A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words!

Hello!
Because a picture is worth a thousand words, here you go!  Take a look at what we've been up to.......

A lot of problem solving and conversation goes into building with blocks each day!

Ant hills!

Caterpillar observation

"Build a bug"

visual discrimitation

Love those ladybugs!

 Who loves storytellers?  We do!!! On Wednesday we celebrated the art of storytelling with some special guests.

I made a happy ladybug.

Tangrams are awesome for creative minds!

An insect for sure! Notice the three body parts and six legs!

Look at the smiles for one of the brand-new butterflies just set free!

JK version of Dancing With The Stars!  Dancing with Shorecrest students who are also students of dance.

Dancing and acting go hand in hand!

Coach D shared both original songs and songs we all know on his trusty guitar!

Let's get up and dance!

Early Childhood Rocks!!!

The Faculty singers aren't bad either! 

Just a few notes and reminders....

Hi all! :)
I have a few notes and reminders about this and the coming week.  Celebrate the Arts is one of my very favorite weeks of school.
On Monday the children attended the Lower Division "Morning Meeting" to see some of the cast of "The Sound of Music" perform a song from the production.  It was wonderful!  I would like to encourage you to visit our theater this weekend Thursday-Saturday to see the show with your families.  I promise, you will not be disappointed!  It's like being on Broadway! :)

Speaking of WONDERFUL SHOWS, we saw a Bluegrass band perform yesterday. The children danced, played air instruments, and smiled all the while.  Once back in the classroom they drew pictures of how the music made them feel.  There were very colorful, happy drawings to share.  This Friday, the greatest show of the week will happen.  The one featuring your children!  Please join us at 11am to see the children perform and enjoy a picnic lunch too.  Don't forget to pack yourself something yummy and bring a blanket to relax on while eating!  The children made special shirts in a "folk art" style to wear that day on stage.  Please send your child to school in their spirit wear or uniform and we will change their shirt for the performance.  The shirt is theirs to keep and wear proudly on spirit days to come.

Next Monday April 23rd is a NO SCHOOL day.  The faculty and staff will not be on campus on this day so there will be No Extended Day Care Offered.  TUESDAY is the waste-less lunch day in celebration of Earth Day.  Please see the letter coming home April 17 in your child's school bag for details.

The Bright-Eyed Bears have been enjoying all of the celebratory activities for this week so far.  We continue with our insect unit, learning about ladybugs this week.
More to come!  Stay tuned!

Happy Tuesday!
Mrs. Carson

Fun For Every "Buggy"!

We have had a great time exploring the wonderful world of Ants this week! Not only have we read fANTastic books and seen videos of life in an ant colony close up, but we were able to go out onto campus and observe ants in their true habitat.  We were Ant Investigators!  Take a look!  Later, the children recorded information about what they observed with drawings and inventive spelling in their Science Journals.

Hey look!  I think I found a nest!

Tiny black ants moving really fast!

I saw a bunch of ants on the tree over there.  They were carrying food!
(We love recording information in our Science Journals)

The ants are so cute!

We played several Ant-related math games this week for numeral recognition and counting with one-one correspondence practice.
The children read a book called Ant Cities, learning about the many chambers that make up an ant hill.  It's like an underground city and is very efficiently run by the extremely busy ants!  After the story, the enthusiastic students we have painted their own ant cities by finger painting right on the table and using their fingers to trace the ant tunnels and chambers in brown paint.  They then printed their painting from the table onto paper.  Once dry, the children were able to draw ants and add labels to their fANTastic ant cities.
We are practicing a lot of writing and putting letter sounds together to make and write words.  The children are very enthusiastic about this!

We have crunching, munching baby caterpillars in our classroom!  There's at least seven little monarch caterpillars exuberantly eating milkweed and growing every day!

Looking at and loving our baby caterpillars.

Every time we learn about a new insect the children add drawings and words to our KWL chart...it's getting full! We love learning about insects!

We're buggy about bugs, but next week we'll be busy with celebrating the arts!




Just a quick note about Celebrate The Arts week:
-Monday, April 16th we will see a bluegrass band from 10:30-10:55.
Wednesday, April 18th we will see a storyteller from 9:10-9:40.
Friday- We will perform and see the visiting artists.
There has been some confusion over the lunch form for Celebrate the Arts on Friday, April 20. The only sack lunches being ordered will be for students. Parents are checking "joining for lunch" for head count purposes only - not lunch. Please bring a lunch for yourself if you chose this option. Thanks! We look forward to seeing you:-)

Enjoying Fine Arts!

What a great trip we had today to the Fine Arts Museum in St. Petersburg! The children had the opportunity to see and talk about beautiful pieces of art that they had previously learned about in Visual Arts class with Mrs. Gootson.  They asked wonderful questions and answered them too.  We were escorted  by a docent who even took us in to see the new Egypt exhibit.  There was so much to see and there is never enough time to see it all.  Hopefully you will all have the opportunity to visit together with your families at another date.  Until then, here are some pictures of the paintings, sculptures and fun from the room at the end of the tour where the children were actually able to add to and create art!

Junior archaeologists!

Egyptian Queens, King and Princesses.

Happy Monday!

Hello! I hope everyone had a great weekend!  We were lucky enough to kick it off with our opening ceremonies to Relay For Life, here at Shorecrest on Friday.  The children were excited to celebrate our very own Super Hero, Manny E. on stage.  Then they joined a Senior buddy to take that ceremonial first walk around the track.  The school earned more than $75,000.00 toward cancer research.  That's something to really celebrate!

This week we are all a buzz!  The children will do an investigation on bees as part of our Insects unit.  Today we read the book Discovering Our World: Bees by Melvin and Gilda Berger.  The children have also enjoyed observing the bees in our flower garden.  They learned that bees are EXTREMELY important to our lives!  Without the bees, no flowering plants would grow! Ask your child about how the bees make things grow.  I bet you'll get all the buzz about it!!!

This Wednesday our class will take the bus to the Fine Arts Museum accompanied by our very own Docent, Mrs. Gootson!  She has taught the children so much about art and art appreciation this year.  It's their time to really shine and to see works by some of the artists they have learned about up close and personal. The staff of the Fine Arts Museum are always so impressed by the knowledge the children have of fine art and their artists.  Bravo!!!

Speaking of fine art.......
In Jr. Kindergarten we always celebrate the arts!  However, this April 16-20th we will have very special activities for a true Celebrate The Arts week.  Don't forget to mark Friday April 20th on your calendar for a special show and picnic beginning at 11am.  It's sure to be delightful!

Happy Monday!
Mrs. Carson