December Holidays

Students shared about how they celebrate the holidays at home:

ELC- I ate cookies.  We sang some songs.
SB- We decorated our Christmas tree with a beautiful angel.  Dad plugged it in cause it's fragile.
EV- We get a tree.  We put a star on and get out things for the tree from last year.
RF- I decorate my house. We have tree lights.
GA- At Christmas time I'm going to be with my dad for two days then come to my mom's for Christmas dinner.
MS- I decorated my house with tree lights. Then I put a wreath on my door. We put the tree where the TV was.
AK- I already did my tree. We put decorations on there.
9 students have advent calendars
MC- I help my mom make gingerbread cookies when it's Christmas.
LC- My Christmas tree fell over and some of the balls broke.  The tree looks beautiful when it's decorated.
GaM- We have a train that goes around our tree.
9 students have advent calendars.

Some of our story time (group reading) books.

The students loved playing dreidel with parent volunteer Mrs. Cohen

 I gave everyone some Hanukkah gelt later as a treat.

Great work on a Menorah Math activity.

Team 5 working hard during independent literacy time. 

We had extra left time for Discovery Ed. video about Christmas traditions around the world.

We also watched several scene's from the Royal Ballet's production of the Nutcracker.
As you can see, the students were inspired to try some moves for themselves.

Playing a physics game on the smart board.

"I made a gingerbread man."

The whole class made a family gifts inspired by our reading of "The Gingerbread Man".

This Team 3 student made built this all on his own!

"Don't knock down the towers."
Students experiment with the architecture blocks.

Nice architectural details on this building.

A Team 3 student shares her bone collection with very curious classmates.

Students enjoyed pouring water, something they don't always get to do at home.
They also tested out how many cups would fill different sized buckets.

A lovely selection of "smoothies"... apple, orange, cheese, cookie and peach.
Very modern American cuisine in our kitchen.

We have to play store in Dramatic Play during the Holiday Season.


These two are planning their shopping trip.

The tricycles are still really fun  to ride, even in the gym.

We also enjoyed a very nice foot of snow.
If you can't build snow people, you can always make castles, forts and snow food.
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October Openings...

The beginning of the month saw the addition of goggles & magnifying glasses to the science area.  I also opened up the Smart Board for Team Five's use and their math topic was sorting.  We put pull across & pull down together for Ll & Tt.  See below for more details.

Everything looks different through a magnifying glass!

Students explored the details of our room.

The apple looks so tasty! ...
Seriously we kept finding child sized nibbles in our specimens.

Working with the pens is the most popular smart board option.

Testing out the sand wheel.

Setting the table in Dramatic Play.

Team 5 P.E. continues with some ball related outdoor activities.

This is a triangle, watch what I'll build.

Practicing the building block of basic sorting.

"Who wants ice cream?  We do!!"

This team 5 member is very proud of her letter stencils. Such perseverance!

Showing off emerging writing skills. 

I can't recall the details but, believe me, this student knows
exactly what she is writing down during this scenario!

Building an elevated race track with a ramp.

"I'm building a race track."

"This is a church, see the doors?"

These are the book I read with Team 5.

These we read all together!

We've had some nose picking problems & I find this book to be a sure cure.
However, I read booger as goober... it just sounds a bit more polite to me.
By the way, a goober ghost is when one uses a tissue to get a
stubborn goober out of one's nose. That is Mrs. Dix's favorite part.

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Ending Our Merry Month of May

The Students have been enjoying the (mostly) warmer weather this week. Our outdoor time gives us lots of opportunities for science & nature exploration.  We've been blowing bubble & fuzzy dandelions, inspecting insects, worms and even found some newts.  During these last few weeks of school we're learning about farms and gardens.  We are sprouting sugar snap pea seeds and documenting the changes we notice every day with a drawing, photo & verbal description on our smart board.  We've had samples of fruits in our science area  so the students can count, compare and observe the seed we find.  We're also collecting seeds from our snacks and the playground.  

        

Art was free choice for the past two weeks.  Lots of play-dough & painting!

This week's books:

We ate some cantaloupe for snack so the children could examine the melon rind seeds for themselves! 

This student is demonstrating excellent early literacy skills as she retells  "Growing Vegetable Soup" to her friend.
She used a "reading-like intonation" and could remember many details from the story.

Still building beautiful structures in the block area.
A "best of  the block area" post will be coming soon!

Observing wildlife on the playgound...

& setting up a comfy habitat for some insects.

Did you know blowing bubbles is a great way to explore viscosity &  improve motor skills?

Team work defeated this challenging puzzle.

These boys goal was to create an elephant chain around the whole table.

"Shhh, it's okay this doctor is very gentle"

Checking in at the reception desk.

Apparently the doctor is the person to see when your hair has turned  pink.

A little "Creamee Stand" dramatic play.

"It's cooler under here."

Queen of the climber!