Perks of the job

One of the best parts of working in K-3 is the snuggle time. Whether they're snuggling with us, or on their own at naptime, they're just so very sweet  ...

We LOVE our babies!

E is for Elegant and Emergency

This week's letter of the week is E, and it's a fun (and fairly easy) one for kids to write. We practiced writing E's on dry erase boards today, and yesterday we made E's out of popsicle sticks. After everyone mastered the "art" of constructing an E, we decorated them to make them more elegant!

Three out of four E parts isn't bad for a first attempt!

I did it!

Decorating with markers ...

Our elegant E's!

Today, we talked about emergencies (it is an E word, after all, and we're going to be discussing community helpers next week). We talked about what constitutes an emergency and what doesn't, and we practiced dialing 911 on Mrs. LeeAnne's phone.

This is just a screen shot of the keypad; no actual 911 calls were made!

The best part was acting out various emergencies and letting the children pretend to call 911. Some were really good at describing what happened and what sort of help was needed; others clammed up and became very shy when it was their turn on the phone. The students were also taught that if they think there's an emergency, they should first look for a trusted adult. Throughout next week, we'll be talking about police officers, ambulance drivers/paramedics, and firefighters. 

Taste Test

During our study of the five senses, we've done some blind testing to isolate a particular sense. For example, we put items of different textures into paper bags and had the kids reach in without looking to guess what was inside. We did a smell test last week, and yesterday we did a fun taste test! 

Items in our taste test included lemons, limes, potato chips, popcorn, unsweetened baking chocolate, Hershey's chocolate, and donut holes.

We took turns tasting the different items and describing their flavor, sound, and texture.

Their reactions were sometimes pretty hilarious!

And sometimes they surprised us by what they liked!

We were proud of everyone for trying each item!

Mmmm ... limes!

 

Not only is K-3 a lot of fun, it's pretty tasty too! 

Third-grade buddies

We are so excited to be partnering with the third grade this year in a buddy system of sorts! From time to time, the third-graders will come downstairs and help out our K-3 students with various things. We started off last week with our buddies walking us through the book fair. As the K-3 kiddos noted books they'd like to have, their third-grade buddies wrote the titles down onto a wish list, which we then used on Grandparents' Day if grandparents were interested in buying a book.

Here are some photos of us with our buddies!

Today, our buddies are coming to eat lunch with us! Thank you, third grade, for being so kind and helpful to us!

Letter bags

Each week we focus on learning one letter of the alphabet -- the sound it makes, how to write the letter, and words that begin with the letter. Well, this year we've started something new ... letter bags! We send a brown paper bag home with each child, and the child (& parents) must find 2-3 things around the house that begin with our letter of the week. We then take turns presenting our letter bag items to the rest of the class.

Not only is this a great way of connecting a fairly abstract concept -- letters of the alphabet -- with concrete objects from the children's daily lives, but it also helps give them practice speaking in front of groups. And they love it! Each week the items get better and better, and we hear that some of our students are even finding things without any help from parents! That's what we call learning! 

Here are some pictures from our first week of doing the letter bags:

Mrs. Connie helps this cutie show her items to the class.

We even had a big brother -- whose name begins with A -- make it into the letter bag!

Almonds and animal crackers ... awesome!

We are so proud of our smart students!

We love K-3!!

I forgot to include this wonderful group picture in my earlier Teddy Bear Picnic post, so I thought it deserved its own post.

 

We love our bears and we love K-3!

 

Aren't they adorable?!? We love our K-3 kiddos!

Teddy Bear Picnic

Today was our annual Teddy Bear Picnic, held to "celebrate" the letter B! The students all brought special bears from home, and we had a big time.

We gathered our bears into a circle and sang Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear. 

"Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around ..."

"Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground."

Mrs. Connie put together a wonderful treasure hunt, in which we searched for items starting with a B. The children are really making connections between the letters of the alphabet, the sounds they make, and words that start with a particular letter!

This butterfly was flying in a tree!

Our cuties happily found every item!

Here's a bumblebee that landed in a tree!

When we finished looking for B items, we sat down for a special B-filled snack. We enjoyed berries, bears (teddy grahams), bananas, and "bear juice" (chocolate milk).We even had blue plates and balloon napkins!

Finally, we went on our very own bear hunt! During our snack time, one of the students' bears "escaped" from the quilt on which they were staying. If you're familiar with the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, ours was based on the same story: "We're going on a bear hunt; we're gonna catch a big one! With big green eyes, and a fuzzy little tail ..." They LOVE it!

Found him! He was hiding--where else?--in this "cave"!

After the bear hunt, we came back inside, where our wonderful homeroom mom had put together this cute keepsake bag, filled with goodies ... a plastic bear, special crayon, and a teddy bear picnic coloring page. 

What a fun day!

Sweet & silly

Here are some pictures of our kiddos being sweet ... and also a little silly!  First, the sweet:

And here's the silly ...