ramps- We will race cars down a ramp that has uppercase and lowercase letters.  We will record on our papers which letter the car stops on.

-Same Sound Bingo- We will be playing a bingo game by listening to the first sound in words.  If a teacher says a word (ie dog) we will find a picture with the same sound to color (ie dino)

-Story Sequencing- After reading our unit story How will I get to the Beach multiple times we will cut and sequence a variety of pictures to retell the story.

-3D Shape recipe- Using 3D wooden blocks, we will create a 3D creation and record the shapes we used to make it.  

-Simple Machine Books- We will be starting a book to create our own ramps, levers, and other ways to move a ball from one place to another.  This will be an exploration science activity that will take several small group times.

Letter Activity:  Focusing on Letters Y and Z

We will learn what these uppercase and lowercase letters look like.  

We will sort magnetic letters into groups of uppercase and lowercase groups for each letter. We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates. We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.

Centers

Art Table:making license to drive a car

Block Area: Blocks Sensory Table: gardening

Book Area: books about transportation

Writing Table: making cars and then lacing the cars

Dramatic Play: Role Play from our unit book

Puzzles and Manipulatives: simple machines(ramps, pulleys)

A Big Thank You Mrs. Nawoichik

Today Mrs. Nawoichik (Stephen's mom) came in to our class to collect special art work we made for our Military Heros.   She is going to send our artwork to an organization called Operation Turbo.  They send care packages to military personnel all around the world. Our art work will be included in some of these packages to let them know how much we appreciate their service.  Thank you so much Mrs. Nawoichik for coming in to talk to us and sending our art work to military heros around the world.  Below is the website of the organization:
http://www.operationturbo.org/

Transportation Theme Weeks 1 and 2 (March 19-23, March 26-30)

Week 1

Books This Week:

Fritz and the Beautiful Horses

Mr. George Baker

Concepts This Week for Unit:

-What is Transportation?

-Transportation then and now (cars now/horse then)

-Why do we use transportation?

-How do people travel? (land, sea, air)

Small Groups For This Week:

Positional Word Game: We used trains in this game.  A teacher will place a train in a position on their train paper and then will hide it under a container. Then the teacher gave the position of the train orally and students had to place their train in the matching spot. (Ex. My train is between the signs, My train is under the flowers and above the train station)

Transportation Memory: After discussing transportation pictures and talking about if they would be air, land, or water transportation we played a memory game.  

Name Trains: We created trains with the letters of our name using “fundation” lines on each car.  

Ways to Make 5: Using transportation pictures, we made sets of 5. For example, 3 submarines and 2 trains then we wrote the numbers on each page to practice number formation

Geometric Transportation: In small groups, we were given a variety of 2 D shapes to create our own transportation shapes.  

Journal: What is land transportation?

Letter Activity:  Focusing on Letters W and X

We will learn what these uppercase and lowercase letters look like.  

We will sort magnetic letters into groups of uppercase and lowercase groups for each letter. We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates. We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.

Centers

Art Table: Car tracks in paint

Block Area: blocks and cars

Sensory Table: Water and bubbles (soap like in our book)

Book Area: books about transportation

Easel: open-ended painting

Writing Table: cards for military

Dramatic Play: Horseback riding

Puzzles and Manipulatives: ramps

Week 2

Books This Week:

The Little House

Night Driving

Concepts This Week for Unit:

-Pedestrian Safety

-Bus Safety

-Transportation for recreation

Small Groups For This Week:

Lego Construction: In this letter game, a teacher will say a letter sound and/ letter and we will place a lego piece on a game board on the letter stated. Then at the end of the game, we will create something using the legos we gathered during the game to create a form of transportation.

Syllable Trains: We will cut, sort, and glue pictures onto trains based on the number of syllables we hear in each picture.

Truck Beginning Letters: We will sort a variety of pictures based on their beginning letter sounds.  We will place all the /M/ pictures in the letter M trucks, etc.

Lowercase Letter Trains: We will be color dots on a train to demonstrate we can match or label lowercase letters.

Dump to make 5: We will place a game where we will dump 5 objects to make combinations of 5 in a transportation themed activity

Journal: What is an air transportation?  

