We Love Pets!!!

Pets!

There is nothing like a pet!  They come in all shapes and sizes, can be soft and cuddly, or cool and sleek.  They may swim or bark, meow or sing.  Whether stuffed or breathing, they just make our day!  Look at the smiles our little Bright-Eyed Bears have for the fun little pets we share in our Exploratorium.

Our playful veterinarians take great pride in caring for the stuffed pets at school.  They also help to care for our live tadpoles and hermit crab pets.  Some friends have live pets at home, and we met them in the Pet Show on Friday, and others are content to take care of their cuddly stuffy pets. No matter what kind they have, the children have learned that taking care of pets is a lot of work and takes responsibility.  We are very excited to have a special visit from the SPCA of Pinellas County on Thursday of this week.  Tomorrow, the children will make yummy doggie treats to share with the furry friends of the barking kind.  They'll enjoy pet transferring activities with pet food which build fine motor and hand eye coordination, graph, dictate pet stories, and more this week. It's pet "pandemonium"! :)

We can even paint pictures of our pets!

Ii

It's Ii week in JK.  We'll focus on the letter Ii in the Handwriting Without Tears series.  The children will learn about the two sounds of the vowel Ii, and add words of their own knowledge beginning with the sound to a classroom chart.  They will learn the sign, and proper form for printing Ii.  They will rhyme and sing the Ii song about  the inchworm Ignatious and his daughter Isabel.  The class will hear the story Inch By Inch, written by Leo Lioni, and measure the characters from the book with inch cubes.


It will be an Incredible week!


It's Fall!  We have lots of fun fall-ish activities planned.  In the next week please send in an apple for an apple-icious discovery day!  We'll need them by next Monday October 17, please.  The apple can be any kind!  There are so many yummy ones!  The more different kinds we have, the better!  We'll graph 'em, print with 'em, taste 'em, weigh 'em, cook with 'em, and so much more! Thanks!

Mrs. Cummings and I really enjoyed the time we were able to spend with you last week talking about your wonderful children!  Thank you for sharing your time with us, and for sharing your most prized possessions too! We feel very blessed.

Happy Week!
Mrs. Carson

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe...

There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe....

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. 

She had so many kids she didn't know what to do!  

But WE do!  

We'll plant some herbs and watch them grow.

We'll sniff them, taste them, and cook with them, you know.

We'll learn about rhyming, and hear songs and sounds

from famous nursery rhymes to our own playing around.

We will make connections with ideas old and new

rhyme, laugh, and sing.....THAT'S WHAT WE'LL DO! :)

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes!

Cabeza and Hombros, Rhodillas, and Dedos!

While learning about our bodies and basic body parts, the children enjoy many activities and songs.  A certain favorite is the "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" song.  We do it at normal speed, fast, super fast, and slow!  We even do it in spanish! The children have really excelled in learning the basic body parts in english and spanish, through song and sign! :)  Take a look!

Head....cabeza

and

Shoulders.....hombros

Knees.....rhodillas

and

toes....dedos

Eyes.....ojos

and

Ears.....orejas

and

 

Mouth....boca

and

Nose....nariz


Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes!!!

Stay tuned this week for fun activities centered around pets.  The Pet Show is Friday! :)

We'll do some graphing, learn about the letter Tt, lots of play, and some more All About Me! :)

Happy Week!

Mrs. Carson

We have had a Super Senseriffic Week so far!

As the month of September winds down and October approaches, new and exciting themes are being introduced.  However, we are still very much involved in our Five Senses Study.  The children enjoyed activities that have to do with their senses of smell and taste this week.  They learned that their noses (nariz, in Spanish) have little tiny hairs in them called cilia, that clean the air as they breathe it in.  Those hairs, cilia, keep the dust and dirt in the air from getting into their lungs.  They also learned that there is a sticky substance inside their noses called mucus.  Mucus helps trap odors, dirt and dust.  Air passes through the hair and mucus and reaches nerve cells.  The nerve cells are connected to the brain.  They send messages about smells in the air straight to the brain! The children learned that their brain remembers smells.  When the brain gets the message from the nerve cells in the nose, it tells us what we are smelling! Our class had the opportunity to smell several different familiar scents, name them,  and to choose their favorite to be the scent of a flower they made using skills such as cutting with scissors, glue control..."Little Drops of Glue, Whoo!", and a new art material to the class...paint dotters.  They also spent time with the classroom herb garden, deciding which herbs they most liked to smell.  Each child drew their favorite herb to smell in their science journal.

