Week 3 Things That Grow

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.

Books This Week:
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
I Heard Said the Bird by Polly Berends

Small Groups:
- Veggie Bingo. We will play a new version of bingo with vegetables on our bingo boards and cover the veggies with seeds.
-Which vegetable will win?  We will roll a veggie die and color on a chart the veggie on the top of the die.  Ask your child which veggie wins the race
-Comparing length- Children will be asked to cut 5 different strips of paper and put them in order from smallest to biggest. Then we will measure how long each strip is using unifix cubes.

Let's Find out about It
- Sorting seeds and describing them
- Making Bird Feeders using birdseed and pine cones
- Transplanting our green bean plants into larger containers and examining their roots
Centers
-Dramatic Play- Cooking Vegetables in the kitchen
-Sensory Table- Bird Seed
-Art Table- making flower gardens
-Science- Exploring a Worm Habitat and Examining a real bird nest
-Blocks- Doll Houses
-Math- Weighing Center (various vegetables and fruit with a pan scale to explore)
-Library- Books about growing

Songs, Word Play, and Letters
-Grow, Grow, Grow
-Green Grass Grows All Around
-Color Garden- Each child will be given a fruit or vegetable. A color will be planted and they will be asked if they have a fruit or vegetable that has that color.

Comparing Weight and Science Center Experiment

Children compared the weight of an orange, a banana, and a grape.  First we predicted by holding the fruit to guess which fruit weighted more than the other.  Then we used a pan balance to see if our predictions were correct. We discussed which weighed more and which weighed less than the other. They loved to compare the fruit.

We recorded our results. 

In our science center we have celery that we put into red food coloring.  We noticed how the celery drank the water up from the bottom up to the leaves.  This was to stress how plants drink from their roots up to the rest of the plant.  We noticed red lines going up the celery.  It looked like a "straw" drinking up the red water.

I Touch Small Groups

We used itouches during our small groups. 

The children learned how to turn them on

and how to find applications.  It was amazing

how quickly they learned how to use them.

Week 2 Things That Grow

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:

Planting A Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin

Small Groups:

- Math- Weighing Vegetables and Beans- Children will compare the weight of vegetables and beans using empty milk containers filled with vegetables in each hand to create a human balance scale. We will try to guess which is heavier then use a real balance scale to see if we were correct.
-Science- Observing our greenhouses. We created lima green greenhouses last week. We will make entries in our lima bean journals of how the beans are growing.  We will also color,cut, and glue a plant sequence to reinforce how plants grow.

-Technology- We will be using I-Touches in small groups. Each child will play an application to their specific level.

Centers

-Dramatic Play- Cooking Vegetables in the kitchen

-Sensory Table- Bird Seed

-Art Table- Printing Veggies on paper with paint

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

-Blocks- Jungle Animals

-Math- Bean Pattern Activity

-Library- Books about growing

Songs, Word Play, and Letters

-Grow, Grow, Grow
-Green Grass Grows All Around

-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.

Week 1 - Things That Grow

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

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.

Centers
-Dramatic Play- Making vegetable soup
-Sensory Table- Sand
-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
-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. 

***Also, our animal show was cancelled last Tuesday, but The Science Center will be here on Tuesday for a special animal presentation. Ask your child what animals they saw on Tuesday.

Pictures from the Park

Shadows and Reflections-Week 4

Shadows and Reflections-Week 4

Theme – This is our first week of our new unit, Shadows and Reflections. 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.

Special Event:  On Tuesday, the Burlington Science Center will come to our school for a special presentation about animals we have been talking about in our classroom.  Ask your child on Tuesday what animals they saw.

Stories:
Kitten for A Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Dreams by Ezra Jack Keats

Small Groups:
-Math- comparing our books (Play with Me by Marie Hall and Raccoon on His Own by Jim Arnosky) to create a chart to show which animals are different or the same in both stories.
-Science-Exploring Shadows-we will discuss what we need to make shadows. Then we will use classroom objects to try to cast our own shadows
Language- matching animals with the first sound/letter of each animal (snake, lizard, grasshopper, raccoon, alligator...)

Choice: -
-Easel – sticky paper to attach blocks onto
-Sensory– sand
-Dramatic Play-Playing with pets
– Reflection Station-playing with our child made kaleidoscopes
-Math-create patterns for puddle pails
-Writing Center – Drawing and writing about animals
-Puzzles – Photographs of Animal Puzzles (Raccoons and crocodiles)
-Blocks – "shadow blocks"- building with blocks and using flashlights to cast shadows
Songs, Word Plays and Letters
-Change, Change, Rearrange (using the word cao, we change the beginning
sound to make new words clap, snap, map, lap)
-Whose Reflection is in the Pool?
-Five Green Speckled Frogs (using child created props)
-Bingo – with the word Snake
-Old Macdonald had a "swamp"

**look for our frogs on a log to come home soon. Ask your child to show you how we sing the songs using these props at home.

Let's Find Out About It/ Let's Talk About It
-We will shut the lights off in our room and use flashlights to try to guess the "mystery letter"
-Looking at photos of shadow and guess what made the shadows