Handwriting Without Tears Activities

Letter / Handwriting Small Groups (Letters this week are W and X)

Art Table: making train tracks

Block Area: blocks

Sensory Table: dirt and cars (construction zone)

Book Area: books about transportation

Easel: open ended painting

Writing Table: markers

Dramatic Play: Construction Zone

Puzzles and Manipulatives: What can spin experiment?

Leprechaun visit this week

This week we have had a special visitor coming to our classroom.  His name is Sean McFlarety.  He is a leprechaun that visits the cub cadet classroom every March.  Please ask your child about these special activities in the pictures below. 

A Big Cub Cadet Thank You to Jess our Nurse!!

We had another community helper visit our classroom and discuss what they do to help others.  Jess, Olivia's Mom and our school nurse came in for a visit.  She read a book to us about how nurses help people when they are sick.  She explained how nurses and doctors work as a team in the hospital to make people feel better. She also showed us the nursing supplies she uses such as a stethoscope, thermometers, and band-aids.  Jess also showed us how to feel our pulse. She had use run in place and feel our pulses again and we noticed how our pulses beat more quickly.  As a surprise, she gave a special bag to each of us with nurse coloring pages, toothbrushes, band-aids and bubbles.  Thanks so much Jess for visiting our classroom and taking such good care of us in school!!

A Big Cub Cadet Thank You to Mr. Lyons!!

Today Mr. Lyon's (Declan's dad) came into our classroom to talk to us about how he is a community helper in his job of being a lawyer.  He explained to us how lawyers need to go to school for a long time and need to read a lot of books about the laws. Mr. Lyons told us he often helps people when they are buying houses and renting apartment.   He told us that grown-ups need to know the laws and need to follow them, just like we have rules in our classroom.  After he explained his job we raised our hands to ask him more questions about his job and about him.  At the end of his visit he gave each of us a special gift with coloring books, pens from his business (Lyons Law), and other fun treats.  Thank you so much Mr. Lyons for coming in and explaining your important job to us. 

A Big Cub Cadet Thank You to Officer Mike!!

Today we had a special community helper visit us in school today.  Officer Mike (Alessandra's Dad) came in and read a book to us called "A day in the life of a police officer."  He explained to us all of the aspects of his job.  Officer Mike answered all of our questions and helped us appreciate how much police officers help us every day.  He also gave each one of us a special bag to take home which included a police coloring book, a gift card to get an ice cream, and other treats. 
Thank you so much!!!!!

Community Unit March 5-9

Week 4

This is our last week of Community

Books This Week:

Knuffle Bunny

Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs

Small Groups For This Week:

-Journal- We will be writing in our journals about our favorite community helpers.

-Dinosaur Nests- We will be writing our diagonal lines letters (M, N, R, K) and matching better sounds of pictures.  We will be cutting dino “eggs” and matching them to the correct letter nests.  

-Dinosaur Roll and Stamp- Using a number cube, we will roll and identify the number and stamp the matching number in this turn-taking game

-Part/Part/Whole- We will be creating a set of 10 dinosaurs (whole).  Then we will be breaking apart the whole number into 2 parts by moving dinosaur pieces. (6 dino in one part and 4 dinos in one part) We will see how many different parts we can create.  Try this at home.  

-One More and One Less Game- We will roll a cube and count that many dinosaurs.  We will add “one more” to the set or remove one with the promote “one less”.  We will record how many dinosaurs are in the new set on our papers.

Handwriting Without Tears Books- We will be practicing our uppercase M and N in our diagonal line books.  We will be focusing on directionality and accurate coloring of objects.  

-Dino 1:1 game- We will roll a number cube.  Then we will roll another cube which will tell us to add “one more” or remove “one less.  We will then take that many dinosaurs and place them on our game boards in a turn taking game.

Let's Talk About It

Community Helper Visits (Lawyer, Police Officer, Nurse)

Caring for our community

More discussion about pulleys and ramps

Centers

Art Table: Medical Bag / House Class Project

Block Area: Blocks

Sensory Table: Dinosaur Dig- Dino bones, sand, and paint brushes

Book Area: books about community

Dramatic Play: Train Station

Big Rug: Dinosaur Mountain