I think the sense that we all love to learn about the most is the sense of taste!  The children learned all about their tongues today! They learned that their tongue is the muscle that is in charge of tasting.  It can also sense whether food/drink is hot or cold.  They examined each others tongues and saw that they all were covered in tiny bumps and spikes.  These are called papillae.  Our friends thought it was cool that the papillae grab onto the food in their mouths and help it to move around.  They also learned that saliva helps to make the food soft in order to send it safely into their bodies.  The favorite lesson, however, included TASTING food to figure out if it was sweet, salty, sour, or bitter.  They discovered that there are different sections of the tongue to decipher this.  The taste buds send messages to the brain! Today, the children will bring home a diagram of the tongue that they used in Centers.  Please ask them about their tasting experience. :)

In other areas this week so far:
*The children have been estimating, guessing how many objects are in a container, counting the actual number, then printing that number.  They were pretty darn good at this!

*working with measuring teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups to measure ingredients for making play dough.

*pulling numerals from a stack, counting that many slips of recycled paper, crumpling the paper slips up, then making baskets or "hoops" to match the number.  It's Hh week, so a game of hoops was in order!

* computer fun with "All About Me".

* book writing and dictation

*Hh stories and songs:  Ask about "Hannah Had The Hiccups"!  It's a favorite!

* SO MUCH MORE!!!  Please see the pics at the top of the blog (you can click on them to make them bigger) to get the more complete picture of our exciting learning adventures.  These Bright-Eyed Bears have certainly earned their name!  Your children are so BRIGHT!!!

Stay tuned!

Happy week!
Mrs. Carson

Wonderful Exploring!

  

Every day is about exploring new things in JK.

New friendships!

                                                                  Science and Math!
                                                                     Art and color!

Computers and technology!

                            Life! Grow with us, and discover how much fun learning can be.

This week, the children will continue their study of the five senses with smell and taste.  We have all sorts of fun activities planned.  They will measure ingredients for and make their own scented play dough, smell and taste herbs as well as plant them in the shoes they brought to school, cook and eat (of course), learn about how digestion works in their bodies, and so much more.
The letter focus of the week is Hh.  The children will learn the shape, sound, sign, of Hh, as well as print it themselves using different methods.  One method is with the wet/dry try, as part of the Handwriting Without Tears program.  The children begin with a printed H on a mini chalkboard.  Using a tiny wet sponge that fits just perfectly in the correct pencil grip used for writing, the children erase the H, just over the print.  They then reinforce the H shape by drying where the wet H appears, using tiny bits of tissue.  Once the board is completely blank, the children will draw their own H, using the big line down, second big line down, little line across method.  The letter is reinforced three times during this activity. :)  So much learning going on! Stay tuned!
Happy Week!
Mrs. Carson

Excellent Ee Week! Sense of Hearing! All Sorts of Exploration!!

"We are the world!  We are the children!  We are the ones who make a brighter day!!"  These bright and beautiful self-portraits shine in our classroom, just like their true selves shine.

As we get to know each child in our classroom, we celebrate their likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, and individuality as opportunities to grow, learn, and strive for being the best one can be.  I love learning about my Bright-Eyed Bears.  Each and every one of them offers something special and unique to our classroom family.

We have gardeners!

Builders!

Artists!

                                                                        Writers!

                                                          Friends!  And so much more!!!

These children are AMAZING!

This week we are focussing on our sense of hearing.  The children loved the story The Listening Walk, by Paul Showers.  You could have heard a pin drop as they listened to this mesmerizing story.  Silently, the class then took a listening walk of our own around campus.  We heard many wonderful sounds.  The children settled in the garden outside of the Theater to draw pictures and dictate about what they heard along the way of our walk.  Finally, they shared their drawings and talked about what they heard as a group, back in the classroom.  What a fun discussion we had after getting an earful of excitement in our very own back yard!

Working on the computer was a very exciting new activity for this week.  We visited www.starfall.com
to work on the "All About Me" activities.  The children really enjoyed learning how to "work" the mouse, and choosing their favorite things to showcase on the screen. I enjoyed the one on one time with each of my buddies!  I think they did too! :)

We have so many wonderful goings on in the Bright-Eyed Bear Classroom.  Stay Tuned! :)

*Please be sure to sign up for a Parent/Teacher Conference if you have not already done so. :)
*Remember that every Friday is Exploring and Spirit Day. :)

Happy Week!
Mrs. Carson

Fantastic Ff Week! Super Sight Week! Planting Vegetable Soup Week!

Last week continued to bring fantastic learning experiences.  Here are just a few:

Sharing time with our new middle school buddies Kaelin and Cameron, who will join us every Tuesday and Thursday for lunch.

Learning about our sense of sight through play with light table objects, and exploration of kaleidoscopes and color paddles was so much fun!

As the children continue to learn about themselves and their bodies they are experiencing activities that make them think about how they are put together.  We studied Mat Man earlier this year and watched how his body was made of different parts beginning with a head, body, arms and legs.  The children are learning all about different shapes and created self portraits using shapes to make up their heads, bodies, and arms and legs.  The shapes came out of common school objects and reinforced how each child is put together and how each child has a personality all their own.  The results were fabulous!  Please come to see them.  The portraits are showcased on our bulletin board in the classroom.

Creativity and color are always celebrated in class, but especially during sight week when the children are learning about the colors, how we see them, and even their names in Spanish! :)

This new week will bring lessons on the sense of hearing, letter Ee, and with the computer!  Stay Tuned!

What a great week!

Our focus letter of this week is letter F.  We have had a fabulous time playing learning games like replacing the first consonant of each child's name with the letter F.  The children laughed and laughed each time they heard their "new" names called for lining up, when volunteering information, and during class discussions. They found it especially funny when Mrs. Fummings and Mrs. Farson addressed each other. Fantastic Fun!

The class as a whole really enjoys picking out rhyming words from songs and stories we share in class.  This week they learned a new song called "Five Fast Fishes", and it goes like this:

Five fast fishes swimming down the river.

Five fast fishes swimming down the stream.

Swimming past five floating logs.

Swimming past five croaking frogs.

Floating logs.

Croaking frogs.

Floating logs.

Croaking frogs.

Five fast fishes....fa la la la la.

Every week the children will learn a song which features the focus letter of the week.  These songs not only enhance learning the letter sound, but also add music and movement to the mix, with rhyme and rhythm.

The children heard stories, sang songs, charted words with the beginning sound of F, learned the sign of F, how to print it, and so much more this week.  Yet, I would have to say that the most fabulous F word of the week was FIELD TRIP!!! Our trip to Crisp Park was really fantastic.  Riding on the bus was exciting for the children.  It was a short bus trip, with a long line of laughter.  We even sang "The Wheels On The Bus" song!  The children really enjoyed the company of the parents who were able to join us at the park, as did Mrs. Cummings and myself.  Thank you!  We can't wait for the next trip.  Until then, I know you will be happy to see the smiling faces of our Bright-Eyed Bears enjoying the first! Please click on the thumbnail pictures at the top of the page to see them full-size.  Feel free to download the ones you like! :)

As part of our All About Me and My Five Senses Unit, the children learned about their sense of sight this week.  They learned about important parts of their eyes; the iris, pupil, and cornea.  We talked about and demonstrated how the pupils of the eye grow bigger in the dark in order to allow more light in, and get smaller when bright light flashes into them in order to protect the eye.  This discussion was able to lead us into another very important discussion about fears of the dark, and how we just need to let our eyes adjust to see that our bedrooms are just the same in the dark as they are in the light of day.  :)  It was a really great sharing time!  Some other great "sight" activities we have explored so far are using kaleidoscopes, prisms, color paddles, and building with colorful pyramid blocks on a light table.  This Friday in Exploring, one of the rooms will be built around continued light table exploration and "The Magic Eye", a magnifying device which will allow the children to see fibers from their clothes, the makeup of their hair, and so much more...MAGNIFIED! Join us if you can on Friday.  It's going to be a really exciting morning!  We'll begin Exploring at 9:30 am.

Have a great day!

Mrs. Carson